Order–disorder separation: Geometric revision

Alexander Gorban

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2007, vol. 374, issue 1, 85-102

Abstract: After Boltzmann and Gibbs, the notion of disorder in statistical physics relates to ensembles, not to individual states. This disorder is measured by the logarithm of ensemble volume, the entropy. But recent results about measure concentration effects in analysis and geometry allow us to return from the ensemble-based point of view to a state-based one, at least, partially. In this paper, the order–disorder problem is represented as a problem of relation between distance and measure. The effect of strong order–disorder separation for multiparticle systems is described: the phase space could be divided into two subsets, one of them (set of disordered states) has almost zero diameter, the second one has almost zero measure. The symmetry with respect to permutations of particles is responsible for this type of concentration. Dynamics of systems with strong order–disorder separation has high average acceleration squared, which can be interpreted as evolution through a series of collisions (acceleration-dominated dynamics). The time arrow direction from order to disorder follows from the strong order–disorder separation. But, inverse, for systems in space of symmetric configurations with “sticky boundaries” the way back from disorder to order is typical (Natural selection). Recommendations for mining of molecular dynamics results are also presented.

Keywords: Order; Disorder; Irreversibility; Phase volume; Measure concentration; Entropy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:374:y:2007:i:1:p:85-102

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2006.07.034

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