2ND-LAW IRREVERSIBILITY AND PHASE-SPACE DIMENSIONALITY LOSS FROM TIME-REVERSIBLE NONEQUILIBRIUM STEADY-STATE LYAPUNOV SPECTRA

We consider steady-state nonequilibrium many-body flows of mass and momentum. For several such diffusive and viscous flows we estimate the phase-space strange-attractor Lyapunov dimensions from the complete spectrum of Lyapunov exponents. We vary the number of particles and the number of thermostated degrees of freedom, as well as the deviation from equilibrium. The resulting Lyapunov spectra provide numerical evidence that the fractal dimensionality loss in such systems remains extensive in a properly defined nonequilibrium analog of the equilibrium large-system thermodynamic limit. The data also suggest a variational principle in the vicinity of nonequilibrium steady states.