Related papers: Optimal protocols for minimal work processes in un…
We present an analysis of the work performed on a system of interest that is kept thermally isolated during the switching of a control parameter. We show that there exists, for a certain class of systems, a finite-time family of switching…
Starting from the stochastic thermodynamics description of two coupled underdamped Brownian particles, we showcase and compare three different coarse-graining schemes leading to an effective thermodynamic description for the first of the…
In conventional thermodynamics, it is widely acknowledged that the realization of an isothermal process for a system requires a quasi-static controlling protocol. Here we propose and design a strategy to realize a finite-rate isothermal…
We present and characterize a method to accelerate the relaxation of a Brownian object between two distinct equilibrium states. Instead of relying on a deterministic time-dependent control parameter, we use stochastic resetting to guide and…
While optimal control theory offers effective strategies for minimizing energetic costs in noisy microscopic systems over finite durations, a significant opportunity lies in exploiting the temporal structure of non-equilibrium forces. We…
We study the problem of minimising the connection time between non-equilibrium steady states of the Brownian Gyrator. This is a paradigmatic model in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, an overdamped Brownian particle trapped in a…
We review a series of experimental studies of the thermodynamics of nonequilibrium processes at the microscale. In particular, in these experiments we studied the fluctuations of the thermodynamic properties of a single optically-trapped…
Thermodynamics of small systems has become an important field of statistical physics. They are driven out of equilibrium by a control, and the question is naturally posed how such a control can be optimized. We show that optimization…
Measurement and feedback allows an external agent to extract work from a system in contact with a single thermal bath. The maximum amount of work that can be extracted in a single measurement and the corresponding feedback loop is given by…
Nonequilibrium physics encompasses a broad range of natural and synthetic small-scale systems. Optimizing transitions of such systems will be crucial for the development of nanoscale technologies and may reveal the physical principles…
Brownian escape is key to a wealth of physico-chemical processes, including polymer folding, and information storage. The frequency of thermally activated energy barrier crossings is assumed to generally decrease exponentially with…
A system's configurational state can be manipulated using dynamic variation of control parameters, such as temperature, pressure, or magnetic field; for finite-duration driving, excess work is required above the equilibrium free-energy…
Understanding and manipulating work fluctuations in microscale and nanoscale systems are of both fundamental and practical interest. For example, aspects of work fluctuations will be an important factor in designing nanoscale heat engines.…
Extracting useful work from quantum systems is a fundamental problem in quantum thermodynamics. In scenarios where rapid protocols are desired -- whether due to practical constraints or deliberate design choices -- a fundamental trade-off…
We derive an equality for non-equilibrium statistical mechanics in finite-dimensional quantum systems. The equality concerns the worst-case work output of a time-dependent Hamiltonian protocol in the presence of a Markovian heat bath. It…
A formalism based on Pontryagin's maximum principle is applied to determine the time-optimal protocol that drives a general initial state to a target state by a Hamiltonian with limited control, i.e., there is a single control field with…
The piston system (particles in a box) is the simplest and paradigmatic model in traditional thermodynamics. However, the recently established framework of stochastic thermodynamics (ST) fails to apply to this model system due to the…
We analytically solve the finite-time control problem of driving an overdamped particle via an optical trap under costly measurement. By formulating this mesoscopic information engine within the Partially Observable Markov Decision Process…
The context of the present paper is stochastic thermodynamics - an approach to nonequilibrium thermodynamics rooted within the broader framework of stochastic control. In contrast to the classical paradigm of Carnot engines, we herein…
We consider a Brownian particle in harmonic confinement of stiffness $k$, in one dimension in the underdamped regime. The whole setup is immersed in a heat bath at temperature $T$. The center of harmonic trap is dragged under any arbitrary…