Speakers
Prof.
Lamberto Rondoni
(Politecnico di Torino)Dr
Paolo De Gregorio
(INFN Padova)
Description
Twenty years ago, the molecular dynamics approach to
nonequilibrium phenomena gave birth to a vast still growing
wave of investigations, which has resulted in
a number of works conceptually important in general, and of
practical relevance especially in the mesoscopic realm. That
wave has largely turned towards stochastic systems,
considered easier to handle. We will outline recent
results on non-equilibrium response, obtained from the
deterministic (molecular dynamics/dynamical
systems) perspective, which complements the stochastic
perspective. Relaxation, response relations and optimal
controlwill be considered, together with a new
interpretation of nonquilibrium effective temperatures.
These results raise some new questions on the use of ergodic
theory in statistical mechanics.
