The role of quenched disorder in non-equilibrium work and fluctuation theorems

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Engel
• Subject Area: Statistical Physics, Nonlinear Dynamics, Complex Systems, Soft and Fluid Matter, Biological Physics
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 233528737

The role of frozen disorder in non-equilibrium work and fluctuation theorems is to be investigated. Besides systems that are driven away from thermodynamic equilibrium according to some specific protocol and those that are kept in a non-equilibrium steady state by appropriate boundary conditions, glassy systems may form a third general class of non-equilibrium situations for which fluctuation theorems are relevant. In these systems competing interactions block the way to complete equilibration and relaxation ends in a highly disordered metastable state. The static randomness of this state may contribute to the thermodynamic entropy and should then show up in appropriate versions of fluctuation theorems. In addition to the general interest for stochastic thermodynamics the role of static disorder for fluctuation theorems is connected with several fascinating problems at the borderline between statistical mechanics and information theory including models of Maxwell's demon, the thermodynamic cost of acquisition and erasure of information, and the accuracy of processing genetic information. The investigation of these rather general issues will be made concrete and qualitative by scrutinizing a model for the non-equilibrium growth of an information carrying co-polymer introduced recently.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants