Experimental studies of the transient fluctuation theorem using liquid crystals

Abstract

In a thermodynamical process, the dissipation or production of entropy can only be positive or zero according to the second law of thermodynamics. However the laws of thermodynamics are applicable to large systems in the thermodynamic limit. Recently a fluctuation theorem known as the Transient Fluctuation Theorem (TFT) which generalizes the second law of thermodynamics even for small systems has been proposed. This theorem has been tested in small systems such as a colloidal particle in an optical trap. We report for the first time an analogous experimental study of TFT in a spatially extended system using liquid crystals.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Entropy production along a stochastic trajectory and an integral fluctuation theorem
• Verification of the Crooks fluctuation theorem and recovery of RNA folding free energies
• Work fluctuation theorems for harmonic oscillators
• Nonequilibrium Fluctuation Relation for Sheared Micellar Gel in a Jammed State