Jorge Kurchan

FLUCTUATION THEOREM FOR STOCHASTIC DYNAMICS

The fluctuation theorem of Gallavotti and Cohen holds for finite systems undergoing Langevin dynamics. In such a context all non-trivial ergodic theory issues are bypassed, and the theorem takes a particularly simple form. As a particular case, we obtain a nonlinear fluctuation-dissipation theorem valid for equilibrium systems perturbed by arbitrarily strong fields.

ENERGY FLOW, PARTIAL EQUILIBRATION, AND EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURES IN SYSTEMS WITH SLOW DYNAMICS

We show that, in nonequilibrium systems with small heat flows, there is a time-scale dependent effective temperature which plays the same role as the thermodynamical temperature, in that it controls the direction of heat flows and acts as a criterion for thermalization. We simultaneously treat the case of stationary systems with weak stirring and of glassy systems that age after cooling and show that they exhibit very similar behavior provided that time dependences are expressed in terms of the correlations of the system. We substantiate our claims with examples taken from solvable models with non-trivial low-temperature dynamics, but argue that they have a much wider range of validity. We suggest experimental checks of these ideas.

Mode-coupling approximations, glass theory and disordered systems

We discuss the general link between mode-coupling like equations (which serve as the basis of some recent theories of supercooled liquids) and the dynamical equations governing mean-field spin-glass models, or the dynamics of a particle in a random potential. The physical consequences of this interrelation are underlined. It suggests to extend the mode-coupling approximation to temperatures well below the freezing temperature, in which aging effects become important. In this regime we suggest some new experiments in order to test a non-trivial prediction of the Mode-Coupling picture, which is a generalized relation between the short (β) and long (α) time regimes.

Direct evaluation of large deviation functions

We introduce a numerical procedure to evaluate directly the probabilities of large deviations of physical quantities, such as current or density, that are local in time. The large-deviation functions are given in terms of the typical properties of a modified dynamics, and since they no longer involve rare events, can be evaluated efficiently and over a wider ranges of values. We illustrate the method with the current fluctuations of the Totally Asymmetric Exclusion Process and with the work distribution of a driven Lorentz gas.

Non-equilibrium glass transitions in driven and active matter

Active materials, such as motile cells and self-propelled colloids, exhibit glassy effects, but little is known about the glass transition far from equilibrium. A study of model glasses subject to non-thermal driving and dissipation reveals signatures of dynamic arrest that can be understood in terms of an effective equilibrium description.

Duality and Hidden Symmetries in Interacting Particle Systems

In the context of Markov processes, both in discrete and continuous setting, we show a general relation between duality functions and symmetries of the generator. If the generator can be written in the form of a Hamiltonian of a quantum spin system, then the “hidden” symmetries are easily derived. We illustrate our approach in processes of symmetric exclusion type, in which the symmetry is of SU(2) type, as well as for the Kipnis-Marchioro-Presutti (KMP) model for which we unveil its SU(1,1) symmetry. The KMP model is in turn an instantaneous thermalization limit of the energy process associated to a large family of models of interacting diffusions, which we call Brownian energy process (BEP) and which all possess the SU(1,1) symmetry. We treat in details the case where the system is in contact with reservoirs and the dual process becomes absorbing.

Density of States of Colloidal Glasses

Glasses are structurally liquidlike, but mechanically solidlike. Most attempts to understand glasses start from liquid state theory. Here we take the opposite point of view, and use concepts from solid state physics. We determine the vibrational modes of a colloidal glass experimentally, and find soft low-frequency modes that are very different in nature from the usual acoustic vibrations of ordinary solids. These modes extend over surprisingly large length scales.

A fluctuation theorem for non-equilibrium relaxational systems driven by external forces

We discuss an extension of the fluctuation theorem to stochastic models that, in the limit of zero external drive, are not able to equilibrate with their environment, extending results presented by Sellitto (cond-mat/9809186). We show that if the entropy production rate is suitably defined, its probability distribution function verifies the Fluctuation Relation with the ambient temperature replaced by a (frequency-dependent) effective temperature. We derive modified Green-Kubo relations. We illustrate these results with the simple example of an oscillator coupled to a nonequilibrium bath driven by an external force. We discuss the relevance of our results for driven glasses and the diffusion of Brownian particles in out of equilibrium media and propose a concrete experimental strategy to measure the low frequency value of the effective temperature using the fluctuations of the work done by an ac conservative field. We compare our results to related ones that appeared in the literature recently.We discuss an extension of the fluctuation theorem to stochastic models that, in the limit of zero external drive, are not able to equilibrate with their environment, extending earlier results of Sellitto. We show that if the entropy production rate is suitably defined, its probability distribution function verifies the fluctuation relation with the ambient temperature replaced by a (frequency dependent) effective temperature. We derive modified Green–Kubo relations. We illustrate these results with the simple example of an oscillator coupled to a non-equilibrium bath driven by an external force. We discuss the relevance of our results for driven glasses and the diffusion of Brownian particles in out-of-equilibrium media and propose a concrete experimental strategy for measuring the low frequency value of the effective temperature using the fluctuations of the work done by an ac conservative field. We compare our results to related ones that appeared in the literature recently.

Landscape analysis of constraint satisfaction problems.

We discuss an analysis of constraint satisfaction problems, such as sphere packing, K-SAT, and graph coloring, in terms of an effective energy landscape. Several intriguing geometrical properties of the solution space become in this light familiar in terms of the well-studied ones of rugged (glassy) energy landscapes. A benchmark algorithm naturally suggested by this construction finds solutions in polynomial time up to a point beyond the clustering and in some cases even the thermodynamic transitions. This point has a simple geometric meaning and can be in principle determined with standard statistical mechanical methods, thus pushing the analytic bound up to which problems are guaranteed to be easy. We illustrate this for the graph 3- and 4-coloring problem. For packing problems the present discussion allows to better characterize the J-point, proposed as a systematic definition of random close packing, and to place it in the context of other theories of glasses.

Metastable states in glassy systems

Truly stable metastable states are an artifact of the mean-field approximation or the zero-temperature limit. If such appealing concepts in glass theory as configurational entropy are to have a meaning beyond these approximations, one needs to cast them in a form involving states with finite lifetimes. Starting from elementary examples and using the results of Gaveau and Schulman, we propose a simple expression for the configurational entropy and revisit the question of taking flat averages over metastable states. The construction is applicable to finite-dimensional systems, and we explicitly show that for simple mean-field glass models it recovers, justifies, and generalizes the known results. The calculation emphasises the appearance of new dynamical order parameters.