Entropic fluctuations in thermally driven harmonic networks (Q526599)

A general network of harmonic oscillators driven out of thermal equilibrium by coupling to several heat reservoirs at different temperatures is considered. The authors use Langevin forces to implement the action of the reservoirs. The existence and uniqueness of the steady state of the resulting process is assumed. A canonical entropy production functional $S^t$, satisfying the Gallavotti-Cohen fluctuation theorem is given. The obtained results can be applied to different physical systems and to the heat dissipation rate of the network. \par This paper is divided into five sections. The introduction gives necessary preliminaries to the considered problem with the important remark that the boundary driven mechanical systems are paradigmatic in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. In the literature, there are many references on the study of non-equilibrium steady states in: harmonic and anharmonic crystals, 1-dimensional chains of anharmonic oscillators, rotors, Hamiltonian systems (networks). The authors make an attempt to study the simplest models of Hamiltonian networks. \par Section 2 gives a description of the considered model. It is a set of one-dimensional harmonic oscillators. The proposed model makes an attempt to construct the canonical entropic functional of the process and relates it to the heat released by the network into the thermal reservoir. \par Section 3 shows the main results related to the approach proposed in the introduction \par Step 1: Construction of the canonical entropic functional. \par Step 2: Deriving a large deviation principle. \par Step 3: Relating the canonical entropic functional to a relevant dynamical or thermodynamical quantity. \par Step 4: Deriving a large deviation principle for physically relevant quantities. \par Section 4 shows results of the model with examples: a triangular network and Jacobi chains. Section 5 gives all necessary proofs of the proposed theorems and propositions.