Sensitivity of nonequilibrium systems

✍ Scribed by D.K. Kondepudi; I. Prigogine

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1981
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 935 KB
• Volume: 107
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0378-4371
• DOI: 10.1016/0378-4371(81)90021-2

✦ Synopsis

Simple mechanisms through which nonequilibrium structures can be influenced by external fields are discussed. It is shown that a very weak gravitational or electric field can have a large influence on selection or creation of structures. In the absence of cooperativity, the influence of a weak field, to the leading order, is characterized by the ratio (EiJkT), where Ei"t is the energy of interaction; however, when there is far-from-equilibrium cooperativity, it is shown that the influence of the field is characterized by (EiJkT)"'.