Dresden 2009 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 7: Statistical physics II (general)

DY 7.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 09:30–10:00, HÜL 386

Statistical Mechanics of sytems with long range interactions. — •David Mukamel — The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Systems with long range interactions, in which the two-body potential decreases at large distances, R, with a rate slower than 1/R^d in d dimensions are discussed. These systems are non-additive, and as a result they display unusual thermodynamic and dynamical properties which are not present in systems with short range interactions. In particular, the various statistical mechanical ensembles are not equivalent and the microcanonical specific heat may be negative. Long range interactions may also result in breaking of ergodicity, making the maximal entropy state inaccessible from some regions of phase space. In addition, in many cases long range interactions result in slow relaxation processes, with time scales which diverge in the thermodynamic limit. Various models which have been found to exhibit these features are discussed. Relevance of these studies to collective behavior of non-equilibrium driven systems is pointed out.