Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics Lecture: Understanding Nonequilibrium via Rare Fluctuations

Irreversible processes are a hot subject in statistical mechanics. During the last decade through the effort of several people, including the recipient of the prize and his collaborators, a progress in understanding stationary nonequilibrium states has been achieved. The key has been the study of rare fluctuations. The talk will review some basic ideas, results and perspectives.