Fluctuation theorems for stochastic dynamics

By Rosemary J. Harris, Gunter M. Schütz. 2007

327 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Fluctuation theorems make use of time reversal to make predictions about entropy production in many-body systems far from thermal equilibrium. Here we review the wide variety of distinct, but interconnected, relations that have been derived and investigated theoretically and experimentally. Significantly, we demonstrate, in the context of Markovian stochastic dynamics, how these different fluctuation theorems arise from a simple fundamental time-reversal symmetry of a certain class of observables. Appealing to the notion of Gibbs entropy allows for a microscopic definition of entropy production in terms of these observables. We work with the master equation approach, which leads to a mathematically straightforward proof and provides direct insight into the probabilistic meaning of the quantities involved. Finally, we point to some experiments that elucidate the practical significance of fluctuation relations.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cdd590107b2d4abe286fc6260131a06a42643b93

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

Citations in the corpus

Stochastic interacting particle systems out of equilibrium (2007, background): “For recent overviews on non-equilibrium phenomena see also [34, 44].”
Principles of maximum entropy and maximum caliber in statistical physics (2013, background): “…Evans and Searles, 1994, 2002; Jarzynski, 1997; Crooks, 1999; Lebowitz and Spohn, 1999; Wang et al., 2002; Dewar, 2003; van Zon and Cohen, 2003; Bodineau and Derrida, 2004, 2007; Seifert, 2005a, 2005b; Derrida, 2007; Harris and Schütz, 2007; Kurchan, 2007; Sevick et al., 2008; Monthus, 2011).”
Stochastic thermodynamics, fluctuation theorems and molecular machines (2012, methodology): “For stochastic dynamics based on the master equation, a comprehensive derivation of FT’s has been given by Harris and Schütz [36].”
Thermodynamics of information (2015, unknown): “For a symmetric memory, the minimal work to implement this restore-to-zero operation by equation (9) is Wreset≥ kTH(M), as H(M )= 0.”
The large deviation approach to statistical mechanics (2008, background): “The study of the probability ratio Rτ (w) for physical observables other than the work Wτ defined above has become an active topic of study in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics; see [168–171] for theoretical surveys of this topic, and [172,173] for more experimental surveys.”