Reporter: Prof. Gong Jiangbin
Time: 10:00 am, Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Place: Room 437, Xingjian Building
Abstract: This talk discusses several statistical mechanics concepts for nanoscale systems, with important physical insights learned from the adiabatic time evolution in both quantum and classical dynamics. In particular, a minimum work principle is introduced, followed by a minimal work fluctuation principle we proved recently. Then it is shown that both classical and quantum Jarzynski equality, namely, a certain exponential average of nonequilibrium work can yield equilibrium free energy difference, may suffer from a serious divergence issue in experiments or simulations. One remarkable finding is that for any quantum nonadiabatic work protocol, the divergence issue must emerge at sufficiently low temperatures. Our results hence call for more studies on fluctuation theorems.
Bio:
Prof. Gong Jiangbin obtained his Ph.D in theoretical chemical physics from the University of Toronto in 2001. He joined NUS in 2006 after postdoctoral studies at the University of Toronto and the University of Chicago. Prof. Gong’s theoretical research interests include nonlinear dynamics and quantum chaos, quantum control, quantum thermodynamics, non-Hermitian quantum mechanics, and recently, topological matter. Prof. Gong recently won the NUS Faculty of Science Outstanding Scientist Award 2016, the prestigious Singapore National Research Foundation Investigatorship Award 2017, and the Institute of Physics, Singapore (IPS) “World Scientific” Medal 2017.
