IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v265y1999i3p463-472.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From the adiabatic piston to macroscopic motion induced by fluctuations

Author

Listed:
  • Piasecki, J.
  • Gruber, Ch.

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Piasecki, J. & Gruber, Ch., 1999. "From the adiabatic piston to macroscopic motion induced by fluctuations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 265(3), pages 463-472.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:265:y:1999:i:3:p:463-472
    DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(98)00553-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437198005536
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/S0378-4371(98)00553-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gruber, Ch. & Piasecki, J., 1999. "Stationary motion of the adiabatic piston," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 268(3), pages 412-423.
    2. Gruber, Christian & Lesne, Annick, 2005. "Hamiltonian model of heat conductivity and Fourier law," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 351(2), pages 358-372.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:265:y:1999:i:3:p:463-472. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.