Model study on steady heat capacity in driven stochastic systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates the steady heat capacity in driven stochastic systems using Markov models, revealing conditions under which it can become negative and proposing an effective energy level scheme for different temperature regimes.

Contribution

It introduces a thermodynamic scheme with dynamically renormalized energy levels for driven Markov systems, highlighting the possibility of negative steady heat capacity.

Findings

Large driving forces can induce negative steady heat capacity.

Effective energy levels can be used to approximate thermodynamics in different regimes.

Steady heat capacity behavior depends on the strength of non-potential forces.

Abstract

We explore two- and three-state Markov models driven out of thermal equilibrium by non-potential forces to demonstrate basic properties of the steady heat capacity based on the concept of quasistatic excess heat. It is shown that large enough driving forces can make the steady heat capacity negative. For both the low- and high-temperature regimes we propose an approximative thermodynamic scheme in terms of "dynamically renormalized" effective energy levels.