Related papers: Beyond Linear Response: Equivalence between Thermo…
A deeper understanding of nonequilibrium phenomena is needed to reveal the principles governing natural and synthetic molecular machines. Recent work has shown that when a thermodynamic system is driven from equilibrium then, in the linear…
A general understanding of optimal control in non-equilibrium systems would illuminate the operational principles of biological and artificial nanoscale machines. Recent work has shown that a system driven out of equilibrium by a linear…
Controlling thermodynamic cycles to minimize the dissipated heat is a longstanding goal in thermodynamics, and more recently, a central challenge in stochastic thermodynamics for nanoscale systems. Here, we introduce a theoretical and…
A fundamental problem in modern thermodynamics is how a molecular-scale machine performs useful work, while operating away from thermal equilibrium without excessive dissipation. To this end, we derive a friction tensor that induces a…
A common approach to quantify excess dissipation in slowly driven thermodynamic processes is through the use of a Riemannian metric on the space of control parameters, where optimal driving protocols follow geodesics. Near phase…
We explore the thermodynamic geometry of a simple system that models the bistable dynamics of nucleic acid hairpins in single molecule force-extension experiments. Near equilibrium, optimal (minimum-dissipation) driving protocols are…
Optimal control of stochastic systems plays a central role in nonequilibrium physics, with applications in the study of biological molecular motors and the design of single-molecule experiments. While exact analytic solutions to…
Thermodynamics of small systems has become an important field of statistical physics. They are driven out of equilibrium by a control, and the question is naturally posed how such a control can be optimized. We show that optimization…
A central goal of thermodynamics is to identify optimal processes during which the least amount of energy is dissipated into the environment. Generally, even for simple systems, such as the parametric harmonic oscillator, optimal control…
We propose a geometric theory of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, namely geometric thermodynamics, using our recent developments of differential-geometric aspects of entropy production rate in non-equilibrium thermodynamics. By revisiting…
Nonequilibrium thermal machines under cyclic driving generally outperform steady-state counterparts. However, there is still lack of coherent understanding of versatile transport and fluctuation features under time modulations. Here, we…
Accelerating controlled thermodynamic processes requires an auxiliary Hamiltonian to steer the system into instantaneous equilibrium states. An extra energy cost is inevitably needed in such finite-time operation. We recently develop a…
Constructing optimal thermodynamic processes in quantum systems relies on managing the balance between the average excess work and its stochastic fluctuations. Recently it has been shown that two different quantum generalisations of…
Optimal processes in stochastic thermodynamics are a frontier for understanding the control and design of non-equilibrium systems, with broad practical applications in biology, chemistry, and nanoscale/mesoscale systems. Optimal mass…
The complete physical understanding of the optimization of the thermodynamic work still is an important open problem in stochastic thermodynamics. We address this issue using the Hamiltonian approach of linear response theory in finite time…
Thermoelectric metamaterials featuring width modulation through constrictions (constricted geometries) have emerged as a promising approach for improving heat management and thermoelectric performance. Through a combination of theoretical…
We analyze state preparation within a restricted space of local control parameters between adiabatically connected states of control Hamiltonians. We formulate a conjecture that the time integral of energy fluctuations over the protocol…
What are the fundamental limitations placed by the laws of thermodynamics on the energy expenditure needed to carry out a given task in a nonequilibrium environment in finite time? In this thesis, we investigate "optimal nonequilibrium…
Nonequilibrium physics encompasses a broad range of natural and synthetic small-scale systems. Optimizing transitions of such systems will be crucial for the development of nanoscale technologies and may reveal the physical principles…
In this work we explore the use of thermodynamic length to improve the performance of experimental protocols. In particular, we implement Landauer erasure on a driven electron level in a semiconductor quantum dot, and compare the standard…