Denis Evans
| Denis Evans | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
19 April 1951 Sydney |
| Residence | Canberra |
| Citizenship | Australian |
| Nationality |
 Australia |
| Fields | Physics, Chemistry |
| Institutions | Australian National University |
Denis James Evans, (born 19 April 1951 in Sydney, Australia), is a Professor in the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University. He is widely recognised for his contributions to nonequilibrium thermodynamics and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and the simulation of nonequilibrium fluids.
Personal Profile
Denis Evans was a CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford, a Research Fellow at Cornell University and a Fulbright Fellow at the National Bureau of Standards (USA) during 1979 and 1980. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and has won numerous awards, including the Frederick White Prize of the Australian Academy of Sciences (1990), the H. G. Smith Medal of the RACI (2000). the Boys-Rahman Lectureship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2000), a Centenary Medal from the Australian Government and the Moyal Medal for distinguished contributions to mathematics, physics or statistics from Macquarie University.
He is also a keen bushwalker and photographer.
Research interests
Denis Evans heads the Liquid state chemical physics group in the Research School of Chemistry at The Australian National University. Denis is best known for the derivation and experimental validation of the Fluctuation theorem, an extension of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Denis Evans has over 280 publications on nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, dynamical systems theory as applied to bulk systems, irreversible thermodynamics, computer simulation algorithms for nonequilibrium systems, the relation of the intermolecular potential function to macroscopic fluid properties and molecular rheology. He has developed nonequilibrium simulation methods including the SLLOD algorithm for the study of shear flow, the Evans' method for heat flow, the color conductivity method for the determination of self diffusion.
He is also well known for the development of links between the theory of chaos and properties of fluids including development of the Conjugate Pairing Rule.
Books
- Evans, D.J. and Morriss, G.P., "Statistical mechanics of nonequilibrium Liquids", First Edition reprinted, Australian National University ePress, Canberra, 2007, ISBN 978-1-921313-22-6(paperback) and ISBN 978-1-921313-23-3(online).
- Evans, D.J. and Morriss, G.P., "Statistical mechanics of nonequilibrium Liquids", Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, to appear April 2008.
Selected publications
- Steven R. Williams and Denis J. Evans, Linear Response Domain in Glassy System, Phys. Rev. Lett., 96 015701 (2006)
- Butler B.D., Ayton G., Jepps O.G. and Evans D.J., Configurational temperature: Verification of Monte Carlo simulations, J. Chem. Phys., 109, 6519-6522 (1998).
- Lue L. and Evans D.J., Configurational temperature for systems with constraints, Phys. Rev. E,62, 4764–4768 (2000).
- Wang, G.M., Sevick, E.M., Mittag, E., Searles, D.J. and Evans, D.J., Experimental demonstration of violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics for small systems and short time scales, Phys. Rev. Lett., 89(5), 050601/1–4 (2002).
- Evans, D.J. and Searles, D.J., The Fluctuation Theorem, Adv. in Phys.51, 1529-1585 (2002).
See also
- Fluctuation theorem
- Loschmidt's paradox - how can one reconcile thermodynamic irreversibility with the time reversibility inherent in the microscopic equations of motion for both classical and quantum mechanical systems
- Le Chatelier's principle - a nineteenth century principle that defied a mathematical proof until the advent of the Fluctuation Theorem.
- Crooks fluctuation theorem - an example of transient fluctuation theorem relating the dissipated work in non equilibrium transformations to free energy differences.
- Jarzynski equality - another nonequilibrium equality closely related to the fluctuation theorem and to the second law of thermodynamics
- Green-Kubo relations - there is a deep connection between the fluctuation theorem and the Green-Kubo relations for linear transport coefficients - like shear viscosity or thermal conductivity
- Boltzmann
- Thermodynamics
- Brownian motor
External links
- Denis Evans' professional homepage
- Denis Evans' official Research School of Chemistry homepage
- Denis Evans' hiking/bushwalking homepage
- Denis J. Evans and Gary P. Morriss Statistical Mechanics of NonEquilibrium Liquids, Academic Press, London 1990, Theoretical Chemistry Monograph Series. online. Also available at