Irreversibility and typicality: A simple analytical result for the Ehrenfest model

Marco Baldovin, Lorenzo Caprini and Angelo Vulpiani

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2019, vol. 524, issue C, 422-429

Abstract: With the aid of simple analytical computations for the Ehrenfest model, we clarify some basic features of macroscopic irreversibility. The stochastic character of the model allows us to give a non-ambiguous interpretation of the general idea that irreversibility is a typical property: for the vast majority of the realizations of the stochastic process, a single trajectory of a macroscopic observable behaves irreversibly, remaining “very close” to the deterministic evolution of its ensemble average, which can be computed using probability theory. The validity of the above scenario is checked through simple numerical simulations and a rigorous proof of the typicality is provided in the thermodynamic limit.

Keywords: Macroscopic irreversibility; Typicality; Ehrenfest model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:524:y:2019:i:c:p:422-429

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2019.04.188

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