5 research outputs found
Validity of the zero-thermodynamic law in off-equilibrium coupled harmonic oscillators
In order to describe the thermodynamics of the glassy systems it has been
recently introduced an extra parameter also called effective temperature which
generalizes the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) to systems
off-equilibrium and supposedly describes thermal fluctuations around the aging
state. Here we investigate the applicability of a zero-th law for
non-equilibrium glassy systems based on these effective temperatures by
studying two coupled subsystems of harmonic oscillators with Monte Carlo
dynamics. We analyze in detail two types of dynamics: 1) sequential dynamics
where the coupling between the subsystems comes only from the Hamiltonian and
2) parallel dynamics where there is a further coupling between the subsystems
arising from the dynamics. We show that the coupling described in the first
case is not enough to make asymptotically the effective temperatures of two
interacting subsystems coincide, the reason being the too small thermal
conductivity between them in the aging state. This explains why different
interacting degrees of freedom in structural glasses may stay at different
effective temperatures without never mutually thermalizing.Comment: 23 pages, REVTeX, 4 eps figure