Shortcuts to isothermality and nonequilibrium work relations
Abstract
In conventional thermodynamics, it is widely acknowledged that the realization of an isothermal process for a system requires a quasi-static controlling protocol. Here we propose and design a strategy to realize a finite-rate isothermal transition from an equilibrium state to another one with same temperature, which is named shortcut to isothermality~(STI). By using STI, we unexpectedly derive three nonequilibrium work relations, including an identity between the free energy difference and the mean work due to the potential of the original system, a generalized Jarzynski equality, and the inverse relationship between the irreversible work and the total driving time. We numerically confirm these three relations by considering the motion of a Brownian particle trapped in a harmonic potential and dragged by a time-dependent force.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1608.07757,
title = {Shortcuts to isothermality and nonequilibrium work relations},
author = {Geng Li and H. T. Quan and Z. C. Tu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.07757},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
accepted by Phys. Rev. E