Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics of Strongly Anharmonic Chains of Oscillators

Abstract

We study the model of a strongly non-linear chain of particles coupled to two heat baths at different temperatures. Our main result is the existence and uniqueness of a stationary state at all temperatures. This result extends those of Eckmann, Pillet, Rey-Bellet to potentials with essentially arbitrary growth at infinity. This extension is possible by introducing a stronger version of Hörmander's theorem for Kolmogorov equations to vector fields with polynomially bounded coefficients on unbounded domains.