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In contrast to the classical concept of a Carnot engine that alternates contact between heat baths of different temperatures, naturally occurring processes usually harvest energy from anisotropy, being exposed simultaneously to chemical and…
Numerical computations have become a pillar of all modern quantitative sciences. Any computation involves modeling--even if often this step is not made explicit--and any model has to neglect details while still being physically accurate.…
The optimization of the conversion of thermal energy into work and the minimization of dissipation for nano- and mesoscopic systems is a complex challenge because of the important role fluctuations play on the dynamics of small systems. We…
This thesis is devoted to the study of physical systems embedded within the field of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. Specifically, the state of the systems of interest constitutes a stochastic process that can be externally driven by…
We study stochastic thermodynamics of over-damped Brownian motion in a flowing fluid. Unlike some previous works, we treat the effects of the flow field as a non-conservational driving force acting on the Brownian particle. This allows us…
We provide a stochastic thermodynamic description across scales for $N$ identical units with all-to-all interactions that are driven away from equilibrium by different reservoirs and external forces. We start at the microscopic level with…
We investigate the thermodynamics as well as the population dynamics of ecosystems based on a stochastic approach in which the number of individuals of the several species of the ecosystem are treated as stochastic variables. The several…
In this paper, we discuss the relationships between capacity of control in entropy theory and intrinsic properties in control theory for a class of finite dimensional stochastic dynamical systems described by a linear stochastic…
Stochastic thermodynamics provides the framework to analyze thermodynamic laws and quantities along individual trajectories of small but fully observable systems. If the observable level fails to capture all relevant degrees of freedom,…
Thermodynamics of nanoscale devices is an active area of research. Despite their noisy surrounding they often produce mechanical work (e.g. micro-heat engines), display rectified Brownian motion (e.g. molecular motors). This invokes…
Optimal control of stochastic nonlinear dynamical systems is a major challenge in the domain of robot learning. Given the intractability of the global control problem, state-of-the-art algorithms focus on approximate sequential optimization…
Application of thermodynamics to driven systems is discussed. As particular examples, simple traffic flow models are considered. On a microscopic level, traffic flow is described by Bando's optimal velocity model in terms of accelerating…
A thermal analogue of the classical brachistochrone problem, which minimizes the connection time between two equilibrium states of harmonically confined Brownian particles, has recently been solved theoretically. Here we report its…
In this paper, we identify a class of time-varying port-Hamiltonian systems that is suitable for studying problems at the intersection of statistical mechanics and control of physical systems. Those port-Hamiltonian systems are able to…
We apply advanced methods of control theory to open quantum systems and we determine finite-time processes which are optimal with respect to thermodynamic performances. General properties and necessary conditions characterizing optimal…
Ability of dynamical systems to relax to equilibrium has been investigated since the invention of statistical mechanics, which establishes the connection between dynamics of many-body Hamiltonian systems and phenomenological thermodynamics.…
Entropy production in stochastic mechanical systems is examined here with strict bounds on its rate. Stochastic mechanical systems include pure diffusions in Euclidean space or on Lie groups, as well as systems evolving on phase space for…
The problem of the insensitivity of the macroscopic behavior of any thermodynamical system to partitioning generates a bias between the reproducibility of its macroscopic behavior viewed as the simplest form of causality and its long-term…
Statistical thermodynamics delivers the probability distribution of the equilibrium state of matter through the constrained maximization of a special functional, entropy. Its elegance and enormous success have led to numerous attempts to…
The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, to make clear (and de-mystify) the basic concepts of classical thermodynamics, and thus to enable the integration of thermodynamics within systems modeling and control. Second, to demonstrate…