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After presenting possible motives for fighting against the second law of thermodynamics, several attempts to beat this law are analyzed. The second law wins, but an interesting interpretation of it emerges. This interpretation uses the…

adap-org · Physics 2015-06-30 Jorge Berger

The realization of efficient micro-machines built from active matter requires precise thermodynamic control far from equilibrium. Despite theoretical progress, the focus on single-parameter driving, coupled with strict theoretical…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-03-18 Luke K. Davis

Work can be extracted from a single heat bath if additional information is available. For the paradigmatic case of a Brownian particle in a harmonic potential, whose position has been measured with finite precision, we determine the optimal…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2011-03-24 D. Abreu , U. Seifert

We propose some algorithms to find local minima in nonconvex optimization and to obtain global minima in some degree from the Newton Second Law without friction. With the key observation of the velocity observable and controllable in the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-10-17 Bin Shi

We study global optimization of non-convex functions through optimal control theory. Our main result establishes that (quasi-)optimal trajectories of a discounted control problem converge globally and practically asymptotically to the set…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-17 Yuyang Huang , Dante Kalise , Hicham Kouhkouh

We show that systems with negative specific heat can violate the zeroth law of thermodynamics. By both numerical simulations and by using exact expressions for free energy and microcanonical entropy it is shown that if two systems with the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2009-11-13 A. Ramirez-Hernandez , H. Larralde , F. Leyvraz

We design optimal harmonic-trap trajectories to transport cold atoms without final excitation, combining an inverse engineering techniqe based on Lewis-Riesenfeld invariants with optimal control theory. Since actual traps are not really…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2011-11-08 Xi Chen , E. Torrontegui , Dionisis Stefanatos , Jr-Shin Li , J. G. Muga

Thermodynamics is commonly presented as a theory of macroscopic systems in stable equilibrium, built upon assumptions of extensivity and scaling with system size. In this paper, we present a universal formulation of the elementary…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-26 Gian Paolo Beretta

We reconsider a well-known relationship between the fluctuation theorem and the second law of thermodynamics by evaluating a probability measure-valued process. In order to establish a bridge between microscopic and macroscopic behaviors,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-03-19 Yuki Sughiyama , Masayuki Ohzeki

Optimizing the energy efficiency of driving processes provides valuable insights into the underlying physics and is of crucial importance for numerous applications, from biological processes to the design of machines and robots. Knowledge…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-04-02 Sarah A. M. Loos , Samuel Monter , Felix Ginot , Clemens Bechinger

We initially prepare a quantum linear oscillator weakly coupled to a bath in equilibrium at an arbitrary temperature. We disturb this system by varying a Hamiltonian parameter of the coupled oscillator, namely, either its spring constant or…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-05-27 Ilki Kim

Recently, there has been a considerable progress on the issue of the thermodynamic second law, which is known as the law of entropy increase or irreversibility. In particular, a novel symmetry known as the Gallavotti-Cohen symmetry is found…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2018-08-01 Hyunggyu Park

Controlling the evolution of nonequilibrium systems to minimize dissipated heat or work is a key goal for designing nanodevices, both in nanotechnology and biology. Progress in computing optimal protocols has thus far been limited to either…

Computational Physics · Physics 2022-01-04 Megan C. Engel , Jamie A. Smith , Michael P. Brenner

Two-state models provide phenomenological descriptions of many different systems, ranging from physics to chemistry and biology. We investigate work fluctuations in an ensemble of two-state systems driven out of equilibrium under the action…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2009-11-10 F. Ritort

A thermodynamic system is driven into a nonequilibrium condition when a time-dependent force or a nonconservative force represented by a protocol $\lambda(t)$ is applied. Such a system is time irreversible in the sense that the motion under…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2014-06-03 Jae Dong Noh

We study the tracking of a trajectory for a nonholonomic system by recasting the problem as a constrained optimal control problem. The cost function is chosen to minimize the error in positions and velocities between the trajectory of a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-01-29 Leonardo J. Colombo , David Martín de Diego , Aradhana Nayak , Rodrigo T. Sato Martín de Almagro

Isoenergetic thermalization amongst $n$ bodies is a well-known irreversible process, bringing the bodies to a common temperature $T_F$ and leading to a rise in the total entropy of the bodies. We express this change in entropy using the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2024-11-07 Vansh Narang , Renuka Rai , Ramandeep S. Johal

The integrable system is constrained strictly by the conservation law during the time evolution, and the nearly integrable system or nonintegrable system is also constrained by the conserved parameters (like the constants of motion) with…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-11-10 Chen-Huan Wu

Advances in experimental techniques enable the precise manipulation of a large variety of active systems, which constantly dissipate energy to sustain nonequilibrium phenomena without any equilibrium equivalent. To design novel materials…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-06-03 Artur Soriani , Elsen Tjhung , Étienne Fodor , Tomer Markovich

Optimal transport has emerged as a fundamental methodology with applications spanning multiple research areas in recent years. However, the convergence rate of the empirical estimator to its population counterpart suffers from the curse of…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-10-06 Jiaping Yang , Yunxin Zhang