Emergence of a sustained current by coupling equilibrating systems: Making a NESS out of equilibrium

Abstract

We show that coupling together two closed thermodynamic systems that independently attain equilibrium may give rise to a nonequilibrium stationary state (NESS) with a persistent, non-vanishing current. We study a simple example that is exactly soluble, consisting of random walkers with different biases towards a reflecting boundary, modelling, for example, Brownian particles with different charge states in an electric field. We obtain exact analytical expressions for the (generating functions of) concentrations and currents in the NESS for this model, and exhibit the main features by numerical simulation.