  There are many functional contexts where it is desirable to maintain a
mesoscopic system in a nonequilibrium state. However, such control requires an
inherent energy dissipation. In this article, we unify and extend a number of
works on the minimum energetic cost to maintain a mesoscopic system in a
prescribed nonequilibrium distribution using ancillary control. For a variety
of control mechanisms, we find that the minimum amount of energy dissipation
necessary can be cast as an information-theoretic measure of distinguishability
between the target nonequilibrium state and the underlying equilibrium
distribution. This work offers quantitative insight into the intuitive idea
that more energy is needed to maintain a system farther from equilibrium.
