Related papers: The Source of Irreversibility in Macroscopic Dynam…
The irreversibility of the dynamics of the conservative systems on example of hard disks and potentially of interacting elements is investigated in terms of laws of classical mechanics. The equation of the motion of interacting systems and…
A historical perspective is presented on thermodynamics from the pioneering contributions by Carnot and Clausius to recent advances on active matter. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics develops from the identification of the irreversible…
A physical system is called quasi-isolated if it subject to small random uncontrollable perturbations. Such a system is, in general, stochastically unstable. Moreover, its phase-space volume at asymptotically large time expands. This can be…
This paper analyses the turbulent energy cascade from the perspective of statistical mechanics, and relates inter-scale energy fluxes to statistical irreversibility and information-entropy production. The microscopical reversibility of the…
We focus on the study of the processes undergone by a perfect gas when the external pressure is suddenly modified. The analysis shows that, from the second law perspective, there is a non-evident asymmetry between the processes of…
The non-equilibrium dynamics of a one-dimensional Ising model with uniform, short-ranged three-spin interactions is investigated. It is shown that this model possesses an exponentially large number of metastable configurations that are…
How can we derive the evolution equations of dissipative systems? What is the relation between the different approaches? How much do we understand the fundamental aspects of a second law based framework? Is there a hierarchy of dissipative…
Statistical mechanics descriptions of the second law of thermodynamics generally imply point-like particles driven by a dissipative overall mechanism for their simultaneous time-evolution. As the number of involved particles grows larger,…
In quantum statistical mechanics, equilibrium states have been shown to be the typical states for a system that is entangled with its environment, suggesting a possible identification between thermodynamic and von Neumann entropies. In this…
When a physical system is put in contact with a very large thermal bath, it undergoes a dissipative (i.e., an apparently irreversible) process that leads to thermal equilibrium. This dynamical process can be described fully within quantum…
We first present open questions related to the foundations of thermodynamics and statistical physics. We then argue that in principle one can not have "closed systems", and that a universal background should exist. We propose that the…
Statistical thermodynamics is valuable as a conceptual structure that shapes our thinking about equilibrium thermodynamic states. A cloud of unresolved questions surrounding the foundations of the theory could lead an impartial observer to…
A dynamical systems scenario for developmental cell biology is proposed, based on numerical studies of a system with interacting units with internal dynamics and reproduction. Diversification, formation of discrete and recursive types, and…
A dynamical phase transition from reversible to irreversible behavior occurs when particle suspensions are subjected to uniform oscillatory shear, even in the Stokes flow limit. We consider a more general situation with non-uniform strain…
The question of how irreversibility can emerge as a generic phenomena when the underlying mechanical theory is reversible has been a long-standing fundamental problem for both classical and quantum mechanics. We describe a mechanism for the…
This paper presents an {\it ab initio} derivation of the expression given by irreversible thermodynamics for the rate of entropy production for different classes of diffusive processes. The first class are Lorentz gases, where…
The physical foundations of a variety of emerging technologies --- ranging from the applications of quantum entanglement in quantum information to the applications of nonequilibrium bulk and interface phenomena in microfluidics, biology,…
Concepts of everyday use like energy, heat, and temperature have acquired a precise meaning after the development of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics provides the basis for understanding how heat and work are related and with the general…
The theory of irreversible thermodynamics for arbitrarily curved lipid membranes is presented here. The coupling between elastic bending and irreversible processes such as intra-membrane lipid flow, intra-membrane phase transitions, and…
We consider a particular instance of the lift of controlled systems recently proposed in the theory of irreversible thermodynamics and show that it leads to a variational principle for an optimal control in the sense of Pontryagin. Then we…