Related papers: Thermodynamics of complexity and pattern manipulat…
Information engines can use structured environments as a resource to generate work by randomizing ordered inputs and leveraging the increased Shannon entropy to transfer energy from a thermal reservoir to a work reservoir. We give a broadly…
The determination of environmentally- and economically-optimal energy system designs and operations is complex. In particular, the integration of weather-dependent renewable energy technologies into energy system optimization models…
Self-organization creates new order and shifts sub-boundaries while reorganizing energy and entropy within a control volume. This article examines pathway selection and tests whether maximizing the entropy generation rate can forecast…
We develop a physics-based model for classical computation based on autonomous quantum thermal machines. These machines consist of few interacting quantum bits (qubits) connected to several environments at different temperatures. Heat flows…
Thermodynamics and information have intricate interrelations. Often thermodynamics is considered to be the logical premise to justify that information is physical - through Landauer's principle -, thereby also linking information and…
We define thermodynamic configurations and identify two primitives of discrete quantum processes between configurations for which heat and work can be defined in a natural way. This allows us to uncover a general second law for any discrete…
This Colloquium is a fast journey through the build-up of key thermodynamical concepts, i.e. work, heat and irreversibility -- and how they relate to information. Born at the time of industrial revolution to optimize the exploitation of…
In traditional thermodynamical and statistical-mechanical approaches one has (some) detailed knowledge of the principles governing the microdynamics of a system. However in many instances we may not have a Hamiltonian or good information…
Patterns are ubiquitous in nature, but how they form is often unclear. Turing developed a seminal theory to explain patterns based on reactions that counteract the equalizing tendency of diffusion. These reactions require continuous energy…
In the theoretical modelling of a physical system a crucial step consists in the identification of those degrees of freedom that enable a synthetic, yet informative representation of it. While in some cases this selection can be carried out…
Thermodynamics (in concert with its sister discipline, statistical physics) can be regarded as a data reduction scheme based on partitioning a total system into a subsystem and a bath that weakly interact with each other. The ubiquity and…
Interest in the thermodynamics of computation has revived in recent years, driven by developments in science, economics and technology. Given the consequences of the growing demand for computational power, the idea of reducing the energy…
Thermodynamics and information have intricate inter-relations. The justification of the fact that information is physical, is done by inter-linking information and thermodynamics - through Landauer's principle. This modern approach towards…
Computational mechanics is a method for discovering, describing and quantifying patterns, using tools from statistical physics. It constructs optimal, minimal models of stochastic processes and their underlying causal structures. These…
A stochastic system under the influence of a stochastic environment is correlated with both present and future states of the environment. Such a system can be seen as implicitly implementing a predictive model of future environmental…
I study the physical nature of traces (or memories). Surprisingly, (i) systems separation with (ii) temperature differences and (iii) long thermalization times, are sufficient conditions to produce macroscopic traces. Traces of the past are…
Experimental data bases are typically very large and high dimensional. To learn from them requires to recognize important features (a pattern), often present at scales different to that of the recorded data. Following the experience…
In this study, we advance the understanding of non-equilibrium systems by deriving thermodynamic relations for a heat engine operating under an exponentially decreasing temperature profile. Such thermal configurations closely mimic…
Thermodynamics of nanoscale devices is an active area of research. Despite their noisy surrounding they often produce mechanical work (e.g. micro-heat engines), display rectified Brownian motion (e.g. molecular motors). This invokes…
Biological and engineered systems operate by coupling function to the transfer of heat and/or particles down a thermal or chemical gradient. In idealized \textit{deterministically} driven systems, thermodynamic control can be exerted…