Heat Conduction Networks: Disposition of Heat Baths and Invariant Measure

Alain Camanes

Published 2009-02-03Version 1

We consider a model of heat conduction networks consisting of oscillators in contact with heat baths at different temperatures. Our aim is to generalize the results concerning the existence and uniqueness of the stationnary state already obtained when the network is reduced to a chain of particles. Using Lasalle's principle, we establish a condition on the disposition of the heat baths among the network that ensures the uniqueness of the invariant measure. We will show that this condition is sharp when the oscillators are linear. Moreover, when the interaction between the particles is stronger than the pinning, we prove that this condition implies the existence of the invariant measure.