Thermodynamic control of non-equilibrium systems

2025/06/17 by Dana Kamp, Karel Proesmans, Kamp, Dana +1
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Mathematical Biology Tumor Growth #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.14416

openalex publication_date 2025/06/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We study the thermodynamic cost associated with driving systems between different non-equilibrium steady states. In particular, we combine a linear-response framework for non-equilibrium 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.

Citations

• Learning optimal erasure of a Static Random Access Memory
• Ensemble and trajectory thermodynamics: A brief introduction
• Nonequilibrium fluctuations in small systems: From physics to biology

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