Related papers: Stochastic control in microscopic nonequilibrium s…
Physical systems driven away from equilibrium by an external controller dissipate heat to the environment; the excess entropy production in the thermal reservoir can be interpreted as a "cost" to transform the system in a finite time. The…
We develop the stochastic approach to thermodynamics based on the stochastic dynamics, which can be discrete (master equation) continuous (Fokker-Planck equation), and on two assumptions concerning entropy. The first is the definition of…
The development of efficient artificial nanodevices poses challenges which are of fundamental and technological nature. Recent progress has been made in the context of finite-time thermodynamics. A central question in finite-time…
While optimal control theory offers effective strategies for minimizing energetic costs in noisy microscopic systems over finite durations, a significant opportunity lies in exploiting the temporal structure of non-equilibrium forces. We…
Stochastic thermodynamics is a framework for describing non-equilibrium processes at the level of fluctuating trajectories, where the state of a system evolves as a stochastic time series, allowing thermodynamic quantities such as work,…
In this paper we present a self-contained macroscopic description of diffusive systems interacting with boundary reservoirs and under the action of external fields. The approach is based on simple postulates which are suggested by a wide…
Artificial molecular machines are often driven by the periodic variation of an external parameter. This external control exerts work on the system of which a part can be extracted as output if the system runs against an applied load.…
Active matter generates order or patterns through nonequilibrium dynamics. An open research challenge is to determine how efficiently a nonequilibrium self-organising system can convert consumed energy into macroscopic order. We study an…
The excess work required to drive a stochastic system out of thermodynamic equilibrium through a time-dependent external perturbation is directly related to the amount of entropy produced during the driving process, allowing excess work and…
For systems in an externally controllable time-dependent potential, the optimal protocol minimizes the mean work spent in a finite-time transition between two given equilibrium states. For overdamped dynamics which ignores inertia effects,…
We consider damped stochastic systems in a controlled (time-varying) quadratic potential and study their transition between specified Gibbs-equilibria states in finite time. By the second law of thermodynamics, the minimum amount of work…
This thesis is devoted to the theoretical study of slow thermodynamic processes in non-equilibrium stochastic systems. Its main result is a physically and mathematically consistent construction of relevant thermodynamic quantities in the…
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…
Unlike macroscopic engines, the molecular machinery of living cells is strongly affected by fluctuations. Stochastic Thermodynamics uses Markovian jump processes to model the random transitions between the chemical and configurational…
Optimization of cyclic stochastic heat engines, a topic spanning decades of research, commonly assumes fixed control or response parameters at discrete points in the cycle-a limitation that often leads to experimentally impractical…
The investigation of optimal processes has a long history in the field of thermodynamics. It is well known that finite-time processes that minimize dissipation often exhibit discontinuities. We use a combination of numerical and analytical…
We consider a dynamical system with finitely many equilibria and perturbed by small noise, in addition to being controlled by an `expensive' control. The controlled process is optimal for an ergodic criterion with a running cost that…
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…
It is shown how the macroscopic non-equilibrium dynamics of a class of systems whose microscopic stochastic dynamics involves disordered and frustrated but range-free interactions can be well described by closed deterministic flow…
Time-dependently driven stochastic systems form a vast and manifold class of non-equilibrium systems used to model important applications on small length scales such as bit erasure protocols or microscopic heat engines. One property that…