Chemical Potential Equalization
Steve Valone
Los Alamos National Laboratory
MST-8, MS G755
Los Alamos, NM 87545
(505) 667-2067
(505) 667-8021 Fax
A key feature of the behavior of complex adaptive materials is chemical potential equalization across an entire system. Through this mechanism small changes in one part of the system may be "sensed" in all other portions of the system and allow the possibility of a large response of the whole. Chemical potential equalization embodies the very foundation of exponential sensitivity of materials to their environment. In the context of models this feature expresses itself as a need for self-consistency of the components of a model. No doubt this point of view reduces to the existence of free energy surfaces or models thereof. No doubt too not every interesting system of complex adaptation is amenable to a ground thermodynamic-state treatment, but there are a great many that do. Furthermore the underpinnings of this concept in statistical mechanics and density functional theory provides the generality that would allow models of this nature to be applied across many, many disciplines and many, many materials. Generality of this magnitude speaks to the value of discussing the role of chemical potential equalization in complex adaptation, considering the possibilities of finding new classes of models of free energy surfaces and fleshing out the implied link between other models and free energy minimization.