2003/05/07 by R. van Zon, E. G. D. Cohen · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · Mathematics · #cond-mat.stat-mech #math-ph #math.MP #nlin.CD
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.91.110601
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 110601 (2003). · 12 pages, 1 eps figure in color (though intelligible in black and white)
arxiv created 2003/05/07 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
Heat fluctuations are studied in a dissipative system with both mechanical and stochastic components for a simple model: a Brownian particle dragged through water by a moving potential. An extended stationary state fluctuation theorem is derived. For infinite time, this reduces to the conventional fluctuation theorem only for small fluctuations; for large fluctuations, it gives a much larger ratio of the probabilities of the particle to absorb rather than supply heat. This persists for finite times and should be observable in experiments similar to a recent one of Wang et al.