Violation of the virial theorem and generalized equipartition theorem for logarithmic oscillators serving as a thermostat

Abstract

Abstract A logarithmic oscillator has been proposed to serve as a thermostat recently since it has a peculiar property of infinite heat capacity according to the virial theorem. In order to examine its feasibility in numerical simulations, a modified logarithmic potential has been applied in previous studies to eliminate the singularity at the origin. The role played by the modification has been elucidated in the present study. We argue that the virial theorem is practically violated in finite-time simulations of the modified log-oscillator illustrated by a linear dependence of kinetic temperature on energy. Furthermore, as far as a thermalized log-oscillator is concerned, our calculation based on the canonical ensemble average shows that the generalized equipartition theorem is broken if the temperature is higher than a critical temperature. Finally, we show that log-oscillators fail to serve as thermostats for their incapability of maintaining a nonequilibrium steady state even though their energy is appropriately assigned.