Entropy production of non-reciprocal interactions

TL;DR

This paper investigates entropy production in non-reciprocal active particle systems, revealing how asymmetric interactions influence irreversibility and how equilibrium can be approached by tuning diffusion constants, supported by exact solutions and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic model of non-reciprocal active particles and derives analytical expressions for entropy production, including exact solutions and perturbation analysis.

Findings

Entropy production depends on interaction asymmetry.

Equilibrium can be achieved by balancing force amplitude and diffusivity.

Analytical results are validated by numerical simulations.

Abstract

Non-reciprocal interactions are present in many systems out of equilibrium. The rate of entropy production is a measure that quantifies the time irreversibility of a system, and thus how far it is from equilibrium. In this work, we introduce a non-motile active particle system where activity originates from asymmetric, pairwise interaction forces that result in an injection of energy at the microscopic scale. We calculate stationary correlation functions and entropy production rate in three exactly solvable cases, and analyse a more general case in a perturbation theory as an expansion in weak interactions using a fully microscopic description. Our results show that equilibrium may be recovered by adjusting the diffusion constants despite non-reciprocity, revealing an equivalence in the absolute amplitude of the force and diffusivity. We support our analytical results with numerical simulations.