Effects of a thermal reservoir on variational functions in open systems

We connect the theory of a Lyapunov functional for an open system with the thermophysical concept of the relative entropy or equivalently with the entropy production rate. In order to do this we consider the environment of the open system as a thermal reservoir, which introduces the temperature as a thermophysical quantity. The general theory of the Lyapunov functional of an open system constructs a metric operator which contains an element of ambiguity in its scaling. This ambiguity can be removed by assuming a thermostatistic environment which fixes the scaling of the metric operator in a unique manner. The Lyapunov functional thus acquires a thermophysical meaning and can be connected with a relative entropy. In this case the metric operator is related to the inverse of the stationary density operator of the system. We illustrate the theory on a two-level atomic system and a degenerate three-level atom which are exposed to a thermal electromagnetic environment.