On the (Boltzmann) Entropy of Nonequilibrium Systems

S. Goldstein, Joel L. Lebowitz

Published 2003-04-10, updated 2003-06-25Version 2

Boltzmann defined the entropy of a macroscopic system in a macrostate $M$ as the $\log$ of the volume of phase space (number of microstates) corresponding to $M$. This agrees with the thermodynamic entropy of Clausius when $M$ specifies the locally conserved quantities of a system in local thermal equilibrium (LTE). Here we discuss Boltzmann's entropy, involving an appropriate choice of macro-variables, for systems not in LTE. We generalize the formulas of Boltzmann for dilute gases and of Resibois for hard sphere fluids and show that for macro-variables satisfying any deterministic autonomous evolution equation arising from the microscopic dynamics the corresponding Boltzmann entropy must satisfy an ${\cal H}$-theorem.