Nonequilibrium fluctuation theorems in the presence of a time-reversal symmetry-breaking field and nonconservative forces

TL;DR

This paper extends nonequilibrium fluctuation theorems to systems with broken time-reversal symmetry and nonconservative forces, showing their validity even when the heat bath is out of equilibrium, given certain relaxation conditions.

Contribution

It demonstrates the validity of fluctuation theorems in more general nonequilibrium settings involving symmetry-breaking fields and nonconservative forces.

Findings

Fluctuation theorems hold even when the heat bath is out of equilibrium.

Validity requires the combined system to relax to a microcanonical-like state after driving.

Results apply to both stochastic and deterministic systems.

Abstract

We study nonequilibrium fluctuation theorems in the presence of a time-reversal symmetry-breaking field and nonconservative forces, in a stochastic as well as a deterministic set up. We consider a system and a heat bath, called the combined system, and show that the fluctuation theorems are valid even when the heat bath goes out of equilibrium during driving. The only requirement for the validity is that, when the driving is switched off, the combined system relaxes to a state having a uniform probability measure on a constant energy surface, consistent with microcanonical ensemble of an isolated system.