2007/10/31 by Holger Then, Andreas Engel · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Field-Flow Fractionation Techniques #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.77.041105
published as Phys. Rev. E 77, 041105 (2008) · 8 pages, 8 figures
arxiv created 2008/01/19 · openalex publication_date 2008/04/04 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Asking for the optimal protocol of an external control parameter that minimizes the mean work required to drive a nanoscale system from one equilibrium state to another in finite time, Schmiedl and Seifert [T. Schmiedl and U. Seifert, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 108301 (2007)] found the Euler-Lagrange equation to be a nonlocal integrodifferential equation of correlation functions. For two linear examples, we show how this integrodifferential equation can be solved analytically. For nonlinear physical systems we show how the optimal protocol can be found numerically and demonstrate that there may exist several distinct optimal protocols simultaneously, and we present optimal protocols that have one, two, and three jumps, respectively.