Fluctuation theorems for multiple co-evolving systems

TL;DR

This paper derives generalized fluctuation theorems for co-evolving systems with randomly timed state changes, providing stronger thermodynamic bounds applicable in more realistic biological and complex systems.

Contribution

It introduces fluctuation theorems that accommodate random timing of state changes, extending thermodynamic relations to more realistic co-evolving systems.

Findings

New fluctuation theorems valid for random timing of system changes

Stronger thermodynamic uncertainty relations than conventional versions

Bounds on entropy production even without steady-state conditions

Abstract

All previously derived thermodynamic fluctuation theorems (FTs) that concern multiple co-evolving systems have required that each system can only change its state during an associated pre-fixed, limited set of time intervals. However, in many real-world cases the times when systems change their states are randomly determined, e.g., in almost all biological examples of co-evolving systems. Such randomness in the timing drastically modifies the thermodynamics. Here I derive FTs that apply whether or not the timing is random. These FTs provide new versions of the second law, and of all conventional thermodynamic uncertainty relations (TURs). These new results are often stronger than the conventional versions, which ignore how an overall system may decompose into a set of co-evolving systems. In addition, the new TURs often bound entropy production (EP) of the overall system even if none of the criteria for a conventional TUR (e.g., being a non-equilibrium steady state) hold for that overall system.