Boltzmannian Equilibrium in Stochastic Systems

Abstract

Equilibrium is a central concept of statistical mechanics. In previous work we introduced the notions of a Boltzmannian alpha-epsilon-equilibrium and a Boltzmannian gamma-varepsilon-equilibrium (Werndl and Frigg 2015a, 2015b). This was done in a deterministic context. We now consider systems with a stochastic micro-dynamics and transfer these notions from the deterministic to the stochastic context. We then prove stochastic equivalents of the Dominance Theorem and the Prevalence Theorem. This establishes that also in stochastic systems equilibrium macro-regions are large in requisite sense.

forthcoming in: Michela Massimi and Jan-Willem Romeijn (eds): Proceedings of the EPSA15 Conference. Springer