Thermodynamics and Nonlinear Dynamics in the Information Age

Since its beginnings one of the main purposes of thermodynamics has been the optimization of devices. Commonly, processes are characterized as optimal if they are maximally fast or maximally efficient. Recent years have seen the development of various theoretical tools which tremendously broadened our understanding of such optimal processes, in quantum mechanics and in classical physics. A particular highlight are so-called shortcuts to adiabaticity -- finite time processes that mimic adiabatic dynamics without the requirement of slow driving. These exciting new results found relevance and application in a wide variety of fields including Quantum Sensing and Metrology, Finite-Time Thermodynamics, Quantum Simulation, Quantum Computation, Quantum Communication, and Quantum Optimal Control Theory. A second pillar of modern thermodynamic optimization are so-called information engines. In these systems the effects of information gain and its feedback into the dynamics are explicitly studied. As a consequence Maxwell demon-like systems have lost its demonic obscurity and have become an integral part of realistic optimization. All of these processes are frequently governed by inherently nonlinear equations. This conference aims at an exchange of ideas from researchers in Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Sciences, Quantum Information and Quantum Technologies, Statistical Mechanics, Optimal Control Theory, and Nonlinear Dynamics.