Related papers: Do Nonequilibrium Processes Have Features in Commo…
The minimum work principle states that work done on a thermally isolated equilibrium system is minimal for the adiabatically slow (reversible) realization of a given process. This principle, one of the formulations of the second law, is…
Meixner's historical remark in 1969 "... it can be shown that the concept of entropy in the absence of equilibrium is in fact not only questionable but that it cannot even be defined...." is investigated from today's insight. Several…
The thermodynamic definition of entropy can be extended to nonequilibrium systems based on its relation to information. To apply this definition in practice requires access to the physical system's microstates, which may be prohibitively…
The local entropy of a nonequilibrium system of independent fermions is investigated, and analyzed in the context of the laws of thermodynamics. It is shown that the local temperature and chemical potential can only be expressed in terms of…
We have derived a universal relaxation function for heterogeneous materials using the maximum entropy principle for nonextensive systems. The power law exponents of the relaxation function are simply related to a global fractal parameter…
One of the main issues that real energy converters present, when they produce effective work, is the inevitable entropy production. Within the context of Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics, entropy production tends to energetically degrade…
The rate of entropy production by a stochastic process quantifies how far it is from thermodynamic equilibrium. Equivalently, entropy production captures the degree to which detailed balance and time-reversal symmetry are broken. Despite…
We generalize the second law of thermodynamics in its maximum work formulation for a nonequilibrium initial distribution. It is found that in an isothermal process, the Boltzmann relative entropy (H-function) is not just a Lyapunov function…
Nonequilibrium processes of small systems such as molecular machines are ubiquitous in biology, chemistry and physics, but are often challenging to comprehend. In the past two decades, several exact thermodynamic relations of nonequilibrium…
In recent work, Baez, Fong and the author introduced a framework for describing Markov processes equipped with a detailed balanced equilibrium as open systems of a certain type. These `open Markov processes' serve as the building blocks for…
There are only a very few known relations in statistical dynamics that are valid for systems driven arbitrarily far-from-equilibrium. One of these is the fluctuation theorem, which places conditions on the entropy production probability…
Thermodynamics is usually developed starting from entropy and the maximum entropy principle. We investigate here to what extent one can replace entropy with relative entropy which has several advantages, for example in the context of local…
A generalization of the Gibbs entropy postulate is proposed based on the BBGKY hierarchy as the nonequilibrium entropy for a system of N interacting particles. This entropy satisfies the basic principles of thermodynamics in the sense that…
The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of entropy in irreversible adiabatic processes that take one equilibrium state to another. The entropy…
In an essential and quite general setup, based on networks, we identify Schnakenberg's observables as the constraints that prevent a system from relaxing to equilibrium, showing that, in the linear regime, steady states satisfy a minimum…
Although the third law of thermodynamics was established almost a century ago, it is not yet universally considered to be a fundamental law of physics. A major problem is that there are many materials having residual entropy. Amorphous…
The Earth, like other planets with a relatively thick atmosphere, is not locally in radiative equilibrium and the transport of energy by the geophysical fluids (atmosphere and ocean) plays a fundamental role in determining its climate.…
We propose an extension of the principle of virtual work of mechanics to random dynamics of mechanical systems. The total virtual work of the interacting forces and inertial forces on every particle of the system is calculated by…
Starting from the most general formulation of stochastic thermodynamics---i.e. a thermodynamically consistent nonautonomous stochastic dynamics describing systems in contact with several reservoirs---, we define a procedure to identify the…
Fluctuations of observables as functions of time, or "fluctuation patterns", are studied in a chaotic microscopically reversible system that has irreversibly reached a nonequilibrium stationary state. Supposing that during a certain, long…