Entropy Production of Nonequilibrium Steady State Systems

Abstract

Entropy production is a fundamental feature in nonequilibrium physics that characterizes many aspects in physical and biological systems. Within this work, the framework of stochastic thermodynamics is utilized to reproduce the derivation of a variance sum rule (VSR) for displacements and force variances that allows to obtain an expression for the entropy production rate σ in nonequilibrium steady states. I also provide a generalization of this VSR to take into account inertial effects. Furthermore, these methodologies are applied to different cases of stochastic switching trap (SST) systems, where stochastic jumps in the potential energy perform a mechanical work into the system, leading it to a nonequilibrium state with a net production of entropy. To compute σ analytically, I demonstrate that those problems can be easily solved in the Laplace space, yielding to results equivalent to those obtained via stochastic energetics.