Microscopic approach to irreversible thermodynamics. III: Generalized constitutive equations. IV: An example of generalized diffusion and wave equations (Q1893913)

This paper and the following one are part of a planned sequence of contributions on the question of the mechano-statistical foundations of irreversible thermodynamics and generalized hydrodynamics, based on the nonequilibrium statistical operator method via the information entropy ensemble. We consider the set of variables that includes the ordinary fluxes of linear irreversible thermodynamics (LIT), thus raising these variables to the status of state variables, to recover the results comprising the basis of what is now known as extended irreversible thermodynamics (EIT). The time evolution equations for the fluxes are shown to be of the type of generalized Mori-Langevin equations that are nonlinear and nonlocal in space and in time. Under appropriate approximations such equations are reduced to those of the so-called Maxwell-Cattaneo-Vernotte type equations contained in EIT, which are generalizations of the usual constitutive equations of LIT.