Nonequilibrium isothermal transformations in a temperature gradient from a microscopic dynamics

We consider a chain of anharmonic oscillators immersed in a heat bath with a temperature gradient and a time-varying tension applied to one end of the chain while the other side is fixed to a point. We prove that under diffusive space–time rescaling the volume strain distribution of the chain evolves following a nonlinear diffusive equation. The stationary states of the dynamics are of nonequilibrium and have a positive entropy production, so the classical relative entropy methods cannot be used. We develop new estimates based on entropic hypocoercivity, that allow to control the distribution of the position configurations of the chain. The macroscopic limit can be used to model isothermal thermodynamic transformations between nonequilibrium stationary states.