 From the adiabatic piston to macroscopic motion induced by fluctuationsJ. Piasecki and Ch. Gruber Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 1999, vol. 265, issue 3, 463-472 Abstract: The controversial problem of the evolution of an isolated system with an internal adiabatic wall is investigated with the use of a simple microscopic model and the Boltzmann equation. In the case of two infinite volume one-dimensional ideal fluids separated by a piston whose mass is equal to the mass of the fluid particles we obtain a rigorous explicit stationary non-equilibrium solution of the Boltzmann equation. It is shown that at equal pressures on both sides of the piston, the temperature difference induces a non-zero average velocity, oriented toward the region of higher temperature. It thus turns out that despite the absence of macroscopic forces the asymmetry of fluctuations results in a systematic macroscopic motion. This remarkable effect is analogous to the dynamics of stochastic ratchets, where fluctuations conspire with spatial anisotropy to generate directed motion. However, a different mechanism is involved here. The relevance of the discovered motion to the adiabatic piston problem is discussed. Keywords: Adiabatic piston; Boltzmann equation; Non-equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:265:y:1999:i:3:p:463-472 DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(98)00553-6 Access Statistics for this article Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier |
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