Generalized Onsager-Machlup's theory of thermal fluctuations for non-equilibrium systems

TL;DR

This paper extends Onsager-Machlup's theory to describe thermal fluctuations in non-equilibrium systems, providing a canonical framework for correlation functions during irreversible relaxation.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized theory that models time-dependent thermal fluctuations during non-equilibrium relaxation as a sequence of stationary states.

Findings

Provides a canonical description of correlation functions in non-equilibrium systems.

Links the correlation functions to the non-equilibrium relaxation time.

Extends equilibrium fluctuation theory to non-equilibrium scenarios.

Abstract

In this work a generalization of Onsager-Machlup's theory of time-dependent thermal fluctuations of equilibrium systems is proposed, to the case in which the system relaxes irreversibly along a non-equilibrium trajectory that can be approximated as a sequence of stationary states. This generalization is summarized by a canonical description of the dependence of the two-time correlation function C(t+\tau,t), and of the equal-time correlation function \sigma(t)= C(t,t) (the covariance of the fluctuations), on the non-equilibrium relaxation time t.