English

Work Relation and the Second Law of Thermodynamics in Nonequilibrium Steady States

Statistical Mechanics 2012-09-25 v4

Abstract

We extend Jarzynski's work relation and the second law of thermodynamics to a heat conducting system which is operated by an external agent. These extensions contain a new non equilibrium contribution expressed as the violation of the (linear) response relation caused by the operation. We find that a natural extension of the minimum work principle involves information about the time-reversed operation, and is far from straightforward. Our work relation may be tested experimentally especially when the temperature gradient is small.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1109.1374,
  title  = {Work Relation and the Second Law of Thermodynamics in Nonequilibrium Steady States},
  author = {Naoko Nakagawa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1109.1374},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures