Coarse-graining and thermodynamics in far-from-equilibrium systems

Lying at the core of statistical physics is the need to reduce the number of degrees of freedom in a system. Coarse-graining is a frequently-used procedure to bridge molecular modeling with experiments. In equilibrium systems, this task can be readily performed; however in systems outside equilibriu...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Rubí Capaceti, José Miguel, Pérez Madrid, Agustín
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2013
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Barcelona
Repository:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/52692
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/52692
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Termodinàmica del desequilibri
Física estadística
Processos estocàstics
Mecànica estadística del no equilibri
Nonequilibrium thermodynamics
Statistical physics
Stochastic processes
Nonequilibrium statistical mechanics
Description
Summary:Lying at the core of statistical physics is the need to reduce the number of degrees of freedom in a system. Coarse-graining is a frequently-used procedure to bridge molecular modeling with experiments. In equilibrium systems, this task can be readily performed; however in systems outside equilibrium, a possible lack of equilibration of the eliminated degrees of freedom may lead to incomplete or even misleading descriptions. Here, we present some examples showing how an improper coarse-graining procedure may result in linear approaches to nonlinear processes, miscalculations of activation rates and violations of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem.