Related papers: A general theory for irreversible thermodynamics
I argue here that both the first and second laws of thermodynamics, generally understood to be quintessentially physical in nature, can be equally well described as being about certain types of information without the need to invoke…
This is a general description of a probabilistic formalism of mechanics, i.e., an extension of the Newtonian mechanics principles to the systems undergoing random motion. From an analysis of the induction procedure from experimental data to…
An irreversible thermodynamical theory of solids is presented where the kinematic quantities are defined in an automatically objective way. Namely, auxiliary elements like reference frame, reference time and reference configuration are…
The dynamics of irreversible relaxation of non-equilibrium macroscopic systems is discussed. Arguments are developed showing that the general process is supported by two independent successive mechanisms. One is mixing and it follows pure…
We show that the equations which describe irreversible evolution of a system can be derived from a variational principle. We suggest a Lagrangian, which depends on the properties of the normal and the so-called "mirror-image" system. The…
Thermodynamics is based on the notions of energy and entropy. While energy is the elementary quantity governing physical dynamics, entropy is the fundamental concept in information theory. In this work, starting from first principles, we…
Equilibrium thermodynamics is combined with Jarzynski's irreversible work theorem to quantify the excess entropy produced by irreversible processes. The resulting rectified form of the second law parallels the first law, in the sense that…
The historical development of the Carnot cycle necessitated the construction of isothermal and adiabatic pathways within the cycle that were also mechanically "reversible" which lead eventually to the Kelvin-Clausius development of the…
From a viewpoint of stochastic thermodynamics, we derive equations that describe the collective dynamics near the order-disorder transition in the globally coupled XY model and near the synchronization-desynchronization transition in the…
Many fruitful analogies have emerged between the theories of quantum entanglement and thermodynamics, motivating the pursuit of an axiomatic description of entanglement akin to the laws of thermodynamics. A long-standing open problem has…
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…
The resource theory of thermal operations, an established model for small-scale thermodynamics, provides an extension of equilibrium thermodynamics to nonequilibrium situations. On a lattice of any dimension with any translation-invariant…
A major part of the many thermally driven processes in our natural environment as well as in engineering solutions of Carnot-type machinery is based on the second law of thermodynamics (or principle of entropy increase). An interesting link…
It is a central question in quantum thermodynamics to determine how irreversible is a process that transforms an initial state $\rho$ to a final state $\sigma$, and whether such irreversibility can be thought of as a useful resource. For…
We consider a Brownian particle which, in addition to being in contact with a thermal bath, is driven by fluctuating forces which stem from active processes in the system, such as self-propulsion or collisions with other active particles.…
The principle of covariance, a cornerstone of modern physics, asserts the equivalence of all inertial frames of reference. Fluctuation theorems, as extensions of the second law of thermodynamics, establish universal connections between…
A general quantum theory encompassing Mechanics, Thermodynamics and irreversible dynamics is presented in two parts. The first part is concerned exclusively with the description of the states of any individual physical system. It is based…
This paper presents a unified formulation of the origin of the arrow of time in classical and quantum mechanics. We begin with a mechanical analysis of a one-dimensional three-particle system, which provides a concrete example in which…
We present some novel thermodynamic ideas based on the Maupertuis principle. By considering Hamiltonians written in terms of appropriate action-angle variables we show that thermal states can be characterized by the action variables and by…
Thermodynamics allows the application of Statistical Mechanics to finite and even small systems. As surface effects cannot be scaled away, one has to be careful with the standard arguments of splitting a system into two or bringing two…