Non-equilibrium thermodynamics and Fisher information: An illustrative example

Both non-equilibrium and equilibrium thermodynamics can be obtained from a constrained Fisher extremization process whose output is a Schrödinger-like wave equation (SWE). Within this paradigm, equilibrium thermodynamics corresponds to the ground state (GS) solution, while non-equilibrium thermodyna...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysics letters. A Vol. 304; no. 3; pp. 73 - 78
Main Authors Frieden, B.R., Plastino, A., Plastino, A.R., Soffer, B.H.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 11.11.2002
Subjects
Boltzmann equation
Electrical conductivity
Fisher information
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics
05.30-d
Boltzmann equation
Electrical conductivity
05.45+b
Fisher information
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Summary:Both non-equilibrium and equilibrium thermodynamics can be obtained from a constrained Fisher extremization process whose output is a Schrödinger-like wave equation (SWE). Within this paradigm, equilibrium thermodynamics corresponds to the ground state (GS) solution, while non-equilibrium thermodynamics corresponds to admixtures of this GS with excited state solutions. The method is a new and powerful approach to off-equilibrium thermodynamics. We discuss an application to electrical conductivity processes, and thereby, by construction, show that the following three approaches yield identical results: (1) the conventional Boltzmann transport equation in the relaxation approximation, (2) the Rumer and Ryvkin Gaussian–Hermite-algorithm, and (3) our Fisher–Schrödinger technique.
ISSN:0375-9601
1873-2429
DOI:10.1016/S0375-9601(02)01367-1