2006/04/30 by Massimo Cencini, Luigi Palatella, Simone Pigolotti +1 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #cond-mat.stat-mech #nlin.CD
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.76.051103
published as Phys. Rev. E 76, 051103 (2007) · 13 pages, 7 figures (revTeX4) The paper has been completely rewritten with new derivation and results, supplementary information can be found at http://denali.phys.uniroma1.it/~cencini/Papers/cppv07_supplements.pdf
arxiv created 2007/09/13 · openalex publication_date 2007/11/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A simplified version of a classical problem in thermodynamics--the adiabatic piston--is discussed in the framework of kinetic theory. We consider the limit of gases whose relaxation time is extremely fast so that the gases contained in the left and right chambers of the piston are always in equilibrium (that is, the molecules are uniformly distributed and their velocities obey the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution) after any collision with the piston. Then by using kinetic theory we derive the collision statistics, from which we obtain a set of ordinary differential equations for the evolution of the macroscopic observables (namely, the piston average velocity and position, the velocity variance, and the temperatures of the two compartments). The dynamics of these equations is compared with simulations of an ideal gas and a microscopic model of a gas devised to verify the assumptions used in the derivation. We show that the equations predict an evolution for the macroscopic variables that catches the basic features of the problem. The results here presented recover those derived, using a different approach, by Gruber, Pache, and Lesne [J. Stat. Phys. 108, 669 (2002); Gruber, Pache, and Lesne,J. Stat. Phys.112, 1177 (2003)].