Large deviations in boundary-driven systems: Numerical evaluation and effective large-scale behavior

Technion - Israel Institute of Technology - Haifa 32000, Israel

Received: 6 June 2012
Accepted: 27 June 2012

Abstract

We study rare events in systems of diffusive fields driven out of equilibrium by the boundaries. We present a numerical technique and use it to calculate the probabilities of rare events in one and two dimensions. Using this technique, we show that the probability density of a slowly varying configuration can be captured with a small number of long-wavelength modes. For a configuration which varies rapidly in space this description can be complemented by a local-equilibrium assumption.