Green and Kubo forge the arrow of time
arXiv:2404.09291 · doi:10.1080/00268976.2024.2388300
Abstract
Transport theory describes the response of a macroscopic current to a thermodynamic force, thus producing entropy and apparently violating time-reversal symmetry. In this note I report a pedagogical derivation of the Green-Kubo formula for transport coefficients that highlights the intrinsically dynamical nature of this formula and showcases the relation between the apparent breach of time-reversal symmetry and the non-commutativity of the low-frequency / low-wavevector limits of the conserved-density susceptibilities, from which the formula can be established.
Paper published in the Molecular Physics special issue dedicated to Giovanni Ciccotti on occasion of his eightieth birthday. This is the PostPrint version