Maximum one-shot dissipated work from Renyi divergences

R\'enyi entropy is a one-parameter generalization of Shannon entropy, which has been used in various fields of physics. Despite its wide applicability, the physical interpretations of the R\'enyi entropy are not widely known. In this paper, we discuss some basic properties of the R\'enyi entropy relevant to physics, in particular statistical mechanics, and its physical interpretations using free energy, replicas, work, and large deviation.

The use of the von Neumann entropy in formulating the laws of thermodynamics has recently been challenged. It is associated with the average work whereas the work guaranteed to be extracted in any single run of an experiment is the more interesting quantity in general. We show that an expression that quantifies majorisation determines the optimal guaranteed work. We argue it should therefore be the central quantity of statistical mechanics, rather than the von Neumann entropy...

We present a universal relation between the flow of a Renyi entropy and the full counting statistics of energy transfers. We prove the exact relation for a flow to a system in thermal equilibrium that is weakly coupled to an arbitrary time-dependent and non-equilibrium system. The exact correspondence, given by this relation, provides a simple protocol to quantify the flows of Shannon and Renyi entropies from the measurements of energy transfer statistics.

Many thermodynamic relations involve inequalities, with equality if a process does not involve dissipation. In this article we provide equalities in which the dissipative contribution is shown to involve the relative entropy (a.k.a. Kullback-Leibler divergence). The processes considered are general time evolutions both in classical and quantum mechanics, and the initial state is sometimes thermal, sometimes partially so. As an application, the relative entropy is related to t...

Many thermodynamic relations involve inequalities, with equality if a process does not involve dissipation. In this article we provide equalities in which the dissipative contribution is shown to involve the relative entropy (a.k.a. Kullback-Leibler divergence). The processes considered are general time evolutions both in classical and quantum mechanics, and the initial state is sometimes thermal, sometimes partially so. By calculating a transport coefficient we show that ind...

In this work, we show that the dissipation in a many-body system under an arbitrary non-equilibrium process is related to the R\'{e}nyi divergences between two states along the forward and reversed dynamics under very general family of initial conditions. This relation generalizes the links between dissipated work and Renyi divergences to quantum systems with conserved quantities whose equilibrium state is described by the generalized Gibbs ensemble. The relation is applicabl...

We study in great detail the possible existence of a Renyi-associated thermodynamics, with negative results. In particular, we uncover a hidden relation in the Renyi's variational problem (MaxEnt). This relation connects the two associated Lagrange multipliers (Canonical Ensemble) with the mean energy $<U>$ and the Renyi parameter $\alpha$. As a consequence of such relation, we obtain anomalous Renyi-MaxEnt thermodynamic results.

Thermodynamics is based on the notions of energy and entropy. While energy is the elementary quantity governing physical dynamics, entropy is the fundamental concept in information theory. In this work, starting from first principles, we give a detailed didactic account on the relations between energy and entropy and thus physics and information theory. We show that thermodynamic process inequalities, like the Second Law, are equivalent to the requirement that an effective de...

Firstly the fluctuation theorems (FT) for expended work in a driven nonequilibrium system, isolated or thermostatted, together with the ensuing Jarzynski work-energy (W-E) relationships, will be discussed and reobtained. Secondly, the fluctuation theorems for entropy flow will be reconsidered. Our treatment will be fully quantum-statistical, being an ex-tension of our previous research reported in Phys. Rev. E (2012), and will avoid the deficiencies that afflicted previous wo...

There are only a very few known relations in statistical dynamics that are valid for systems driven arbitrarily far-from-equilibrium. One of these is the fluctuation theorem, which places conditions on the entropy production probability distribution of nonequilibrium systems. Another recently discovered far-from-equilibrium expression relates nonequilibrium measurements of the work done on a system to equilibrium free energy differences. In this paper, we derive a generalized...