Related papers: The Statistical Physics of Athermal Materials
Granular matter is comprised of a large number of particles whose collective behavior determines macroscopic properties such as flow and mechanical strength. A comprehensive theory of the properties of granular matter, therefore, requires a…
Granular matter exists out of thermal equilibrium, i.e. it is athermal. While conventional equilibrium statistical mechanics is not useful for characterizing granular materials, the idea of constructing a statistical ensemble analogous to…
Granular matter like sand is composed of a large number of interacting grains, and is thus expected to be amenable to a statistical physics treatment. Yet, the frictional properties of grains make the statistical physics of granular matter…
The physical properties of granular materials have been extensively studied in recent years. So far, however, there exists no theoretical framework which can explain the observations in a unified manner beyond the phenomenological jamming…
We introduce a deductive statistical mechanics approach for granular materials which is formally built from few realistic physical assumptions. The main finding is an universal behavior for the distribution of the density fluctuations. Such…
For studying the thermodynamic properties of systems using statistical mechanics we propose an ensemble that lies in between the familiar canonical and microcanonical ensembles. From a comparative study of these ensembles we conclude that…
The general fluctuation theory is reviewed with special attention to the role played by different ensembles, and is extended to incorporate stationary metastable states obtained in the long time limit. The fluctuation in a quantity depends…
Within the theory of statistical ensemble, the so-called $\mu PT$ ensemble describes equilibrium systems that exchange energy, particles, and volume with the surrounding. General, model-independent features of volume and particle number…
We review the general aspects of the concept of temperature in equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. Although temperature is an old and well-established notion, it still presents controversial facets. After a short…
A new statistical ensemble is examined using the example of classical one-component simple fluid. It's logical to call it an open ensemble, because its peculiarity is the inclusion in the consideration some surrounding area. Calculations…
I give a highly selective overview of the way statistical mechanics explains the microscopic origins of the time asymmetric evolution of macroscopic systems towards equilibrium and of first order phase transitions in equilibrium. These…
By detailed Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations %of a realistic model we show that granular materials at rest can be described as thermodynamics systems. First we show that granular packs can be characterized by few parameters,…
The statistical mechanical basis of the fluctuation theory of mixtures is reviewed. An overview of the statistical mechanical relations between the microscopic properties of a system and its macroscopic properties is presented. The…
We derive an equilibrium statistical theory for the macroscopic description of a ferromagnetic material at positive finite temperatures. Our formulation describes the most-probable equilibrium macrostates that yield a coherent deterministic…
Statistical Mechanics deals with ensembles of microstates that are compatible with fixed constraints and that on average define a thermodynamic macrostate. The evolution of a small system is normally subjected to changing constraints and…
Devising a statistical mechanics framework for jammed granular materials is a challenging task as those systems do not share some important properties required to characterize them with statistical thermodynamics tools. In a recent paper…
Investigation on foundational aspects of quantum statistical mechanics recently entered a renaissance period due to novel intuitions from quantum information theory and to increasing attention on the dynamical aspects of single quantum…
It is widely believed that the underlying reality behind statistical mechanics is a deterministic and unitary time evolution of a many-particle wave function, even though this is in conflict with the irreversible, stochastic nature of…
All ensembles of statistical mechanics are equivalent in the sense that they give the equivalent thermodynamic functions in the thermodynamic limit. However, when investigating microscopic structures in the first-order phase transition…
We investigate the relation between various statistical ensembles of finite systems. If ensembles differ at the level of fluctuations of the order parameter, we show that the equations of states can present major differences. A sufficient…