Geometric and Combinatorial Aspects of NonEquilibrium Statistical Mechanics

Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics is a broad subject. Grossly speaking, it deals with systems which have not yet relaxed to an equilibrium state, or else with systems which are in a steady non-equilibrium state, or with more general situations. They are characterized by external forcing and internal fluxes, resulting in a net production of entropy which quantifies dissipation and the extent by which, by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, time-reversal invariance is broken. In this thesis we discuss some of the mathematical structures involved with generic discrete-state-space non-equilibrium systems, that we depict with networks in all analogous to electrical networks. We define suitable observables and derive their linear regime relationships, we discuss a duality between external and internal observables that reverses the role of the system and of the environment, we show that network observables serve as constraints for a derivation of the minimum entropy production principle. We dwell on deep combinatorial aspects regarding linear response determinants, which are related to spanning tree polynomials in graph theory, and we give a geometrical interpretation of observables in terms of Wilson loops of a connection and gauge degrees of freedom. We specialize the formalism to continuous-time Markov chains, we give a physical interpretation for observables in terms of locally detailed balanced rates, we prove many variants of the fluctuation theorem, and show that a well-known expression for the entropy production due to Schnakenberg descends from considerations of gauge invariance, where the gauge symmetry is related to the freedom in the choice of a prior probability distribution. As an additional topic of geometrical flavor related to continuous-time Markov chains, we discuss the Fisher-Rao geometry of nonequilibrium decay modes, showing that the Fisher matrix contains information about many aspects of non-equilibrium behavior, including non-equilibrium phase transitions and superposition of modes. We establish a sort of statistical equivalence principle and discuss the behavior of the Fisher matrix under time-reversal. To conclude, we propose that geometry and combinatorics might greatly increase our understanding of nonequilibrium phenomena.

A moment symbolic representation of Lévy processes with applications

By using a symbolic method, known in the literature as the classical umbral calculus, a symbolic representation of Lévy processes is given and a new family of time-space harmonic polynomials with respect to such processes, which includes and generalizes the exponential complete Bell polynomials, is introduced. The usefulness of time-space harmonic polynomials with respect to Lévy processes is that it is a martingale the stochastic process obtained by replacing the indeterminate x of the polynomials with a Lévy process, whereas the Lévy process does not necessarily have this property. Therefore to find such polynomials could be particularly meaningful for applications. This new family includes Hermite polynomials, time-space harmonic with respect to Brownian motion, Poisson-Charlier polynomials with respect to Poisson processes, Laguerre and actuarial polynomials with respect to Gamma processes , Meixner polynomials of the first kind with respect to Pascal processes, Euler, Bernoulli, Krawtchuk, and pseudo-Narumi polynomials with respect to suitable random walks. The role played by cumulants is stressed and brought to the light, either in the symbolic representation of Lévy processes and their infinite divisibility property, either in the generalization, via umbral Kailath-Segall formula, of the well-known formulae giving elementary symmetric polynomials in terms of power sum symmetric polynomials. The expression of the family of time-space harmonic polynomials here introduced has some connections with the so-called moment representation of various families of multivariate polynomials. Such moment representation has been studied here for the first time in connection with the time-space harmonic property with respect to suitable symbolic multivariate Lévy processes. In particular, multivariate Hermite polynomials and their properties have been studied in connection with a symbolic version of the multivariate Brownian motion, while multivariate Bernoulli and Euler polynomials are represented as powers of multivariate polynomials which are time-space harmonic with respect to suitable multivariate Lévy processes.

Enhancing the efficiency of solar concentrators by controlled optical aberrations

The diameters of traditional dish concentrators can reach several tens of meters, the construction of monolithic mirrors being difficult at these scales: cheap flat reflecting facets mounted on a common frame generally reproduce a paraboloidal surface. When a standard imaging mirror is coupled with a PV dense array, problems arise since the solar image focused is intrinsically circular. Moreover, the corresponding irradiance distribution is bell-shaped in contrast with the requirement of having all the cells under the same illumination. Mismatch losses occur when interconnected cells experience different conditions, in particular in series connections. In this PhD Thesis, we aim at solving these issues by a multidisciplinary approach, exploiting optical concepts and applications developed specifically for astronomical use, where the improvement of the image quality is a very important issue. The strategy we propose is to boost the spot uniformity acting uniquely on the primary reflector and avoiding the big mirrors segmentation into numerous smaller elements that need to be accurately mounted and aligned. In the proposed method, the shape of the mirrors is analytically described by the Zernike polynomials and its optimization is numerically obtained to give a non-imaging optics able to produce a quasi-square spot, spatially uniform and with prescribed concentration level. The freeform primary optics leads to a substantial gain in efficiency without secondary optics. Simple electrical schemes for the receiver are also required. The concept has been investigated theoretically modeling an example of CPV dense array application, including the development of non-optical aspects as the design of the detector and of the supporting mechanics. For the method proposed and the specific CPV system described, a patent application has been filed in Italy with the number TO2014A000016. The patent has been developed thanks to the collaboration between the University of Bologna and INAF (National Institute for Astrophysics).