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Full-Text Articles in Physics
Dynamical Mechanisms Leading To Equilibration In Two-Component Gases, Stephan De Bievre, Carlos Mejia-Monasterio, Paul Ernest Parris
Dynamical Mechanisms Leading To Equilibration In Two-Component Gases, Stephan De Bievre, Carlos Mejia-Monasterio, Paul Ernest Parris
Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works
Demonstrating how microscopic dynamics cause large systems to approach thermal equilibrium remains an elusive, longstanding, and actively pursued goal of statistical mechanics. We identify here a dynamical mechanism for thermalization in a general class of two-component dynamical Lorentz gases and prove that each component, even when maintained in a nonequilibrium state itself, can drive the other to a thermal state with a well-defined effective temperature.
Spatio-Temporal Generalization Of The Harris Criterion And Its Application To Diffusive Disorder, Thomas Vojta, Ronald Dickman
Spatio-Temporal Generalization Of The Harris Criterion And Its Application To Diffusive Disorder, Thomas Vojta, Ronald Dickman
Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works
We investigate how a clean continuous phase transition is affected by spatiotemporal disorder, i.e., by an external perturbation that fluctuates in both space and time. We derive a generalization of the Harris criterion for the stability of the clean critical behavior in terms of the space-time correlation function of the external perturbation. As an application, we consider diffusive disorder, i.e., an external perturbation governed by diffusive dynamics, and its effects on a variety of equilibrium and nonequilibrium critical points. We also discuss the relation between diffusive disorder and diffusive dynamical degrees of freedom in the example of model C of …