Critical dynamics far from equilibrium

Abstract

Systems near critical points are known to be very sensitive to even a small amount of disturbances. Thus if the critical point is approached with external disturbances of fixed sizes that bring the system out of equilibrium, we encounter a variety of new problems of critical dynamics which cannot be handled by the usual linear response type treatments. Some examples of such a new kind of critical dynamics will be described which include critical fluids under steady incompressible flow, nonlinear relaxation of the order parameter, kinetics of first order phase transitions near critical points, and the superconducting transition under electric field.