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Carnot's four-part ideal-gas cycle includes both isothermal and adiabatic expansions and compressions. Analyzing this cycle provides the fundamental basis for statistical thermodynamics. We explore the cycle here from a pedagogical view in order to promote understanding of the macroscopic thermodynamic entropy, the state function associated with thermal energy changes. From the alternative microscopic viewpoint the Hamiltonian H(q, p) is the energy and entropy is the (logarithm of the) phase-space volume O associated with a macroscopic state. We apply two novel forms of Hamiltonian mechanics to Carnot's Cycle: (1) Gauss' isokinetic mechanics for the isothermal segments and (2) Doll's Tensor mechanics for the isentropic adiabatic segments. We explore the equivalence of the microscopic and macroscopic views of Carnot's cycle for simple fluids here, beginning with the ideal Knudsen gas and extending the analysis to a prototypical simple fluid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the practicalities of defining, simulating, and characterizing "Liquids" from a pedagogical standpoint based on atomistic computer simulations. For simplicity and clarity we study two-dimensional systems throughout. In addition to the infinite-ranged Lennard-Jones 12/6 potential we consider two shorter-ranged families of pair potentials. At zero pressure one of them includes just nearest neighbors. The other longer-ranged family includes twelve additional neighbors. We find that these further neighbors can help stabilize the liquid phase. What about liquids? To implement Wikipedia's definition of liquids as conforming to their container we begin by formulating and imposing smooth-container boundary conditions. To encourage conformation further we add a vertical gravitational field. Gravity helps stabilize the relatively vague liquid-gas interface. Gravity reduces the messiness associated with the curiously-named "spinodal" (tensile) portion of the phase diagram. Our simulations are mainly isothermal. We control the kinetic temperature with Nosé-Hoover thermostating, extracting or injecting heat so as to impose a mean kinetic temperature over time. Our simulations stabilizing density gradients and the temperature provide critical-point estimates fully consistent with previous efforts from free energy and Gibbs ensemble simulations. This agreement validates our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Berni Alder [1] and Francis Ree [2], Douglas Henderson was the third of Bill's California coworkers from the 1960s to die in 2020 [1, 2]. Motivated by Doug's death we undertook better to understand Lyapunov instability and the breaking of time symmetry in continuum and atomistic simulations. Here we have chosen to extend our explorations of an interesting pair of nonequilibrium systems, the steady shockwave and the unsteady rarefaction wave. We eliminate the need for boundary potentials by simulating the collisions of pairs of mirror-images projectiles. The resulting shock and rarefaction structures are respectively the results of the compression and the expansion of simple fluids. Shockwaves resulting from compression have a steady structure while the rarefaction fans resulting from free expansions continually broaden. We model these processes using classical molecular dynamics and Eulerian fluid mechanics in two dimensions. Although molecular dynamics is time-reversible the reversed simulation of a steady shockwave compression soon results in an unsteady rarefaction fan, violating the microscopic time symmetry of the motion equations but in agreement with the predictions of macroscopic Navier-Stokes fluid mechanics. The explanations for these results are an interesting combination of two (irreversible) instabilities, Lyapunov and Navier-Stokes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This memoir honors the late Berni Julian Alder, who inspired both of us with his pioneering development of molecular dynamics. Berni's work with Tom Wainwright, described in the 1959 Scientific American [1], brought Bill to interview at Livermore in 1962. Hired by Berni, Bill enjoyed over 40 years' research at the Laboratory. Berni, along with Edward Teller, founded UC's Department of Applied Science in 1963. Their motivation was to attract bright students to use the laboratory's unparalleled research facilities. In 1972 Carol was offered a joint LLNL employee-DAS student appointment at Livermore. Bill, thanks to Berni's efforts, was already a Professor there. Berni's influence was directly responsible for our physics collaboration and our marriage in 1989. The present work is devoted to two early interests of Berni's, irreversibility and shockwaves. Berni and Tom studied the irreversibility of Boltzmann's "H function" in the early 1950s [2]. Berni called shockwaves the "most irreversible" of hydrodynamic processes [3]. Just this past summer, in simulating shockwaves with time-reversible classical mechanics, we found that reversed Runge-Kutta shockwave simulations yielded nonsteady rarefaction waves, not shocks. Intrigued by this unexpected result we studied the exponential Lyapunov instabilities in both wave types. Besides the Runge-Kutta and Leapfrog algorithms, we developed a precisely-reversible manybody algorithm based on trajectory storing, just changing the velocities' signs to generate the reversed trajectories. Both shocks and rarefactions were precisely reversed. Separate simulations, forward and reversed, provide interesting examples of the Lyapunov-unstable symmetry-breaking models supporting the Second Law of Thermodynamics. We describe promising research directions suggested by this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fractal information dimension can be computed in three ways: (1) mapping points, (2) mapping regions (two-dimensional areas here), and (3) applying the Kaplan-Yorke conjecture. For the simplest nonequilibrium Baker N2 Map these three approaches can give different results. A pedagogical exploration and explanation of this situation is the 2021 Ian Snook Prize Problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microscopic and macroscopic versions of fluid mechanics differ qualitatively. Microscopic particles obey time-reversible ordinary differential equations. The resulting particle trajectories {q(t)g} may be time-averaged or ensemble-averaged so as to generate field quantities corresponding to macroscopic variables. On the other hand, the macroscopic continuum fields described by fluid mechanics follow irreversible partial differential equations. Smooth particle methods bridge the gap separating these two views of fluids by solving the macroscopic field equations with particle dynamics that resemble molecular dynamics. Recently, nonlinear dynamics have provided some useful tools for understanding the relationship between the microscopic and macroscopic points of view. Chaos and fractals play key roles in this new understanding. Non-equilibrium phase-space averages look very different from their equilibrium counterparts. Away from equilibrium the smooth phase-space distributions are replaced by fractional-dimensional singular distributions that exhibit time irreversibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]