Thermostating by deterministic scattering: heat and shear flow

Area of Science:

• Statistical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Non-equilibrium Systems

Background:

• Hamiltonian dynamics govern bulk particle motion.
• Deterministic, time-reversible scattering thermalizes system boundaries.
• Relating deterministic scattering to stochastic boundary conditions is explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To apply and evaluate a novel thermostating mechanism for interacting many-particle systems.
• To investigate thermal conduction and shear flow in a hard disk fluid under this mechanism.
• To examine the relationship between entropy production and phase-space contraction rates.

Main Methods:

• Application of a recently proposed thermostating mechanism.
• Simulation of thermal conduction and shear flow using a hard disk fluid model.
• Comparison of simulation results with theoretical predictions.

Main Results:

• The thermostating mechanism successfully generates well-defined nonequilibrium steady states within linear response.
• Transport coefficients for thermal conduction and shear flow were computed and validated against theory.
• A general disagreement was found between thermodynamic entropy production and phase-space contraction rates.

Conclusions:

• The studied thermostating mechanism is effective for simulating nonequilibrium phenomena.
• The conjectured identity between entropy production and phase-space contraction rates does not hold universally.
• This work provides insights into the behavior of driven dissipative systems.