Distribution of work in isothermal nonequilibrium processes

2004/06/11 by Thomas Speck, Udo Seifert · 6 citations
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #cond-mat.stat-mech #thermodynamics and calorimetric analyses

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.70.066112

published as Phys. Rev. E 70, 066112 (2004)

arxiv created 2004/06/11 · openalex publication_date 2004/12/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Diffusive motion in an externally driven potential is considered. It is shown that the distribution of work required to drive the system from an initial equilibrium state to another is Gaussian for slow but finite driving. Our result is obtained by projection method techniques exploiting a small parameter defined as the switching rate between the two states of the system. The exact solution for a simple model system shows that such an expansion may fail in higher orders, since the mean and the variance following from the exact distribution show nonanalytic behavior.

Citations

• Equilibrium free energy differences from nonequilibrium measurements: a master equation approach

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