Strengthened second law for periodic processes

Abstract

Many physical systems evolve under periodic driving: the same control protocol is applied again and again, even though the state of the system itself need not return to where it started after each cycle. We derive a physics-independent lower bound on the entropy production of \emph{any} periodic process modeled by the evolution of an initial distribution $p_0$ by a repeated application of the same map $G$. This is a strict strengthening of the second law of thermodynamics for periodic processes. It does not require that the single-period dynamics arise from a CTMC, satisfy (local) detailed balance, or be subject to other typical restrictions. We discuss its application to spins in the Curie-Weiss model and Deterministic Finite Automata, with possible extensions to other uniform computers.