Introduction to entropy production in electrical conduction

• Grant number: 25/08792-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: July 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Condensed Matter Physics
• Principal Investigator: Marcus Vinicius Segantini Bonança
• Grantee: Mattheus Peter Maria Arts
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/15453-0 - Correlated quantum materials, AP.TEM

Abstract

Experimental developments using techniques such as optical tweezers, atomic force microscopy, among others, have enabled access to physical quantities in systems with few degrees of freedom, such as single molecules. In this context, it is possible to monitor these quantities over the temporal evolution of a single experimental run and observe their stochastic behavior due to thermal effects. From this new observational reality, the area called Stochastic Thermodynamics emerged, in which this project is inserted. In this area, the main objective is to analyze the stochastic behavior of thermodynamic quantities because, in the presence of significant fluctuations, the average behavior is not necessarily close to the typical behavior. In this project, we propose the analysis of the problem of electrical conduction as an introduction to this area. We intend to restrict ourselves to a classical microscopic modeling (i.e., without the introduction of quantum statistics for charge carriers), which is also known as the classical Drude model. In addition to the usual analysis of the average value of the current, we intend to analyze the fluctuations around the average and thereby characterize the so-called stochastic entropy production, its fluctuations and introduce the student to the Fluctuation Theorem in this context.