Information free energy for nonequilibrium states

Abstract

We introduce an information free energy for thermodynamic systems driven by external time-dependent parameters. We show that the latter is a nonequilibrium state function and that it is a natural generalization of the usual equilibrium and steady state free energies. We discuss its importance for the nonequilibrium maximum work theorem and the Jarzynski relation in the presence of feedback control. We further show that it is a nonequilibrium Lyapunov function.