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Updated: Jun 12, 2025

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Exact work distribution and Jarzynski's equality of a relativistic particle in an expanding piston
Xianghang Zhang1, Tingzhang Shi2, H T Quan3
1School of Physics, <a href="https://ror.org/02v51f717">Peking University</a>, Beijing 100871, China and Fakultät für Physik, <a href="https://ror.org/05591te55">Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München</a> 80333, Germany.
Abstract:
We study the nonequilibrium work in a pedagogical model of relativistic ideal gas. We obtain the exact work distribution and verify Jarzynski's equality. In the nonrelativistic limit, our results recover the nonrelativistic results of Lua and Grosberg [J. Phys. Chem. B 109, 6805 (2005)1520-610610.1021/jp0455428]. We also find that, unlike the nonrelativistic case, the work distribution no longer has zeros and the number of collisions in this relativistic gas model is finite. In addition, based on an analysis of the experimental parameters, we conclude that it is difficult to detect the relativistic effects of the work distribution of the ideal gas in a piston system with the current experimental techniques.
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