Nonequilibrium Statistical Physics Linear Irreversible Processes

While systems at equilibrium are treated in a unified manner through the partition function formalism, the statistical physics of out-of-equilibrium systems covers a large variety of situations that are often without apparent connection. This book proposes a unified perspective on the whole set of systems near equilibrium: it brings out the profound unity of the laws which govern them and gathers a large number of results usually fragmented in the literature. The reader will find in this book a pedagogical account of the fundamental results: physical origins of irreversibility, fluctuation-dissipation theorem, Boltzmann equation, linear response, Onsager relations, transport phenomena, Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations. The book's comprehensive organisation makes it valuable both as a textbook about irreversible phenomena and as a reference book for researchers.

1 - Random variables and random processes
2 - Linear thermodynamics of irreversible processes
3 - Statistical description of out-of-equilibrium systems
4 - Classical systems: reduced distribution functions
5 - The Boltzmann equation
6 - Transport coefficients
7 - From the Boltzmann equation to the hydrodynamic equations
8 - The Bloch-Boltzmann theory of electronic transport
9 - Master equations
10 - Brownian motion: the Langevin equation
11 - Brownian motion: the Fokker-Planck equation
12 - Linear responses and equilibrium correlations
13 - General linear response theory
14 - The fluctuation-dissipation theorem
15 - Quantum theory of electronic transport
16 - Thermal transport coefficients

Noëlle Pottier is Professor of Physics at Université Paris Diderot, `Matière et Systèmes Complexes' (MSC) laboratory.