2000/05/31 by Roderick C. Dewar · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech #physics.ao-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0305-4470/36/3/303
published as J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 36 (2003) 631-641 · 21 pages, 0 figures, minor modifications, version to appear in J. Phys. A. (2003)
arxiv created 2002/12/13 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
Jaynes' information theory formalism of statistical mechanics is applied to the stationary states of open, non-equilibrium systems. The key result is the construction of the probability distribution for the underlying microscopic phase space trajectories. Three consequences of this result are then derived : the fluctuation theorem, the principle of maximum entropy production, and the emergence of self-organized criticality for flux-driven systems in the slowly-driven limit. The accumulating empirical evidence for these results lends support to Jaynes' formalism as a common predictive framework for equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.