The past 15 years have seen unprecedented progress in the understanding of general nonequilibrium systems. Exact relationships valid arbitrarily far from equilibrium have been discovered, admitting the extension of concepts from thermodynamics beyond the linear response regime. These results generically refer to distribution functions of thermodynamic quantities like heat, work, and entropy production, and thus go beyond mean values and address fluctuations of these quantities. They are increasingly important for nanoscale systems, for which fluctuations not only cannot be neglected but determine, e.g., transport coefficients. Recently, analytical developments have been accompanied by a flourish of novel numerical techniques aimed at lifting the formalism to tackle real-world applications in complex molecular systems.

This meeting will be a virtual prequel to the full workshop planned to take place 2022 in Mainz. We will discuss recent progress in a series of nine short presentations with ample time for discussion. All are welcome to participate but need to register with the organizers.