Frigg, Roman and Werndl, Charlotte
(2020)
Boltzmannian Non-Equilibrium and Local Variables.
[Preprint]
Abstract
Boltzmannian statistical mechanics (BSM) partitions a system's space of micro-states into cells and refers to these cells as `macro-states'. One of these cells is singled out as the equilibrium macro-state while the others are non-equilibrium macro-states. It remains unclear, however, how these states are characterised at the macro-level as long as only real-valued macro-variables are available. We argue that physical quantities like pressure and temperature should be treated as field-variables and show how field variables fit into the framework of our own version of BSM, the long-run residence time account of BSM. The introduction of field variables into the theory makes it possible to give a full macroscopic characterisation of the approach to equilibrium.
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