Macroscopic Time-Reversal Symmetry Breaking at Nonequilibrium Phase Transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates how entropy production and time-reversal symmetry breaking behave during a nonequilibrium phase transition, revealing critical scaling laws and the energetic costs of ordered versus disordered states.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of entropy production scaling at a nonequilibrium phase transition, highlighting the macroscopic time-reversal symmetry breaking in the ordered phase.

Findings

Entropy production rate vanishes in the disordered phase.

Entropy production becomes positive in the ordered phase following critical scaling.

Ordered states sustain extensive entropy production, disordered states have subextensive entropy production.

Abstract

We study the entropy production in a macroscopic nonequilibrium system that undergoes an order-disorder phase transition. Entropy production is a characteristic feature of nonequilibrium dynamics with broken detailed balance. It is found that the entropy production rate per particle vanishes in the disordered phase and becomes positive in the ordered phase following critical scaling laws. We derive the scaling relations for associated critical exponents. Our study reveals that a nonequilibrium ordered state is sustained at the expense of macroscopic time-reversal symmetry breaking with an extensive entropy production while a disordered state costs only a subextensive entropy production.