Related papers: Non-equilibrium Dynamics, Thermalization and Entro…
The von Neumann entropy production for a quantum mechanical kicked rotor coupled to a thermal environment is calculated. This rate of entropy increase is shown to be a good criterion to distinguish between quantum mechanical counterparts of…
We show how statistical thermodynamics can be formulated in situations in which thermodynamics applies, while equilibrium statistical mechanics does not. A typical case is, in the words of Landau and Lifshitz, that of partial (or…
Far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics underpins the emergence of life, but how has been a long-outstanding puzzle. Best candidate theories based on the maximum entropy production principle could not be unequivocally proven, in part due to…
The Markovian evolution of an open quantum system is characterized by a positive entropy production, while the global entropy gets redistributed between the system and the environment degrees of freedom. Starting from these premises, we…
We give meaning to the first and second laws of thermodynamics in case of mesoscopic out-of-equilibrium systems which are driven by diffusion processes. The notion of the entropy production is analyzed. The role of the Helmholtz extremum…
Various notions of fluctuations exist depending on the way one chooses to measure them. We discuss two extreme cases (continuous measurement versus long inter-measurement times) and we see their relation with entropy production and with…
A generalized fluctuation-response relation is found for thermal systems driven out of equilibrium. Its derivation is independent of many details of the dynamics, which is only required to be first-order. The result gives a correction to…
Traditional thermodynamics governs the behaviour of large systems that evolve between states of thermal equilibrium. For these large systems, the mean values of thermodynamic quantities (such as work, heat and entropy) provide a good…
Statistical formulations of thermodynamic entropy, such as those by Boltzmann and Gibbs, were originally developed for classical systems and are well understood in that context. However, the foundational aspects of quantum statistical…
The minimum entropy production principle provides an approximative variational characterization of close-to-equilibrium stationary states, both for macroscopic systems and for stochastic models. Analyzing the fluctuations of the empirical…
Quantum thermodynamics has emerged as a central field for understanding how energy conversion processes occur in microscopic systems. In these systems, effects such as coherence, entanglement, and non-Markovianity play key roles. In this…
Small systems in contact with a heat bath evolve by stochastic dynamics. Here we show that, when one such small system is weakly coupled to another one, it is possible to infer the presence of such weak coupling by observing the violation…
We study the internal dynamics of an elementary quantum system placed close to a body held at a temperature different from that of the surrounding radiation. We derive general expressions for lifetime and density matrix valid for bodies of…
The characterization of irreversibility in general quantum processes is an open problem of increasing techno- logical relevance. Yet, the tools currently available to this aim are mostly limited to the assessment of dynamics induced by…
In this paper we investigate the applicability of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics to non-equilibrium damage phenomena. As an example, a fiber-bundle model with thermal noise and a fiber-bundle model with decay of fibers are…
We derive a formula for the nonequilibrium entropy of a classical stochastic field in terms of correlation functions of this field. The formalism is then applied to define the entropy of gravitational perturbations (both gravitational waves…
Entropy production provides a general way to state the second law of thermodynamics for non-equilibrium scenarios. In open quantum system dynamics, it also serves as a useful quantifier of the degree of irreversibility. In this work we shed…
Classical thermodynamics is built with the concept of equilibrium states. However, it is less clear how equilibrium thermodynamics emerges through the dynamics that follows the principle of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we develop a…
A simple expression for the non-equilibrium distribution function in ultra-fast transient processes is proposed. Postulating its dependence on temporal derivatives of the equilibrium integrals of motion, non-equilibrium analogues of the…
Entropy production is a universal measure of irreversibility and energy dissipation in physical, chemical, and biological systems operating far from equilibrium. However, quantifying and spatiotemporally localising it in complex processes…