Finite-bath corrections to the second law of thermodynamics

Abstract

The second law of thermodynamics states that a system in contact with a heat bath can undergo a transformation if and only if its free energy decreases. However, the "if" part of this statement is only true when the effective heat bath is infinite. In this article we remove this idealization and derive corrections to the second law in the case where the bath has a finite size, or equivalently finite heat capacity. This can also be translated to processes lasting a finite time, and we show that thermodynamical reversibility is lost in this regime. We do so in full generality, that is without assuming any particular model for the bath, the only parameters defining the bath are its temperature and heat capacity. We find connections with second order Shannon information theory, in particular in the case of Landauer erasure. We also consider the case of non-fluctuating work, and derive finite-bath corrections to the min and max free energies employed in single-shot thermodynamics.

New references. Included discussion of finite size and more detailed comparison with existing results

References in corpus (5)

• Single ion heat engine with maximum efficiency at maximum power
• Experimental study of mutual information in a Maxwell Demon
• Finite Bath Fluctuation Theorem
• Optimal performance of generalized heat engines with finite-size baths of arbitrary multiple conserved quantities beyond i.i.d. scaling
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