Bonanca, Marcus V.S.Deffner, Sebastian2018-04-112018-04-112018Marcus V. S. Bonança and Sebastian Deffner, Minimal dissipation in processes far from equilibrium, Phys. Rev. E 98, 042103 (2018), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.98.042103http://hdl.handle.net/11603/8471A central goal of thermodynamics is to identify optimal processes during which the least amount of energy is dissipated into the environment. Generally, even for simple systems, such as the parametric harmonic oscillator, optimal control strategies are mathematically involved, and contain peculiar and counter-intuitive features. We show that optimal driving protocols determined by means of linear response theory exhibit the same step and δ-peak like structures that were previously found from solving the full optimal control problem. However, our method is significantly less involved, since only a minimum of a quadratic form has to be determined. In addition, our findings suggest that optimal protocols from linear response theory are applicable far outside their actual range of validity.7 pagesen-USThis item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the author.©2018 American Physical SocietyText