Irreversibility and Dissipation in Microscopic Systems

✍ Scribed by Édgar Roldán (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 219
• Series: Springer Theses
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

After an insightful introductory part on recent developments in the thermodynamics of small systems, the author presents his contribution to a long-standing problem, namely the connection between irreversibility and dissipation. He develops a method based on recent results on fluctuation theorems that is able to estimate dissipation using only information acquired in a single, sufficiently long, trajectory of a stationary nonequilibrium process. This part ends with a remarkable application of the method to the analysis of biological data, in this case, the fluctuations of a hair bundle.

The third part studies the energetics of systems that undergo symmetry breaking transitions. These theoretical ideas lead to, among other things, an experimental realization of a Szilard engine using manipulated colloids.

This work has the potential for important applications ranging from the analysis of biological media to the design of novel artificial nano-machines.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xxi
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Small-Scale Thermodynamics....Pages 3-34
Front Matter....Pages 35-35
Dissipation and Kullback–Leibler Divergence....Pages 37-59
Estimating the Kullback–Leibler Divergence....Pages 61-85
A Case Study: The Flashing Ratchet....Pages 87-101
Application to Biology: The Ear Hair Bundle....Pages 103-122
Front Matter....Pages 123-123
Energetics of Symmetry Breaking....Pages 125-151
Effective Heating with Random Forces....Pages 153-171
Front Matter....Pages 173-173
Conclusions and Outlook....Pages 175-178
Back Matter....Pages 179-211

✦ Subjects

Thermodynamics; Statistical Physics, Dynamical Systems and Complexity; Phase Transitions and Multiphase Systems; Biophysics and Biological Physics