Comment on "Validity of path thermodynamic description of reactive systems: Microscopic simulations''

TL;DR

This paper refutes recent claims that questioned the validity of path thermodynamics in reactive systems, demonstrating that it aligns with standard thermodynamics for large systems.

Contribution

It provides a rebuttal to prior criticisms by showing that path thermodynamics accurately predicts entropy production rates in chemical reaction networks.

Findings

Path thermodynamics yields entropy production rates consistent with standard thermodynamics.

The critique in the referenced paper is based on ill-founded claims.

Path thermodynamics remains valid for large-system limits.

Abstract

The claims by Baras, Garcia, and Malek Mansour [Phys. Rev. E 107, 014106 (2023)] on the validity of path thermodynamics are ill founded and contradict well known results. Following up on a previous comment, I show that, for both models of chemical reaction networks considered in the aforementioned paper, path thermodynamics yields values of the entropy production rates fully consistent with those expected from standard chemical thermodynamics in the large-system limit.