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

Phys Rev E. 2017 Feb;95(2-1):022136. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.95.022136. Epub 2017 Feb 24.

Abstract

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