On the Helmholtz-Boltzmann thermodynamics of mechanical systems (Q1876029)

In the paper, an extension of the Helmholtz-Boltzmann thermodynamic formalism is presented for general mechanical systems endowed with a fibration over the space of macroscopic parameters. The fibration provides a separation in a configurational space between microscopic and macroscopic degrees of freedom. It is shown that the correspondingly defined pressure can be interpreted as the reaction force on the controlled macroscopic degrees of freedom. In the case of a non-ergodic system with non-convex potential energy the thermodynamic pressure coincides with the value of the reaction force only in some special cases and differs in general.