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arXiv · 2002.01265

Second law of thermodynamics at stopping times

Izaak Neri
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Abstract

Events in mesoscopic systems often take place at first-passage times, as is for instance the case for a colloidal particle that escapes a metastable state. An interesting question is how much work an external agent has done on a particle when it escapes a metastable state. We develop a thermodynamic theory for processes in mesoscopic systems that terminate at stopping times, which generalize first-passage times. This theory implies a thermodynamic bound, reminiscent of the second law of thermodynamics, for the work exerted by an external protocol on a mesoscopic system at a stopping time. As an illustration, we use this law to bound the work required to stretch a polymer to a certain length or to let a particle escape from a metastable state.

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Izaak Neri. 2020-02-04. Second law of thermodynamics at stopping times. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.040601

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