What can thermodynamics tell us about fluctuations in nonequilibrium steady states?

What can thermodynamics tell us about fluctuations in nonequilibrium steady states?

Seminar author:Massimiliano Esposito

Event date and time:12/16/2021 04:00:pm

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Fluctuations in an open system at equilibrium are controlled by the system energy (or free energy). But can one relate the fluctuations of an open system in a nonequilibrium steady state (NESS) to its energetics? Using stochastic thermodynamics for open systems which display a macroscopic limit (e.g. chemical reaction networks, nonlinear electric circuits and Potts models), I will show that macroscopic fluctuations in a NESS (i.e. the rate function of the NESS probability distribution) can be bounded using the macroscopic entropy production [1]. I will also describe a novel linear response regime at the level of NESS rate functions [2] which saturates the bound. Finally, I will consider macroscopic fluctuations in a mean field Ising model quenched from an ordered to a disorder phase and show that they undergo a dynamical phase transition which manifests as the appearance, after a critical time, of a kink in the rate function of the relaxing magnetization distribution [3].



[1] N. Freitas and M. Esposito, “Emergent second law for non-equilibrium steady states”, arXiv:2109.04906.

[2] N. Freitas, G. Falasco and M. Esposito, “Linear response in large deviations theory: A method to compute non-equilibrium distributions”, New J. Phys. 23, 093003 (2021)

[3] J. Meibohm and M. Esposito, Finite-time dynamical phase transition in non-equilibrium relaxation, arXiv:2111.07681.