  We consider the adiabatic and quasi-static compression of a dilute classical
gas, confined in a piston and initially equilibrated with a heat bath. We find
that the work performed during this process is described statistically by a
gamma distribution. We use this result to show that the model satisfies the
non-equilibrium work and fluctuation theorems, but not the
flucutation-dissipation relation. We discuss the rare but dominant realizations
that contribute most to the exponential average of the work, and relate our
results to potentially universal work distributions.
