Work distribution for the adiabatic compression of a dilute and interacting classical gas

Abstract

We consider a simple, physically motivated model of a dilute classical gas of interacting particles, initially equilibrated with a heat bath, undergoing adiabatic and quasistatic compression or expansion. This provides an example of a thermodynamic process for which non-Gaussian work fluctuations can be computed exactly from microscopic principles. We find that the work performed during this process is described statistically by a gamma distribution, and we use this result to show that the model satisfies the nonequilibrium work and fluctuation theorems, but not a prediction based on linear response theory.