Journal of Statistical Physics, Vol. 50, Nos. 3/4, 1988. p. 633-655.
A formulation of entropy production is given with the aid of relative entropy in the nonlinear response theory of a quantum dynamical system. It allows a natural interpretation of the quantity in terms of familiar thermodynamic notions, such as force and response current conjugate to it, without sacrificing the full nonlinearity in the perturbing force. For the understanding of dissipativity as positive entropy production, the stationarity of states and coarse graining of time scale turn out to be essential, which are implemented by some
time averaging procedures involving almost periodic external forces. Finally, it is shown that the obtained result reduces, in the linear response regime, to the power dissipation appearing in the well-known fluctuation-dissipation relation...