Energy repartition for a harmonic chain with local reservoirs

Gianmaria Falasco, Marco Baiesi, Leo Molinaro, Livia Conti, Fulvio Baldovin

Published 2015-05-19Version 1

We exactly analyze the vibrational properties of a chain of harmonic oscillators in contact with local Langevin heat baths. Nonequilibrium steady-state fluctuations are found to be described by a set of mode-temperatures, independent of the strengths of both the harmonic interaction and the viscous damping. Energy is equally distributed between the conjugate variables of a given mode but differently among different modes, in a manner which depends exclusively on the bath temperatures and on the boundary conditions. We outline how bath-temperature profiles can be designed to enhance or reduce fluctuations at specific frequencies in the power spectrum of the chain length.