Complex coupling effects and dissipative structure in nonlinear thermodynamic systems

• Main Authors: Xiaomeng Wang, Changming Xiao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIP Publishing LLC 2019-04-01
• Series: AIP Advances
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.5081843

It is well known that a dissipative structure can only possibly turn out when the nonlinear system is far away from the equilibrium. In this paper, the instability of steady state in an ideal system with two kinds of irreversible processes has been studied. The most important factor in our discussions is that, in the nonlinear range, both the linear and nonlinear items of the generalized thermodynamic forces have been included in the functional relationship between the generalized thermodynamic flows and forces. Our results show that the complex coupling effect plays a very important role in the instability of steady state: if the coefficient related to complex coupling item is very small, the steady state of the system almost does not lose its stability. The dissipative structure is almost impossible, however, if the coefficient about the complex coupling is very large, it is possible for the steady state to lose its stability. Then a dissipative structure is possible. And, this conclusion was verified by the dynamical analyzing about a chemical monomolecular reaction system with strong complex coupling effects. So the dissipative structure can only possibly turn out in a nonlinear non-equilibrium system which is not only far away from the equilibrium but also is strongly coupled.