The Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Small Systems

The interactions of tiny objects with their environment are dominated by thermal fluctuations. Guided by theory and assisted by micromanipulation tools, scientists have begun to study such interactions in detail.Comment: PDF file, 13 pages. Long version of the paper published in Physics Toda

Solvable dynamics in a system of interacting random tops

In this letter a new solvable model of synchronization dynamics is introduced. It consists of a system of long range interacting tops with random precession frequencies. The model allows for an explicit study of orientational effects in synchronized phenomena. A stability analysis of the incoherent solution is performed for different types of orientational disorder. A system with only orientational disorder always synchronizes in the absence of external noise.Comment: 6 Pages including 1 figure, Revte

A glass transition scenario based on heterogeneities and entropy barriers

We propose a scenario for the glass transition based on the cooperative nature of nucleation processes and entropic effects. The main point is the relation between the off-equilibrium energy dissipation and nucleation processes in off-equilibrium supercooled liquids which leads to a natural definition of the complexity. From the absence of coarsening growth we can derive an entropy based fluctuation formula which relates the free energy dissipation rate in the glass with the nucleation rate of the largest cooperative regions. As by-product we obtain a new phenomenological relation between the largest relaxation time in the supercooled liquid phase and an effective temperature. This differs from the Adam-Gibbs relation in that predicts no divergence of the primary relaxation time at the Kauzmann temperature and the existence of a crossover from fragile to strong behavior.Comment: 8th International Workshop on Disordered Systems, Andalo (Trento), Italy, 12-15 March 200

Configurational entropy and the one-step RSB scenario in glasses

In this talk we discuss the possibility of constructing a fluctuation theory for structural glasses in the non-equilibrium aging state. After reviewing well known results in a toy model we discuss some of the key assumptions which support the validity of this theory, in particular the role of the configurational entropy and its relation to the effective temperature. Recent numerical results for mean-field finite-size glasses agree with this scenario.Comment: Disordered and Complex Systems, 10-14 July 2000, Conference Proceedings, 7 pages + 1 figur

Numerical study of the Ising spin glass in a magnetic field

We study the order parameter distribution P(q) in the 4d Ising spin glass with $\pm J$ couplings in a magnetic field. We also compare these results with simulations for the infinite ranged model (i.e. SK model.) Then we analyse our numerical results in the framework of the droplet picture as well as in the mean field approach.Comment: 11 pages + 3 figures, LateX, figures uuencoded at the end of fil

Improving free-energy estimates from unidirectional work measurements: theory and experiment

We derive analytical expressions for the bias of the Jarzynski free-energy estimator from N nonequilibrium work measurements, for a generic work distribution. To achieve this, we map the estimator onto the Random Energy Model in a suitable scaling limit parametrized by (log N)/m, where m measures the width of the lower tail of the work distribution, and then compute the finite-N corrections to this limit with different approaches for different regimes of (log N)/m. We show that these expressions describe accurately the bias for a wide class of work distributions, and exploit them to build an improved free-energy estimator from unidirectional work measurements. We apply the method to optical tweezers unfolding/refolding experiments on DNA hairpins of varying loop size and dissipation, displaying both near-Gaussian and non-Gaussian work distributions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Glassy dynamics of kinetically constrained models

We review the use of kinetically constrained models (KCMs) for the study of dynamics in glassy systems. The characteristic feature of KCMs is that they have trivial, often non-interacting, equilibrium behaviour but interesting slow dynamics due to restrictions on the allowed transitions between configurations. The basic question which KCMs ask is therefore how much glassy physics can be understood without an underlying ``equilibrium glass transition''. After a brief review of glassy phenomenology, we describe the main model classes, which include spin-facilitated (Ising) models, constrained lattice gases, models inspired by cellular structures such as soap froths, models obtained via mappings from interacting systems without constraints, and finally related models such as urn, oscillator, tiling and needle models. We then describe the broad range of techniques that have been applied to KCMs, including exact solutions, adiabatic approximations, projection and mode-coupling techniques, diagrammatic approaches and mappings to quantum systems or effective models. Finally, we give a survey of the known results for the dynamics of KCMs both in and out of equilibrium, including topics such as relaxation time divergences and dynamical transitions, nonlinear relaxation, aging and effective temperatures, cooperativity and dynamical heterogeneities, and finally non-equilibrium stationary states generated by external driving. We conclude with a discussion of open questions and possibilities for future work.Comment: 137 pages. Additions to section on dynamical heterogeneities (5.5, new pages 110 and 112), otherwise minor corrections, additions and reference updates. Version to be published in Advances in Physic