Exponential Convergence to Non-Equilibrium Stationary States in Classical Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We continue the study of a model for heat conduction consisting of a chain of non-linear oscillators coupled to two Hamiltonian heat reservoirs at different temperatures. We establish existence of a Liapunov function for the chain dynamics and use it to show exponentially fast convergence of the dynamics to a unique stationary state. Ingredients of the proof are the reduction of the infinite dimensional dynamics to a finite-dimensional stochastic process as well as a bound on the propagation of energy in chains of anharmonic oscillators.