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arXiv · 1902.04857

Information-theoretical bound of the irreversibility in thermal relaxation processes

Naoto Shiraishi·Keiji Saito
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Abstract

We establish that entropy production, which is crucial to the characterization of thermodynamic irreversibility, is obtained through a variational principle involving the Kulback-Leibler divergence. A simple application of this representation leads to an information-theoretical bound on entropy production in thermal relaxation processes; this is a stronger inequality than the conventional second law of thermodynamics. This bound is also interpreted as a constraint on the possible path of a thermal relaxation process in terms of information geometry. Our results reveal a hidden universal law inherent to general thermal relaxation processes.

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Naoto Shiraishi, Keiji Saito. 2019-02-13. Information-theoretical bound of the irreversibility in thermal relaxation processes. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.123.110603

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