Quo vadis, stochastic thermodynamics?

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in stochastic thermodynamics, highlighting new theoretical extensions, experimental validations, and applications to complex, non-physical systems beyond traditional physics boundaries.

Contribution

It introduces novel developments in stochastic thermodynamics, including systems with memory, active matter, geometric approaches, and applications to complex and social systems.

Findings

Universal bounds like fluctuation theorems confirmed experimentally

Extensions to systems with memory and hidden degrees of freedom

Applications to biological, social, and computational systems

Abstract

Stochastic thermodynamics is a framework for describing non-equilibrium processes at the level of fluctuating trajectories, where the state of a system evolves as a stochastic time series, allowing thermodynamic quantities such as work, heat, and entropy production to be defined along individual realizations rather than at the ensemble level only. Over the past three decades, the field has yielded fundamental results, including fluctuation theorems and several universal bounds, such as thermodynamic uncertainty relations, speed limit theorems, and many others. Many of them have been tested on a range of experimental platforms. This Perspective reviews recent developments in stochastic thermodynamics that extend its scope beyond its traditional domains, including systems with memory and hidden degrees of freedom, microscopic approaches to interacting and active matter, and geometric formulations based on optimal transport. Next, the Perspective surveys the challenges that arise when applying these ideas to macroscopic and complex systems, where the link between statistical irreversibility and thermodynamic dissipation becomes less direct. Finally, emerging applications in non-physical contexts are highlighted, including computation, biological systems, and social dynamics. Transcending the traditional boundaries of physics, these developments catalyze an unorthodox framework to tackle the thermodynamics of complex systems.