English

Nonequilibrium fluctuations in a resistor

Statistical Mechanics 2007-05-23 v2

Abstract

In small systems where relevant energies are comparable to thermal agitation, fluctuations are of the order of average values. In systems in thermodynamical equilibrium, the variance of these fluctuations can be related to the dissipation constant in the system, exploiting the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem (FDT). In non-equilibrium steady systems, Fluctuations Theorems (FT) additionally describe symmetry properties of the probability density functions (PDFs) of the fluctuations of injected and dissipated energies. We experimentally probe a model system: an electrical dipole driven out of equilibrium by a small constant current II, and show that FT are experimentally accessible and valid. Furthermore, we stress that FT can be used to measure the dissipated power Pˉ=RI2\bar{\cal P}=RI^2 in the system by just studying the PDFs symmetries.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0407574,
  title  = {Nonequilibrium fluctuations in a resistor},
  author = {Nicolas Garnier and Ciliberto Sergio},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0407574},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Juillet 2004