Related papers: Thermodynamic cost of external control

Master equation could be applied to model various kinds of biochemical systems. A general theory for its time-dependent nonequilibrium thermodynamics is rigorously derived. We not only introduce a concept of general internal energy, but…

Given an optimal control problem on a heterogeneous body with a periodical structure of particles depending on a small parameter e, we study the asymptotic behavior, as e converges to zero, of the optimal control functional and the optimal…

We investigate a microscopic motor based on an externally controlled two-level system. One cycle of the motor operation consists of two strokes. Within each stroke, the two-level system is in contact with a given thermal bath and its energy…

We consider the entropy production of a strongly coupled bipartite system. The total entropy production can be partitioned into various components, which we use to define local versions of the Second Law that are valid without the usual…

Time-asymmetric behavior as embodied in the second law of thermodynamics is observed in {\it individual macroscopic} systems. It can be understood as arising naturally from time-symmetric microscopic laws when account is taken of a) the…

This paper is a non-technical, informal presentation of our theory of the second law of thermodynamics as a law that is independent of statistical mechanics and that is derivable solely from certain simple assumptions about adiabatic…

The observed general time-asymmetric behavior of macroscopic systems -- embodied in the second law of thermodynamics -- arises naturally from time-symmetric microscopic laws due to the great disparity between macro and micro-scales. More…

Based only on classical Hamiltonian dynamics, we prove the maximum work principle in a system where macroscopic dynamical degrees of freedom are intrinsically coupled to microscopic degrees of freedom. Unlike recent identities between…

For a single enzyme or molecular motor operating in an aqueous solution of non-equilibrated solute concentrations, a thermodynamic description is developed on the level of an individual trajectory of transitions between states. The concept…

In recent years we have witnessed a concentrated effort to make sense of thermodynamics for small-scale systems. One of the main difficulties is to capture a suitable notion of work that models realistically the purpose of quantum machines,…

Microscopic machines utilize free energy to create and maintain out-of-equilibrium organization in virtually all living things. Often this takes the form of converting the free energy stored in nonequilibrium chemical potential differences…

It is well-known in thermodynamics that the creation of correlations costs work. It seems then a truism that if a thermodynamic transformation A->B is impossible, so will be any transformation that in sending A to B also correlates among…

The minimal set of thermodynamic control parameters consists of a statistical (thermal) and a mechanical one. These suffice to introduce all the pertinent thermodynamic variables; thermodynamic processes can then be defined as paths on this…

The possibility of a controlled manipulation with molecules at the nanoscale allows us to gain net work from thermal energy, although this seems to be in contradiction to the Second Law of thermodynamics. Any manipulation, however, causes…

Biomolecular systems like molecular motors or pumps, transcription and translation machinery, and other enzymatic reactions can be described as Markov processes on a suitable network. We show quite generally that in a steady state the…

There are many exotic thermodynamic processes that are hard to study in nature. Here, we synthesize a structured environment to explore the extremes of thermodynamics. We present an engine running at extreme temperatures of above ten…

In the present work, we study the entropy productions in a system controlled by double control parameters. By introducing a thermal fluctuation part, we solve the problem that the second law of the thermodynamics seems to be violated by the…

Although the third law of thermodynamics was established almost a century ago, it is not yet universally considered to be a fundamental law of physics. A major problem is that there are many materials having residual entropy. Amorphous…

Measurements --- interactions which establish correlations between a system and a recording device --- can be made thermodynamically reversible. One might be concerned that such reversibility will make the second law of thermodynamics…

Thermoelectric efficiency is defined as the ratio of power delivered to the load of a device to the rate of heat flow from the source. Till date, it has been studied in presence of thermodynamic constraints set by the Onsager reciprocal…