Identifying dissipation is essential for understanding the physical mechanisms underlying nonequilibrium processes. {In living systems, for example, the dissipation is directly related to the hydrolysis of fuel molecules such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP)}. Nevertheless, detecting broken time-reversal symmetry, which is the hallmark of dissipative processes, remains a challenge in the absence of observable directed motion, flows, or fluxes. Furthermore, quantifying the entropy production in a complex system requires detailed information about its dynamics and internal degrees of freedom. Here we introduce a novel approach to detect time irreversibility and estimate the entropy production from time-series measurements, even in the absence of observable currents. We apply our technique to two different physical systems, namely, a partially hidden network and a molecular motor. Our method does not require complete information about the system dynamics and thus provides a new tool for studying nonequilibrium phenomena.
Broken Detailed Balance and Entropy Production in CPTP Quantum Brownian Motion
Università degli Studi di Palermo（巴勒莫大学）；Università degli Studi di Trieste（的里雅斯特大学）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare（意大利国家核物理研究所）；Queen’s University Belfast（贝尔法斯特女王大学）
Nonequilibrium noise emerging from broken detailed balance in active gels
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems（马克斯·普朗克复杂系统物理研究所）；Alikhanyan National Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute)（阿里哈尼扬国家实验室（埃里温物理研究所））；Center for Systems Biology Dresden（德累斯顿系统生物学中心）；Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS)（巴塞罗那大学复杂系统研究所）
