Statistical Mechanics of Transport Processes. XIV. Linear Relations in Multicomponent Systems

Abstract

A classical treatment of the time dependence of a phase‐space distribution function for a system near equilibrium is presented. The nonequilibrium distribution function is expressed as a stationary zero‐order function plus a perturbation term and is used to obtain the diffusion and heat fluxes by averaging the appropriate dynamical variables. When only terms linear in the gradients of the local temperature, the chemical potentials, and the velocity of the local centers of mass are retained, the usual linear relations result and explicit expressions for the phenomenological coefficients are obtained. These expressions agree with the results of Mori and of Green and are shown to obey the Onsager reciprocal relations.