Abstract:
The minimum entropy production principle of Prigogine and a related maximum entropy production principle have both the reputation of being vague and at best only sometimes valid. We revisit their status and indicate possible generalizations from the recent point of view of dynamical fluctuations. In particular, we show that for weakly irreversible Markov processes the entropy production rate plays the role of a fluctuation functional for certain ergodic averages. We also discuss well known counterexamples by Landauer and Jaynes, and explain why the above variational principles fail in some cases even close to equilibrium.

In collaboration with: C. Maes (Katholieke Univ. Leuven)