Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: While global entropy production provides a measure of irreversibility, its partitioning into contributions from local regions is key to understanding the mechanisms underlying time-reversal symmetry breaking in complex systems and active matter. Here, by analyzing local heat flows and fluxes, we propose a framework that enables the mapping of local dissipation and entropy production in a nonequilibrium system. We test this approach in simulations of fluids driven through complex environments and active systems. We connect the results across the local and global scales by showing that local dissipation and entropy production satisfy a local version of the usual (global) fluctuation theorem, which accounts for the correlations between the local region and its surroundings. Interestingly, in the case of the active fluid, our analysis reveals that these correlations are of opposite signs for the active (stochastic) and passive (deterministic) contributions to local dissipation.
Authors: Caroline Desgranges, Jerome Delhommelle
Institution: University of Massachusetts Lowell
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,500
Funder: Basic Energy Sciences
Award: G6802966395
OpenAlex ID: W4415533688