stoch-therm

Experimental Stochastic Thermodynamics

The recent technological advances in micromanipulation and force-sensing techniques have brought access to the dynamics and energy changes that affect mesoscopic physical systems described by few degrees of freedom. For systems of microscopic and nanoscopic scale, the thermal fluctuations of the surrounding environment become relevant.

Fluctuation Theorems: Information and Entropy

The Jarzynski equality, introduced in 1997, established an exact relationship that involves the work fluctuations of processes arbitrarily far from equilibrium [1]. Later, Crooks' theorem [2, 3] showed that the mentioned equality is consequence of some symmetry properties under time reversal of the microscopic evolution of the system, both Hamiltonian or stochastic (Langevin equation).

Fluctuation-Dissipation Relations Out of Equilibrium

Fluctuation-dissipation relations (FDR) have been a crucial tool in Statistical Physics. They relate the response of a system slightly removed from equilibrium to equilibrium properties and allow to connect transport coefficients to microscopic properties [1].