Ergodicity of Thermostat Family of Nos\'e--Hoover type

Abstract

One-variable thermostats are studied as a generalization of the Nos\'e--Hoover method which is aimed to achieve Gibbs' canonical distribution with conserving the time-reversibility. A condition for equations of motion for the system with the thermostats is derived in the form of a partial differential equation. Solutions of this equation construct a family of thermostats including the Nos\'e--Hoover method as the minimal solution. It is shown that the one-variable thermostat coupled with the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator loses its ergodicity with large enough relaxation time. The present result suggests that multi-variable thermostats are required to assure the ergodicity and to work as heatbath.