Debra Bernhardt: Fluctuation relations and their applicability to nonequilibrium steady states and glasses
Abstract:
Fluctuation Relations are a set of relations aimed to describe the probability distribution of properties such as the spontaneous entropy production or work, in small, many-particle, nonequilibrium, chaotic systems. They have been developed over the past 15 years, and have provided some of the very few analytical expressions that describe nonequilibrium states. Practical statistical mechanical relationships such as free energy changes can be determined, and they can be used to explain the emergence of irreversibility. Here we describe some important fluctuation relations. We will discuss the conditions necessary for their application, focussing on nonequilibrium steady states, and then present some recent work on their application to quasi-equilibrium systems.