Nonequilibrium And Irreversibility

This book concentrates on the properties of the stationary states in chaotic systems of particles or fluids, leaving aside the theory of the way they can be reached. The stationary states of particles or of fluids (understood as probability distributions on microscopic configurations or on the fields describing continua) have received important new ideas and data from numerical simulations and reviews are needed. The starting point is to find out which time invariant distributions come into play in physics. A special feature of this book is the historical approach. To identify the problems the author analyzes the papers of the founding fathers Boltzmann, Clausius and Maxwell including translations of the relevant (parts of) historical documents. He also establishes a close link between treatment of irreversible phenomena in statistical mechanics and the theory of chaotic systems at and beyond the onset of turbulence as developed by Sinai, Ruelle, Bowen (SRB) and others: the author gives arguments intending to support strongly the viewpoint that stationary states in or out of equilibrium can be described in a unified way. In this book it is the "chaotic hypothesis", which can be seen as an extension of the classical ergodic hypothesis to non equilibrium phenomena, that plays the central role. It is shown that SRB - often considered as a kind of mathematical playground with no impact on physical reality - has indeed a sound physical interpretation; an observation which to many might be new and a very welcome insight. Following this, many consequences of the chaotic hypothesis are analyzed in chapter 3 - 4 and in chapter 5 a few applications are proposed. Chapter 6 is historical: carefully analyzing the old literature on the subject, especially ergodic theory and its relevance for statistical mechanics; an approach which gives the book a very personal touch. The book contains an extensive coverage of current research (partly from the authors and his coauthors publications) presented in enough detail so that advanced students may get the flavor of a direction of research in a field which is still very much alive and progressing. Proofs of theorems are usually limited to heuristic sketches privileging the presentation of the ideas and providing references that the reader can follow, so that in this way an overload of this text with technical details could be avoided.

The problem of deriving irreversible thermodynamics from the re versible microscopic dynamics has been on the agenda of theoreti cal physics for a century and has produced more papers than can be digested by any single scientist. Why add to this too long list with yet another work? The goal is definitely not to give a gen eral review of previous work in this field. My ambition is rather to present an approach differing in some key aspects from the stan dard treatments, and to develop it as far as possible using rather simple mathematical tools (mainly inequalities of various kinds). However, in the course of this work I have used a large number of results and ideas from the existing literature, and the reference list contains contributions from many different lines of research. As a consequence the reader may find the arguments a bit difficult to follow without some previous exposure to this set of problems.

Statistical mechanics has been proven to be successful at describing physical systems at thermodynamic equilibrium. Since most natural phenomena occur in nonequilibrium conditions, the present challenge is to find suitable physical approaches for such conditions: this book provides a pedagogical pathway that explores various perspectives. The use of clear language, and explanatory figures and diagrams to describe models, simulations and experimental findings makes the book a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, and also for lecturers organizing teaching at varying levels of experience in the field. Written in three parts, it covers basic and traditional concepts of nonequilibrium physics, modern aspects concerning nonequilibrium phase transitions, and application-orientated topics from a modern perspective. A broad range of topics is covered, including Langevin equations, Levy processes, directed percolation, kinetic roughening and pattern formation.

While systems at equilibrium are treated in a unified manner through the partition function formalism, the statistical physics of out-of-equilibrium systems covers a large variety of situations that are often without apparent connection. This book proposes a unified perspective on the whole set of systems near equilibrium: it brings out the profound unity of the laws which govern them and gathers together a large number of results usually fragmented in the literature. The reader will find in this book a pedagogical account of the fundamental results: physical origins of irreversibility, fluctuation-dissipation theorem, Boltzmann equation, linear response, Onsager relations, transport phenomena, Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations. The book's comprehensive organization makes it valuable both as a textbook about irreversible phenomena and as a reference book for researchers.

Groundbreaking monograph by Nobel Prize winner for researchers and graduate students covers Liouville equation, anharmonic solids, Brownian motion, weakly coupled gases, scattering theory and short-range forces, general kinetic equations, more. 1962 edition.

A comprehensive and pedagogical text on nonequilibrium statistical physics, covering topics from random walks to pattern formation.

This textbook presents an exposition of stochastic dynamics and irreversibility. It comprises the principles of probability theory and the stochastic dynamics in continuous spaces, described by Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations, and in discrete spaces, described by Markov chains and master equations. Special concern is given to the study of irreversibility, both in systems that evolve to equilibrium and in nonequilibrium stationary states. Attention is also given to the study of models displaying phase transitions and critical phenomena both in thermodynamic equilibrium and out of equilibrium. These models include the linear Glauber model, the Glauber-Ising model, lattice models with absorbing states such as the contact process and those used in population dynamic and spreading of epidemic, probabilistic cellular automata, reaction-diffusion processes, random sequential adsorption and dynamic percolation. A stochastic approach to chemical reaction is also presented.The textbook is intended for students of physics and chemistry and for those interested in stochastic dynamics. It provides, by means of examples and problems, a comprehensive and detailed explanation of the theory and its applications.

Thermodynamics of Non-Equilibrium Processes for Chemists with a Particular Application to Catalysis consists of materials adapted from lectures on the thermodynamics of nonequilibrium processes that have been taught at the Department of Natural Sciences of Novosibirsk State University since 1995. The thermodynamics of nonequilibrium processes traditionally required students to have a strong background in physics. However, the materials featured in this volume allow anyone with knowledge in classical thermodynamics of equilibrium processes and traditional chemical kinetics to understand the subject. Topics discussed include systems in the thermodynamics of irreversible processes; thermodynamics of systems that are close to and far from equilibrium; thermodynamics of catalysts; the application of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to material science; and the relationship between entropy and information. This book will be helpful for research into complex chemical transformations, particularly catalytic transformations. Applies simple approaches of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to analyzing properties of chemically reactive systems Covers systems far from equilibrium, allowing the consideration of most chemically reactive systems of a chemical or biological nature This approach resolves many complicated problems in the teaching of chemical kinetics

This text on the statistical theory of nonequilibrium phenomena grew out of lecture notes for courses on advanced statistical mechanics that were held more or less regularly at the Physics Department of the Technical University in Munich. My aim in these lectures was to incorporate various developments of many-body theory made during the last 20-30 years, in particular the correlation function approach, not just as an "extra" alongside the more "classical" results; I tried to use this approach as a unifying concept for the presentation of older as well as more recent results. I think that after so many excellent review articles and advanced treatments, correlation functions and memory kernels are as much a matter of course in nonequilibrium statistical physics as partition functions are in equilibrium theory, and should be used as such in regular courses and textbooks. The relations between correlation functions and earlier vehicles for the formulation of nonequilibrium theory such as kinetic equations, master equations, Onsager's theory, etc. , are discussed in detail in this volume. Since today there is growing interest in nonlinear phenomena I have included several chapters on related problems. There is some nonlinear response theory, some results on phenomenological nonlinear equations and some microscopic applications of the nonlinear response formalism. The main focus, however, is on the linear regime.