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Published on: October 15, 2013
Thermodynamic control of nonequilibrium systems
1University of Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, Niels Bohr International Academy, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Abstract:
We study the thermodynamic cost associated with driving systems between different nonequilibrium steady states. In particular, we combine a linear-response framework for nonequilibrium Markov systems with Lagrangian techniques to minimize the dissipation associated with driving processes. We then apply our framework to a simple toy model. Our results show several remarkable properties for the optimal protocol, such as diverging parameters and finite entropy production in the slow-driving limit.
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