Laboratory of Cell Culture, Institute of Cardiology, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Sukilėlių ave. 17, Kaunas, Lithuania and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Kemivägen 10, SE-41296 Göteborg, Sweden.
Phys Rev E. 2017 Jun;95(6-1):062108. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.95.062108. Epub 2017 Jun 8.
Thermodynamic systems can be defined as composed by many identical interacting subsystems. Here it is shown how the dynamics of relaxation toward equilibrium of a thermodynamic system is closely related to the symmetry group of the Hamiltonian of the subsystems of which it is composed. The transitions between states driven by the interactions between identical subsystems correspond to elements of the root system associated to the symmetry group of their Hamiltonian. This imposes constraints on the relaxation dynamics of the complete thermodynamic system, which allow formulating its evolution toward equilibrium as a system of linear differential equations in which the variables are the thermodynamic forces of the system. The trajectory of a thermodynamic system in the space of thermodynamic forces corresponds to the negative gradient of a potential function, which depends on the symmetry group of the Hamiltonian of the individual interacting subsystems.
热力学系统可以定义为由许多相互作用的相同子系统组成。本文展示了热力学系统朝着平衡状态的弛豫动力学如何与构成它的子系统的哈密顿量的对称群密切相关。由相同子系统之间的相互作用驱动的状态之间的转变对应于与它们的哈密顿量的对称群相关联的根系统的元素。这对完整热力学系统的弛豫动力学施加了约束，这允许将其朝着平衡的演化表述为一个线性微分方程组，其中变量是系统的热力学力。热力学系统在热力学力空间中的轨迹对应于依赖于相互作用的各个子系统的哈密顿量的对称群的势函数的负梯度。
