Information thermodynamics for Markov jump processes coupled to underdamped diffusion: Application to nanoelectromechanics

TL;DR

This paper extends information thermodynamics to coupled systems with Markov jump processes and underdamped diffusion, deriving fluctuation theorems and analyzing energy-information flows, with applications to nanoelectromechanical systems like the single-electron shuttle.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for analyzing energy and information exchanges in hybrid stochastic systems, including new fluctuation theorems and dynamical equations for different regimes.

Findings

Energy flows dominate over information flows in self-oscillating NEMS.

Derived higher-order dynamical equations for slow inertial dynamics.

Applied framework to study efficiency of electrical-to-mechanical energy conversion.

Abstract

We extend the principles of information thermodynamics to study energy and information exchanges between coupled systems composed of one part undergoing a Markov jump process and another underdamped diffusion. We derive integral fluctuation theorems for the partial entropy production of each subsystem and analyze two distinct regimes. First, when the inertial dynamics is slow compared to the discrete-state transitions, we show that the steady-state energy and information flows vanish at the leading order in an adiabatic approximation, if the underdamped subsystem is governed purely by conservative forces. To capture the non-zero contributions, we consistently derive dynamical equations valid to higher order. Second, in the limit of infinite mass, the underdamped dynamics becomes a deterministic Hamiltonian dynamics driving the jump processes, we capture the next-order correction beyond this limit. We apply our framework to study self-oscillations in the single-electron shuttle - a nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) - from a measurement-feedback perspective. We find that energy flows dominate over information flows in the self-oscillating regime, and study the efficiency with which this NEMS converts electrical work into mechanical oscillations.