Breakdown and regeneration of time reversal symmetry in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics

Spontaneous Breakdown of the Time Reversal Symmetry

The role of the environment initial conditions in the breaking of the time reversal symmetry of effective theories and in generating the soft irreversibility is studied by the help of Closed Time Path formalism. The initial conditions break the time reversal symmetry of the solution of the equation of motion in a trivial manner. When open systems are considered then the initial conditions of th...

Gaussian noise and time-reversal symmetry in nonequilibrium Langevin models.

We show that in driven systems the Gaussian nature of the fluctuating force and time reversibility are equivalent properties. This result together with the potential condition of the external force drastically restricts the form of the probability distribution function, which can be shown to satisfy time-independent relations. We have corroborated this feature by explicitly analyzing a model fo...

Stationary nonequilibrium statistical mechanics

Systems in stationary nonequilibrium are mechanical systems subject to nonconservative external forces and to thermostat forces which forbid indefinite increase of the energy and allow reaching statistically stationary states. A system Σ is described by the positions and velocities of its n particles X, Ẋ, with the particles positions confined to a finite volume container C0. If X = (x1, . . .,...

Currents in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics.

Nonzero currents characterize the nonequilibrium state in stochastic dynamics (or master equation) models of natural systems. In such models there is a matrix R of transition probabilities connecting the states of the system. We show that if the strength of a transition increases, so does the current along the corresponding bond. We also address the inverse problem: given a set of observed curr...

Elements of Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics