相关论文: Dynamics, Thermodynamics, and Time-Asymmetry
We take up the question why the initial entropy in the universe was small, in the context of evolution of the entropy of a classical system. We note that coarse-graining is a an important aspect of entropy evaluation which can reverse the…
Our everyday descriptions of the universe are highly coarse-grained, following only a tiny fraction of the variables necessary for a perfectly fine-grained description. Coarse graining in classical physics is made natural by our limited…
It is demonstrated how a convenient choice of the mathematical structure of the quantum cosmology superspace, precisely the definition of a convenient regular state superspace and the restriction of the dynamics to this space, yields…
Understanding the structure and dynamics of liquids is pivotal for the study of larger spatiotemporal processes, especially in glass-forming materials at low temperatures. Density scaling, observed in many molecular systems through…
Coarse-grained models are a core computational tool in theoretical chemistry and biophysics. A judicious choice of a coarse-grained model can yield physical insight by isolating the essential degrees of freedom that dictate the…
Universality of classical thermodynamics rests on the central limit theorem, due to which, measurements of thermal fluctuations are unable to reveal detailed information regarding the microscopic structure of a macroscopic body. When small…
A broken time-reversal symmetry, i.e. broken detailed balance, is central to non-equilibrium physics and is a prerequisite for life. However, it turns out to be quite challenging to unambiguously define and quantify time-reversal symmetry…
We discuss the appearance of time-asymmetric behavior in physical processes in cosmology and in the dynamics of the Universe itself. We begin with an analysis of the nature and origin of irreversibility in well-known physical processes such…
The common idea behind complexity reduction in physical systems is separation of information into "physically meaningful" and "safely ignorable". Here we consider a generic notion of such separation -- implemented by coarse-graining the…
These are the author's lectures at the 1992 Les Houches Summer School, "Gravitation and Quantizations". They develop a generalized sum-over-histories quantum mechanics for quantum cosmology that does not require either a preferred notion of…
Time-asymmetric behavior as embodied in the second law of thermodynamics is observed in {\it individual macroscopic} systems. It can be understood as arising naturally from time-symmetric microscopic laws when account is taken of a) the…
An asymmetry exists between time and space in the sense that physical systems inevitably evolve over time whereas there is no corresponding ubiquitous translation over space. The asymmetry, which is presumed to be elemental, is represented…
I briefly review some concepts related to coarse-graining methods for the dynamics of soft matter systems and argue that such schemes will almost always need to telescope down the physical hierarchy of time-scales to a more compressed, but…
The classical evolution of the universe can be seen as a parametrised worldline of the minisuperspace, with the time variable $t$ the parameter that parametrises the worldline. The time reversal symmetry of the field equations implies that…
Quantifying irreversibility of a system using finite information constitutes a major challenge in stochastic thermodynamics. We introduce an observable that measures the time-reversal asymmetry between two states after a given time lag. Our…
We investigate the laws of thermodynamics in an accelerating universe driven by dark energy with a time-dependent equation of state. In the case we consider that the physically relevant part of the Universe is that envelopped by the…
Active matter, responsive ("smart") materials and materials under time-dependent load are systems out of thermal equilibrium. To construct coarse-grained models for such systems, one needs to integrate out a distribution of microstates that…
We consider two basic types of coarse-graining: the Ehrenfests' coarse-graining and its extension to a general principle of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and the coarse-graining based on uncertainty of dynamical models and Epsilon-motions…
Molecular dynamics simulations provide theoretical insight into the microscopic behavior of materials in condensed phase and, as a predictive tool, enable computational design of new compounds. However, because of the large temporal and…
The research work in the thesis is focused on the thermodynamic analysis of cosmological models, especially the models that explain late-time cosmic acceleration. According to the cosmological principle, the universe is spatially…