Work distributions for Ising chains in a time-dependent magnetic field

Abstract

Master equations can be conveniently used to investigate many particle systems driven out of equilibrium by time-dependent external fields. This topic is of vital interest in connection with fluctuation theorems and the associated microscopic work and heat distributions. We present an exact Monte Carlo simulation algorithm, which allows us to study interaction effects on these distributions. The method is applied to an Ising chain with Glauber dynamics. We find that the distributions are characterized by delta and step functions with a smooth part in between. With decreasing sweeping rate of the external field or decreasing interaction strength, the singular part becomes less dominant and the Gaussian fluctuation regime is approached.