Onsager symmetry from mesoscopic time reversibility and the hydrodynamic dispersion tensor for coarse-grained systems

摘要

Onsager reciprocity relations derive from the fundamental time reversibility of the underlying microscopicequations of motion. This gives rise to a large set of symmetric cross-coupling phenomena.We here demonstratethat different reciprocity relations may arise from the notion of mesoscopic time reversibility, i.e., reversibility ofintrinsically coarse-grained equations of motion.We use Brownian dynamics as an example of such a dynamicaldescription and show how it gives rise to reciprocity in the hydrodynamic dispersion tensor as long as thebackground flow velocity is reversed as well.