2011/04/30 by Jordan M. Horowitz, Juan M. R. Parrondo · 3 citations
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Computer science #Control (management) #Control engineering #Control theory (sociology) #Dissipation #Engineering #Feedback control #Material properties #Mathematics #Physics #Process (computing) #Process Optimization and Integration #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Realization (probability) #Statistical physics #Statistics #Thermodynamic process #Thermodynamics #Value (mathematics) #Work (physics) #Zero (linguistics) #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/0295-5075/95/10005
published as Europhys. Lett. 95, 10005 (2011) · 6 pages, 4, figures, accepted in EPL, expanded discussion of thermodynamic reversibility
arxiv created 2011/06/10 · openalex publication_date 2011/06/20 · arxiv updated 2015/05/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The sum of the average work dissipated plus the information gained during a thermodynamic process with discrete feedback must exceed zero. We demonstrate that the minimum value of zero is attained only by feedback-reversible processes that are indistinguishable from their time-reversal, thereby extending the notion of thermodynamic reversibility to feedback processes. In addition, we prove that in every realization of a feedback-reversible process the sum of the work dissipated and change in uncertainty is zero.