Nonconventional fluctuation dissipation process in non-Hamiltonian dynamical systems

Abstract

Here, we introduce a statistical approach derived from dynamics, for the study of the geophysical fluid dynamics phenomena characterized by a weak interaction among the variables of interest and the rest of the system. The approach is reminiscent of the one developed some years ago [M. Bianucci, R. Mannella, P. Grigolini and B. J. West, Phys. Rev. E 51, 3002 (1995)] to derive statistical mechanics of macroscopic variables on interest starting from Hamiltonian microscopic dynamics. However, in the present work, we are interested to generalize this approach beyond the context of the foundation of thermodynamics, in fact, we take into account the cases where the system of interest could be non-Hamiltonian (dissipative) and also the interaction with the irrelevant part can be of a more general type than Hamiltonian. As such example, we will refer to a typical case from geophysical fluid dynamics: the complex ocean–atmosphere interaction that gives rise to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Here, changing all the scales, the role of the “microscopic” system is played by the atmosphere, while the ocean (or some ocean variables) plays the role of the intrinsically dissipative macroscopic system of interest. Thus, the chaotic and divergent features of the fast atmosphere dynamics remains in the decaying properties of the correlation functions and of the response function of the atmosphere variables, while the exponential separation of the perturbed (or close) single trajectories does not play a direct role. In the present paper, we face this problem in the frame of a not formal Langevin approach, limiting our discussion to physically based rather than mathematics arguments. Elsewhere, we obtain these results via a much more formal procedure, using the Zwanzing projection method and some elements from the Lie Algebra field.