Geometry & Topology Seminar: "Entropy production in random billiards and the second law of thermodynamics"

Abstract: A random dynamical system is said to be time-reversible if the statistical properties of orbits do not change after reversing the arrow of time. The degree of irreversibility of a given system is captured by the notion of entropy production rate. I’ll describe a general formula for entropy production that applies to a class of random billiard systems on Riemannian manifolds with boundary for which it is meaningful to talk about energy exchange between billiard particle and boundary. This formula establishes a relation between the purely mathematical concept of entropy production rate and physics textbook thermodynamic entropy. In particular, it recovers Clausius formulation of the second law of thermodynamics: the system must evolve so as to transfer energy from hot to cold. This is joint work with Tim Chumley.

Host: Xiang Tang