2007/03/31 by Hugo Touchette, H. Touchette, E. G. D. Cohen · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #cond-mat.stat-mech #stochastic dynamics and bifurcation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.76.020101
published as Phys. Rev. E. 76, 020101, 2007 · 5 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX4; v2: minor corrections and references added; v3: typos corrected, new conclusion, close to published version
openalex publication_date 2007/08/09 · arxiv created 2007/09/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the work fluctuations of a particle subjected to a deterministic drag force plus a random forcing whose statistics is of the Lévy type. In the stationary regime, the probability density of the work is found to have "fat" power-law tails which assign a relatively high probability to large fluctuations compared with the case where the random forcing is Gaussian. These tails lead to a strong violation of existing fluctuation theorems, as the ratio of the probabilities of positive and negative work fluctuations of equal magnitude behaves in a nonmonotonic way. Possible experiments that could probe these features are proposed.