Group of Statistical Mechanics

The Group of Statistical Mechanics is part of (GISC), Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos. We are based at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM).

Events

Nov 6, 2023 1 min read

Seminar Announcement

Professor Richard Healey from University of Arizona will give a seminar in “Sala de Grados” at Facultad de Físicas, next 15th November 2023 with the title “How Good a Friend Would a Quantum Computer Make?

Members

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• Group Members

Projects

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All Stoch-Therm Granular Bio

Biophysics

Our group has significantly contributed to fields related to the study of fluctuations and fluctuation-induced phenomena, like thermodynamics of fluctuating systems or response of far from equilibrium systems. In the present, several research projects in our group aim at applying or generalizing these results to relevant biological problems.

JMR Parrondo, Luis Dinis

Casimir Forces

H. Casimir proved in 1948 that two metallic parallel plates attract each other due to the quantum fluctuations induced by the electric field of the vacuum between the plates [1]. The dependence of this force with the temperature was calculated by Lifschitz [2].

Ricardo Brito

Experimental Stochastic Thermodynamics

The recent technological advances in micromanipulation and force-sensing techniques have brought access to the dynamics and energy changes that affect mesoscopic physical systems described by few degrees of freedom. For systems of microscopic and nanoscopic scale, the thermal fluctuations of the surrounding environment become relevant.

JMR Parrondo, Luis Dinis

Fluctuation Theorems: Information and Entropy

The Jarzynski equality, introduced in 1997, established an exact relationship that involves the work fluctuations of processes arbitrarily far from equilibrium [1]. Later, Crooks' theorem [2, 3] showed that the mentioned equality is consequence of some symmetry properties under time reversal of the microscopic evolution of the system, both Hamiltonian or stochastic (Langevin equation).

JMR Parrondo, Luis Dinis

Fluctuation-Dissipation Relations Out of Equilibrium

Fluctuation-dissipation relations (FDR) have been a crucial tool in Statistical Physics. They relate the response of a system slightly removed from equilibrium to equilibrium properties and allow to connect transport coefficients to microscopic properties [1].

JMR Parrondo, Luis Dinis

Granular Matter

Granular matter, because of lack of energy conservation, are systems out of equilibirum. Then usual approaches based on Thermodynamics of Statistical mechanics are not applicable a priori. Phenomenology in these systems is very rich.

Ricardo Brito