4–15 Mar 2013
Europe/Stockholm timezone

Small Systems: a challenge for the Statistical Mechanics

4 Mar 2013, 10:00
1h
132:028

132:028

Speaker

Prof. Angelo Vulpiani (Dep. of Physics, Universita Sapienza di Roma)

Description

The energy of a finite system thermally connected to a thermal reservoir may fluctuate, while the temperature is a constant representing a thermodynamic property of the reservoir. The finite system can also be used as a thermometer for the reservoir. From such a perspective the temperature has an uncertainty, which can be treated within the framework of estimation theory. We review the main results of this theory, and clarify some controversial issues regarding temperature fluctuations. We also offer a simple example of a thermometer with a small number of particles. We discuss the relevance of the total observation time, which must be much longer than the decorrelation time. In addition some preliminar results on partitioning systems will be discussed. Ref.s: M. Falcioni, D. Villamaina, A. Vulpiani, A. Puglisi and A. Sarracino "Estimate of temperature and its uncertainty in small systems" Am. J. Phys. 79, 777 (2011) E. DelRe, B. Crosignani, P. Di Porto and S. Di Sabatino "Built-in reduction of statistical fluctuations of partitioning objects" Phys. Rev. E 84, 021112 (2011)

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