Statistical Theory of Heat

This book provides an integrated presentation of nonequilibrium statistical physics based on the methods of correlation functions and memory kernels. The relation between this approach and other, earlier methods such as kinetic equations, transport equations and Onsager's approach is discussed in detail. Classical results of kinetic and transport theory are treated thoroughly, together with more recent results on hydrodynamic long time tails, dynamical scaling laws for critical phenomena and electron localization in random potentials. The growing interest in nonlinear phenomena is catered for by several chapters on related problems: a general microscopic nonlinear response theory is presented; phenomenological nonlinear equations are discussed with respect to their relations with microscopic theory and their applications in chemical reactions, hydrodynamics and "chaos"; microscopic nonlinear theory is used to calculate kinetic coefficients of nonlinear phenomenological theories such as transport theory and chemical reactions.