English

The Statistical Mechanics of Fluctuation-Dissipation and Measurement Back Action

Dynamical Systems 2014-10-21 v1 Optimization and Control

Abstract

In this paper, we take a control-theoretic approach to answering some standard questions in statistical mechanics. A central problem is the relation between systems which appear macroscopically dissipative but are microscopically lossless. We show that a linear macroscopic system is dissipative if and only if it can be approximated by a linear lossless microscopic system, over arbitrarily long time intervals. As a by-product, we obtain mechanisms explaining Johnson-Nyquist noise as initial uncertainty in the lossless state as well as measurement back action and a trade off between process and measurement noise.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0611628,
  title  = {The Statistical Mechanics of Fluctuation-Dissipation and Measurement Back Action},
  author = {Henrik Sandberg and Jean-Charles Delvenne and John C. Doyle},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0611628},
  year   = {2014}
}