Non-equilibrium work relations

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent theoretical relations that describe the behavior of systems far from equilibrium, including the Fluctuation Theorem, Jarzynski's and Crooks' equalities, and an extended Second Law, emphasizing their generality and simple proofs.

Contribution

It provides a concise overview of key non-equilibrium work relations and highlights their broad applicability and straightforward proofs.

Findings

Includes the Fluctuation Theorem, Jarzynski's and Crooks' equalities.

Extends the Second Principle to general steady states.

Relations are very general and simply proved.

Abstract

This is a brief review of recently derived relations describing the behaviour of systems far from equilibrium. They include the Fluctuation Theorem, Jarzynski's and Crooks' equalities, and an extended form of the Second Principle for general steady states. They are very general and their proofs are, in most cases, disconcertingly simple.