| Issue |
EPL
Volume 128, Number 3, November 2019
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 30002 | |
| Number of page(s) | 7 | |
| Section | General | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/128/30002 | |
| Published online | 02 January 2020 | |
Work needed to drive a thermodynamic system between two distributions
Shanghai Key Laboratory for Contemporary Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematical Sciences, Fudan University - Shanghai 200433, China
Received: 11 July 2019
Accepted: 6 November 2019
In this study, the minimum amount of work needed to drive a thermodynamic system from one initial distribution to another in a given time duration is discussed. Equivalently, for given amount of work, the minimum time duration required to complete such a transition is obtained. Results show that the minimum amount of work is used to achieve the following three objectives, to increase the internal energy of the system, to decrease the system entropy, to change the mean position of the system, and with other nonzero part dissipated into environment. To illustrate the results, an example with explicit solutions is presented.
PACS: 05.70.Ln – Nonequilibrium and irreversible thermodynamics / 07.20.Pe – Heat engines; heat pumps; heat pipes / 05.10.Gg – Stochastic analysis methods (Fokker-Planck, Langevin, etc.)
© EPLA, 2020
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