Abstract

Stochastic thermodynamics has uncovered some fundamental laws that govern the fluctuations of mesoscale systems, even far from thermal equilibrium. It bridges the gap between macroscopic thermodynamics and the deterministic microscopic laws, and provides a way to describe the efficiency and performance of mesoscale machines. A central quantity in this framework is the entropy production, which explicitly measures the time-reversal symmetry breaking of fluctuating dynamics, and, under certain assumptions, can be related to the heat dissipation. However, many results of stochastic thermodynamics, including the close connection between entropy and energy, break down if there is no clear time-scale separation between “the bath” and “the system”. In this talk, I will present some insights into the fluctuations and thermodynamic notions of nonequilibrium systems that do not fall into the usual paradigm of stochastic thermodynamics.