Speaker
Description
Non-Markovian dynamics arise when a system is coupled to a bath with finite correlation time, giving rise to memory effects that allow the bath to temporarily store and return excitations. However, how memory modifies irreversibility and whether it can be exploited to improve thermodynamic performance is not well established. We address this question by employing a Markovian embedding of generalized Langevin dynamics, in which bath memory is encoded in auxiliary modes and irreversible dissipation in a residual Markovian bath. We show that the entropy production defined for the original non-Markovian system upper bounds that of the embedded system, thereby establishing a hierarchy of entropy production under Markovian embedding. Leveraging this hierarchy, we derive non-Markovian extensions of the entropic bound, thermodynamic uncertainty relation, speed limit, and power-efficiency trade-off. For underdamped generalized Langevin systems, we show that Carnot efficiency at finite power remains unattainable for ordinary spectral densities. In the overdamped regime, we extend the hierarchy and show that the memory force gives a negative correction to the apparent Markovian entropy production. We further discuss the extension of the hierarchy to the quantum regime.