Microreversibility under nonequilibrium conditions
Abstract: Systems can be driven out of equilibrium by either their initial or boundary conditions, as described at the macroscale by hydrodynamics and thermodynamics. Recent advances and in particular, the fluctuation relations for the currents show that the thermodynamic irreversibility is compatible with microreversibility, i.e., the time-reversal symmetry of the underlying microscopic dynamics of atoms and molecules composing matter. Furthermore, microreversibility leads to quantitative predictions on the properties of nonequilibrium systems such as diodes, transistors, self-phoretic particles, and active matter.
About the speaker: Pierre GASPARD was born in Brussels in 1959. After studying physics, he received his Ph.D. in 1987 at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) for a thesis under the supervision of Grégoire Nicolis. Postdoctoral fellow 1987-89 at the University of Chicago in the group of Stuart Alan Rice, he held a research position at the FNRS-Belgium till 2004 when he became Professor at ULB, where he is now director of the « Service de Physique des Systèmes Complexes et Mécanique Statistique.» He was awarded the Francqui Prize 2006 in Exact Sciences. He is member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Belgium. He is the author of two monographs published by Cambridge University Press in 1998 and 2022, and the author or coauthor of more than 200 articles in physics and chemistry.