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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Energy conversion in nanoscale devices has motivated the search for new thermodynamic principles and concepts that hold valid far from the thermodynamic limit. While significant progress has been made in the field, the identification of consistent thermodynamic and dynamic descriptions in the strong coupling regime has been challenging. This challenge takes a particular form when quantum fluctuations and other quantum properties of the nanoscale system are considered. In this talk, I will describe several strategies that we have developed to study model systems in this regime. In the first part, I will derive sound definitions of nonequilibrium heat and work rates starting from exact dynamical descriptions of model systems. This strategy has some limitations that I will discuss. Consequently, in the second part, I will take a different approach by formulating exact equilibrium thermodynamic representations of model systems to include in a later step finite-time dynamics and nonequilibrium rates. The results of these investigations provide a systematic and consistent approach to the dynamics and thermodynamics of slowly modulated nanoscale and biomolecular systems.
Host: Kirill Velizhanin