Related papers: Thermodynamics, entropy and waterwheels
We present a geometric formalism for the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of a small system coupled to external isothermal reservoirs as an application of Thouless pumping, where the electrochemical potentials of the reservoirs and parameters…
Thermodynamics originated in the need to understand novel technologies developed by the Industrial Revolution. However, over the centuries the description of engines, refrigerators, thermal accelerators, and heaters has become so abstract…
The usual discussions about black hole dynamics involve analogies with laws of thermodynamics especially in connection with black hole entropy and the associated holographic principle. We explore complementary aspects involving…
In systems with detailed balance, the stationary distribution and the equilibrium distribution are identical, creating a clear connection between energetic and entropic quantities. Many driven systems violate detailed balance and still pose…
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…
We provide here a thermodynamic analog of the Braess road-network paradox with irreversible engines working between reservoirs that are placed at vertices of the network. Paradoxes of different kinds reappear, emphasizing the specialty of…
Do negative absolute temperatures matter physics and specifically Statistical Physics? We provide evidence that we can certainly answer positively to this vexata quaestio. The great majority of models investigated by statistical mechanics…
The limit of small entropy production is reached in relaxing systems long after preparation, and in stationary driven systems in the limit of small driving power. Surprisingly, for extended systems this limit is not in general the…
We examine hydrodynamics from the perspective of an effective field theory. The microscopic scale in this case is the thermalization scale, and the macroscopic scale is the gradient, with thermal fluctuations playing the role of $\hbar$. We…
Consider briefly the equations of fluid dynamics-they describe the enormous wealth of detail in all the interacting physical elements of a fluid flow-whereas in applications we want to deal with a description of just that which is…
We consider a quantum engine driven by repeated weak interactions with a heat bath of identical three-level atoms. This model was first introduced by Scully et al. [Science, 2003], who showed that coherence between the energy-degenerate…
The inexorable miniaturisation of technologies, the relentless drive to improve efficiency and the enticing prospect of boosting performance through quantum effects are all compelling reasons to investigate microscopic machines. Thermal…
We compute the entropy reduction in feedback controlled systems due to the repeated operation of the controller. This was the lacking ingredient to establish the thermodynamics of these systems, and in particular of Maxwell's demons. We…
Thermodynamic length is a metric distance between equilibrium thermodynamic states that asymptotically bounds the dissipation induced by a finite time transformation of a thermodynamic system. By means of thermodynamic length, we first…
Different notions of entropy play a fundamental role in the classical theory of dynamical systems. Unlike many other concepts used to analyze autonomous dynamics, both measure-theoretic and topological entropy can be extended quite…
The flow of a thermoelectric current through a semiconductor of submicron dimensions is analyzed. The rate of surface relaxation of the energy is assumed to be much higher than the rate of electron-electron collisions. Under these…
Information dynamics is an emerging description of information processing in complex systems which describes systems in terms of intrinsic computation, identifying computational primitives of information storage and transfer. In this paper…
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…
The ``flow'' of electric currents and heat in standard metals is diffusive with electronic motion randomized by impurities. However, for ultraclean metals, electrons can flow like water with their flow being described by the equations of…
The paper develops the dynamics and thermodynamics of Stirling engines that run with temperature differences below 100 0C. The working gas pressure is analytically expressed using an alternative thermodynamic cycle. The shaft dynamics is…