Abstract

Active constituents burn fuel in order to sustain individual motion. This gives rise to interesting collective effects that are not seen in systems at thermal equilibrium, such as motility induced phase separation, a hallmark of active matter. Indeed, there is great potential in harnessing the striking phenomenology of active matter to build controllable, and novel, responsive materials. Despite this potential, we currently lack a physical framework that predicts the best protocol for driving active systems between different states in a way that is thermodynamically efficient, by minimizing the dissipated heat for example. Existing equilibrium thermodynamics is an inadequate foundation to build a framework of control for active systems, due to the growing dissipation arising from the constant burning of fuel. Here, we derive and implement a novel thermodynamic control framework for active matter, using stochastic thermodynamics and response theory, to perform efficient control of continuous- and discrete-state active systems.