Related papers: A selection of nonequilibrium issues
Equilibrium is a rather ideal situation, the exception rather than the rule in Nature. Whenever the external or internal parameters of a physical system are varied its subsequent relaxation to equilibrium may be either impossible or take…
The relationship between microsystems and macrosystems is considered in the context of quantum field formulation of statistical mechanics: it is argued that problems on foundations of quantum mechanics can be solved relying on this…
Consistent statistical physical description is given for systems where the elementary excitations are composite objects. Explicit calculational scheme is constructed for the energy density and the total number of thermodynamical degrees of…
The incomplete nonextensive statistics in the canonical and microcanonical ensembles is explored in the general case and in a particular case for the ideal gas. By exact analytical results for the ideal gas it is shown that taking the…
I present an unbiased method of mapping particles to distribution functions and vice versa. This method alone defines the canonical formulation of statistical mechanics, since it can be used to derive the principle of maximum entropy in…
In Boltzmannian statistical mechanics macro-states supervene on micro-states. This leads to a partitioning of the state space of a system into regions of macroscopically indistinguishable micro-states. The largest of these regions is…
Given are a first principles derivation and formulation of the probabilistic concepts that underly equilibrium quantum statistical mechanics. The transition to non-equilibrium probability is traversed briefly.
The most complicated phenomena of equilibrium statistics, phase separations and transitions of various order and critical phenomena, can clearly and sharply be seen even for small systems in the topology of the curvature of the…
Presented here is a transcription of the lecture notes from Professor Allan N. Kaufman's graduate statistical mechanics course at Berkeley from the 1972-1973 academic year. Part 1 addresses equilibrium statistical mechanics with topics:…
The usual canonical Hamiltonian or Lagrangian formalism of classical mechanics applied to macroscopic systems describes energy conserving adiabatic motion. If irreversible diabatic processes are to be included, then the law of increasing…
We study steady-state properties of inelastic gases in two-dimensions in the presence of an energy source. We generalize previous hydrodynamic treatments to situations where high and low density regions coexist. The theoretical predictions…
Pattern-forming nonequilibrium systems are ubiquitous in nature, from driven quantum matter and biological life forms to atmospheric and interstellar gases. Identifying universal aspects of their far-from-equilibrium dynamics and statistics…
We analyze the dynamics of a simple but nontrivial classical Hamiltonian system of infinitely many coupled rotators. We assume that this infinite system is driven out of thermal equilibrium either because energy is injected by an external…
A pedagogical derivation of statistical mechanics from quantum mechanics is provided, by means of open quantum systems. Besides, a new definition of Boltzmann entropy for a quantum closed system is also given to count microstates in a way…
Demonstrating how microscopic dynamics cause large systems to approach thermal equilibrium remains an elusive, longstanding, and actively-pursued goal of statistical mechanics. We identify here a dynamical mechanism for thermalization in a…
Self-gravitating Newtonian systems consisting of a very large number of particles have generally defied attempts to describe them using statistical mechanics. This is paradoxical since many astronomical systems, or simulations thereof,…
We continue our study of the linear response of a nonequilibrium system. This Part II concentrates on models of open and driven inertial dynamics but the structure and the interpretation of the result remain unchanged: the response can be…
The theory of phenomenological Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics is extended by includimg stochastic processes in order to account for recently derived thermodynamical relations such as the Jarzynski equality. Four phenomenological axioms are…
In a first part the scope of classical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics is discussed in the broader context of formal dynamical systems, including computer programmes. In this context classical thermodynamics appears as a particular…
Understanding the rich spatial and temporal structures in nonequilibrium thermal environments is a major subject of statistical mechanics. Because universal laws, based on an ensemble of systems, are mute on an individual system, exploring…