Related papers: The non-equilibrium work relation. Thermodynamic a…
For macroscopic systems, the second law of thermodynamics establishes an inequality between the amount of work performed on a system in contact with a thermal reservoir, and the change in its free energy. For microscopic systems, this…
We consider the problem of constructing a thermodynamic theory of non-equilibrium steady states as a formal extension of the equilibrium theory. Specifically, studying a particular system, we attempt to construct a phenomenological theory…
We reconsider a well-known relationship between the fluctuation theorem and the second law of thermodynamics by evaluating a probability measure-valued process. In order to establish a bridge between microscopic and macroscopic behaviors,…
I review basic concepts in the nonequilibrium physics of small systems, emphasizing single molecule experiments and how they contribute to expanding our current understanding of energy and information.
Small thermodynamic systems exhibit peculiar behavior different from that observed in long-scale systems. Non-equilibrium processes taking place in those systems are strongly influenced by the presence of fluctuations which can be large.…
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…
Bridging equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical physics attracts sustained interest. Hallmarks of nonequilibrium systems include a breakdown of detailed balance, and an absence of a priori potential function corresponding to the…
Thermodynamics is a well developed tool to study systems in equilibrium but no such general framework is available for non-equilibrium processes. Only hope for a quantitative description is to fall back upon the equilibrium language as…
This paper shows how mesoscopic nonequilibrium thermodynamics can be applied to condensation and evaporation. By extending the normal set of thermodynamic variables with two internal variables, we are able to give a new theoretical…
Nonequilibrium thermodynamics has shown its applicability in a wide variety of different situations pertaining to fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. As successful as it is, however, its current formulation…
We use the work done on and the heat removed from a system to maintain it in a nonequilibrium steady state for a thermodynamic-like description of such a system as well as of its fluctuations. Based on a generalized Onsager-Machlup theory…
The concept of work is basic for statistical thermodynamics. To gain a fuller understanding of work and its (quantum) features, it needs to be represented as an average of a fluctuating quantity. Here I focus on the work done between two…
We consider a macroscopic system in contact with boundary reservoirs and/or under the action of an external field. We discuss the case in which the external forcing depends explicitly on time and drives the system from a nonequilibrium…
Thermodynamics is commonly presented as a theory of macroscopic systems in stable equilibrium, built upon assumptions of extensivity and scaling with system size. In this paper, we present a universal formulation of the elementary…
In this paper, we extend Gibbs's approach of quasi-equilibrium thermodynamic processes, and calculate the microscopic expression of entropy for general non-equilibrium thermodynamic processes. Also, we analyze the formal structure of…
We study thermodynamic operations which bring a nonequilibrium steady state (NESS) to another NESS in physical systems under nonequilibrium conditions. We model the system by a suitable Markov jump process, and treat thermodynamic…
In this paper we give a pedagogical introduction to the ideas of quantum thermodynamics and work fluctuations, using only basic concepts from quantum and statistical mechanics. After reviewing the concept of work, as usually taught in…
We show that the recently postulated non-standard definition of work proportional to force variation rather than to displacement [A. Imparato and L. Peliti, cond-mat arXiv:0706.1134v1] is thermodynamically inconsistent at both microscopic…
The concept of work is studied in quantum thermostatistics of a system surrounded by an environment and driven by an external force. It is found that there emerges the gauge theoretical structure in a nonequilibrium process, the field of…
Nonequilibrium work-Hamiltonian connection for a microstate plays a central role in diverse branches of statistical thermodynamics (fluctuation theorems, quantum thermodynamics, stochastic thermodynamics, etc.). We show that the change in…