Related papers: Second law versus variation principles

Fluctuation theorems impose constraints on possible work extraction probabilities in thermodynamical processes. These constraints are stronger than the usual second law, which is concerned only with average values. Here, we show that such…

In a previous work (M. Campisi. Stud. Hist. Phil. M. P. 36 (2005) 275-290) we have addressed the mechanical foundations of equilibrium thermodynamics on the basis of the Generalized Helmholtz Theorem. It was found that the volume entropy…

In this article, we review a general theoretical framework of thermodynamics of information on the basis of Bayesian networks. This framework can describe a broad class of nonequilibrium dynamics of multiple interacting systems with complex…

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.…

Boltzmann's principleS=k*ln W is generalized to non-equilibrium Hamiltonian systems with possibly fractal distributions in phase space by the box-counting volume. The probabilities P(M) of macroscopic observables M are given by the ratio…

Events in mesoscopic systems often take place at first-passage times, as is for instance the case for a colloidal particle that escapes a metastable state. An interesting question is how much work an external agent has done on a particle…

The second law of thermodynamics places a limitation into which states a system can evolve into. For systems in contact with a heat bath, it can be combined with the law of energy conservation, and it says that a system can only evolve into…

This paper is the second in a series devoted to the study of Langevin systems subjected to a continuous time-delayed feedback control. The goal of our previous paper [Phys. Rev. E 91, 042114 (2015)] was to derive second-law-like…

In quantum systems which satisfy the hypothesis of equal weights for eigenstates [4], the maximum work principle (for extremely slow and relatively fast operation) is derived by using quantum dynamics alone. This may be a crucial step in…

We establish a variety of results extending the well-known Pontryagin maximum principle of optimal control to discrete-time optimal control problems posed on smooth manifolds. These results are organized around a new theorem on critical and…

Maximum entropy principle identifies forces conjugated to observables and the thermodynamic relations between them, independent upon their underlying mechanistic details. For data about state distributions or transition statistics, the…

The population dynamics and stability of ecosystems of interacting species is studied from the perspective of non-equilibrium thermodynamics by assuming that species, through their biotic and abiotic interactions, are units of entropy…

We establish a refined version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics for Langevin stochastic processes describing mesoscopic systems driven by conservative or non-conservative forces and interacting with thermal noise. The refinement is based…

In statistical thermodynamics the 2nd law is properly spelled out in terms of conditioned probabilities. As such it makes the statement, that `entropy increases with time' without preferring a time direction. In this paper I try to explain…

We provide a unified thermodynamic formalism describing information transfers in autonomous as well as nonautonomous systems described by stochastic thermodynamics. We demonstrate how information is continuously generated in an auxiliary…

Motivated by the notion that the mathematics of gravity can be reproduced from a statistical requirement of maximal entropy, we study the consequence of introducing an entropic source term in the Einstein-Hilbert action. For a spatially…

The variational method is very important in mathematical and theoretical physics because it allows us to describe the natural systems by physical quantities independently from the frame of reference used. A global and statistical approach…

We consider the efficiency of chemical energy extraction from the environment by the growth of a copolymer made of two constituent units in the entropy-driven regime. We show that the thermodynamic nonlinearity associated with the…

Irreversible processes accomplished in a fixed time involve nonlinearly coupled flows of matter, energy, and information. Here, using entropy production as an example, we show how thermodynamic uncertainty relations and speed limits on…

The foundations of Statistical Mechanics can be recovered almost in their entirety from the Principle of Maximum Entropy. In this work we show that its non-equilibrium generalization, the Principle of Maximum Caliber (Jaynes, 1980), when…