Thermodynamic metrics and optimal paths · HackerPapers discussions

Thermodynamic metrics and optimal paths — mentioned by tMcGrath

Wed, 27 Mar 2019 15:43:44 GMT

As far as I know, a good differential-geometric understanding of nonequilibrium thermodynamics still hasn't been achieved. The central issue is understanding how changes in control parameters (for instance concentrations of catalysts in a chemical system, or local fields in a spin system) affect the evolution of the probability distribution over states. Some work has been done in close to steady state (for instance [1,2,3]) but it's far from resolved. This has some nice applications - designing efficient protocols for microscale devices, for instance. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.07758 [2]…

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Thermodynamic metrics and optimal paths — mentioned by tMcGrath

Sat, 24 Dec 2016 12:10:44 GMT

There's also an interesting set of applications in statistical physics: many systems can be modelled by Markov chains whose rate parameters can change through time. Changing these parameters non-quasistatically (i.e. so that the system does not relax to the appropriate steady state) gives rise to distances on parameter space that are related to the amount of energy dissipated along the path through parameter space [0,1]. What's nice about this is that the derivation of a suitable metric allows us to compute trajectories that minimise quantities we care about (e.g. minimise energy dissipated)…

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