Macroscopic Length Correlations in Non-Equilibrium Systems and Their Possible Realizatons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how finite-rate changes in thermodynamic quantities induce long-range correlations in non-equilibrium systems, with implications for glasses, non-Fermi liquids, and fundamental thermalization limits.

Contribution

It introduces a general framework showing that finite-rate energy or quantity changes generate macroscopic length correlations, and explores their experimental and theoretical implications.

Findings

Finite-rate changes induce long-range correlations during non-equilibrium states.

Persistent correlations can remain after the system reaches steady state.

Universal viscosity collapse predicted for glasses matches experimental data.

Abstract

We consider general systems that start from and/or end in thermodynamic equilibrium while experiencing a finite rate of change of their energy density or other intensive quantities $q$ at intermediate times. We demonstrate that at these times, during which $q$ varies at a finite rate, the associated covariance, the connected pair correlator $G_{ij} = \langle q_{i} q_{j} \rangle - \langle q_{i} \rangle \langle q_{j} \rangle$, between any two (far separated) sites $i$ and $j$ in a macroscopic system may, on average, become finite. Once the global mean $q$ no longer changes, the average of $G_{ij}$ over all site pairs $i$ and $j$ may tend to zero. However, when the equilibration times are significant (e.g., as in a glass that is not in true thermodynamic equilibrium yet in which the energy density (or temperature) reaches a final steady state value), these long range correlations may persist also long after $q$ ceases to change. We explore viable experimental implications of our findings and speculate on their potential realization in glasses (where a prediction of a theory based on the effect that we describe here suggests a universal collapse of the viscosity that agrees with all published viscosity measurements over sixteen decades) and non-Fermi liquids. We discuss effective equilibrium in driven systems and derive uncertainty relation based inequalities that connect the heat capacity to the dynamics in general open thermal systems. These rigorous thermalization inequalities suggest the shortest possible fluctuation times scales in open equilibrated systems at a temperature $T$ are typically "Planckian" (i.e., ${\cal{O}}(\hbar/(k_{B} T))$). We briefly comment on parallels between quantum measurements, unitary quantum evolution, and thermalization and on how Gaussian distributions may generically emerge.