Work Relation and the Second Law of Thermodynamics in Nonequilibrium Steady States

TL;DR

This paper extends thermodynamic relations to nonequilibrium steady states with heat conduction, revealing new contributions and implications for the minimum work principle, and suggests experimental testing in small temperature gradient systems.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized work relation and second law extension for nonequilibrium steady states, including a novel non-equilibrium contribution and insights into the time-reversed operation.

Findings

Extension of Jarzynski's relation to heat conducting systems.

Identification of a non-equilibrium contribution violating linear response.

Potential for experimental validation in small temperature gradient setups.

Abstract

We extend Jarzynski's work relation and the second law of thermodynamics to a heat conducting system which is operated by an external agent. These extensions contain a new non equilibrium contribution expressed as the violation of the (linear) response relation caused by the operation. We find that a natural extension of the minimum work principle involves information about the time-reversed operation, and is far from straightforward. Our work relation may be tested experimentally especially when the temperature gradient is small.