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Comments on the Entropy of NonEquilibrium Steady States

Published

Author(s)

D J. Evans, R Lamberto

Abstract

We discuss the entropy of nonequilibrium steady states. We show that the so-called spontaneous entropy production of reversible deterministic nonequilibrium systems results from the collapse of such systems towards an attractor which is of lower dimension than the dimension of phase space. This means that in the steady state limit, the Gibbs entropy diverges to negative infinity. We argue that if the Gibbs entropy is expanded in a series involving 1,2,... body terms, the divergence of the Gibbs entropy is only manifest in terms involving integrals of a dimension which is higher than approximately the Kaplan-Yorke dimension of the steady state attractor. All the low order terms are finite and sum in the weak limit to the local equilibrium entropy of linear irreversible thermodynamics.
Citation
Journal of Statistical Physics

Keywords

chaos, entropy, fractal, nonequilibrium steady state

Citation

Evans, D. and Lamberto, R. (2008), Comments on the Entropy of NonEquilibrium Steady States, Journal of Statistical Physics (Accessed June 17, 2024)

Issues

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Created October 16, 2008