2023/05/24 by Matteo Colangeli, Colangeli, Matteo, Antonio Di Francesco +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Mathematical Physics (math-ph) #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2305.14922
openalex publication_date 2023/05/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We consider several Hamiltonian systems perturbed by external agents, that preserve their Hamiltonian structure. We investigate the corrections to the canonical statistics resulting from coupling such systems with possibly large but finite reservoirs, and from the onset of processes breaking the time reversal symmetry. We analyze exactly solvable oscillators systems, and perform simulations of relatively more complex ones. This indicates that the standard statistical mechanical formalism needs to be adjusted, in the ever more investigated nano-scale science and technology. In particular, the hypothesis that heat reservoirs be considered infinite and be described by the classical ensembles is found to be critical when exponential quantities are considered, since the large size limit may not coincide with the infinite size canonical result. Furthermore, process-dependent emergent irreversibility affects ensemble averages, effectively frustrating, on a statistical level, the time reversal invariance of Hamiltonian dynamics, that is used to obtain numerous results.