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A major part of the many thermally driven processes in our natural environment as well as in engineering solutions of Carnot-type machinery is based on the second law of thermodynamics (or principle of entropy increase). An interesting link…

Brownian motors, i.e. devices able to produce useful work out of thermal forces with the help of other unbiased forces, provide an ideal benchmark for the investigation of quantum dissipative systems, for two reasons. First, the interaction…

Optimisation of heat engines at the micro-scale has applications in biological and artificial nano-technology, and stimulates theoretical research in non-equilibrium statistical physics. Here we consider non-interacting overdamped particles…

Most computer simulations of molecular dynamics take place under equilibrium conditions--in a closed, isolated system, or perhaps one held at constant temperature or pressure. Sometimes, extra tensions, shears, or temperature gradients are…

Examples of self propulsion in strongly fluctuating environment is abound in nature, e.g., molecular motors and pumps operating in living cells. Starting from Langevin equation of motion, we develop a fluctuating thermodynamic description…

The rectification of noise into directed movement or useful energy is utilized by many different systems. The peculiar nature of the energy source and conceptual differences between such Brownian motor systems makes a characterization of…

Recent advances in experimental control of colloidal systems have spurred a revolution in the production of mesoscale thermodynamic devices. Functional "textbook" engines, such as the Stirling and Carnot cycles, have been produced in…

Coupling is a widely used technique in the theoretical study of interacting stochastic processes. In this paper I present an example demonstrating its usefulness also in the efficient computer simulation of such processes. I first describe…

We measure the energy exchanged between two hydrodynamically coupled micron-sized Brownian particles trapped in water by two optical tweezers. The system is driven out of equilibrium by random forcing the position of one of the two…

This work obtains the efficiency at maximum power for a stochastic heat engine performing Carnot-like, Stirling-like and Ericsson-like cycles. For the mesoscopic engine a Brownian particle trapped by an optical tweezers is considered. The…

In this study, we advance the understanding of non-equilibrium systems by deriving thermodynamic relations for a heat engine operating under an exponentially decreasing temperature profile. Such thermal configurations closely mimic…

We have performed an extensive analysis of a single particle stochastic heat engine constructed by manipulating a Brownian particle in a time dependent harmonic potential. The cycle consists of two isothermal steps at different temperatures…

Catalysis-driven synthetic molecular motors operate in a loose mechanochemical coupling regime, one in which a decomposition of a fuel molecule does not reliably produce a forward step. In that regime, stochastic backward steps can…

The study of thermal heat engines was pivotal to establishing the principles of equilibrium thermodynamics, with implications far wider than only engine optimization. For nonequilibrium systems, which by definition dissipate energy even at…

The area of stochastic heat engines using active particles has attracted a lot of attention recently. They have been shown to exhibit advantages over engines using passive particles. In this work, we use multiple self-propelling particles…

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…

Brownian rotors play an important role in biological systems and in future nano-technological applications. However the mechanisms determining their dynamics, efficiency and performance remain to be characterized. Here the F0 portion of the…

The stochastic driving force exerted by a single molecular motor (e.g., a kinesin, or myosin) moving on a periodic molecular track (microtubule, actin filament, etc.) is discussed from a general viewpoint open to experimental test. An…

We study the dynamic properties of a thermal autonomous machine made up of two quantum Brownian particles, each of which is in contact with an environment at different temperature and moves on a periodic sinusoidal track. When such tracks…

We review theoretical models of individual motility as well as collective dynamics and pattern formation of active particles. We focus on simple models of active dynamics with a particular emphasis on nonlinear and stochastic dynamics of…