Entropy Production in Nonlinear,Thermally Driven Hamiltonian Systems

We consider a finite chain of nonlinear oscillators coupled at its ends to two infinite heat baths which are at different temperatures. Using our earlier results about the existence of a stationary state, we show rigorously that for arbitrary temperature differences and arbitrary couplings, such a system has a unique stationary state. (This extends our earlier results for small temperature differences.) In all these cases, any initial state will converge (at an unknown rate) to the stationary state. We show that this stationary state continually produces entropy. The rate of entropy production is strictly negative when the temperatures are unequal and is proportional to the mean energy flux through the system     

Entropy Production: From Open Volume-Preserving to Dissipative Systems

We generalize Gaspard's method for computing the -entropy production rate in Hamiltonian systems to dissipative systems with attractors considered earlier by Tél, Vollmer, and Breymann. This approach leads to a natural definition of a coarse-grained Gibbs entropy which is extensive, and which can be expressed in terms of the SRB measures and volumes of the coarse-graining sets which cover the attractor. One can also study the entropy and entropy production as functions of the degree of resolution of the coarse-graining process, and examine the limit as the coarse-graining size approaches zero. We show that this definition of the Gibbs entropy leads to a positive rate of irreversible entropy production for reversible dissipative systems. We apply the method to the case of a two-dimensional map, based upon a model considered by Vollmer, Tél, and Breymann, that is a deterministic version of a biased-random walk. We treat both volume-preserving and dissipative versions of the basic map, and make a comparison between the two cases. We discuss the -entropy production rate as a function of the size of the coarse-graining cells for these biased-random walks and, for an open system with flux boundary conditions, show regions of exponential growth and decay of the rate of entropy production as the size of the cells decreases. This work describes in some detail the relation between the results of Gaspard, those of of Tél, Vollmer, and Breymann, and those of Ruelle, on entropy production in various systems described by Anosov or Anosov-like maps.     

A Remark on the Strict Positivity of the Entropy Production

We establish an algebraic criterion which ensures the strict positivity of the entropy production in quantum models consisting of a small system coupled to thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. Mathematics Subject Classifications (2000). 46L05, 81Q10, 82C10, 82C70.     

Entropy Production and Transports in a Conservative Multibaker Map with Energy

For a previously introduced conservative multibaker map with energy, the Gaspard–Gilbert–Dorfman entropy production of the stationary state induced by the flux boundary condition is calculated and the entropy production is shown (i) to be nonnegative, (ii) to vanish in the fine-grained limit for finite chains, (iii) to take the phenomenologically expected value in the middle of the chain and to deviate from it near the boundaries, and (iv) to reduce to the phenomenological expression in the scaling limit where the lattice site nZ and time tZ are scaled respectively as n=L X and t=L T and the limits of L + and L + are taken while keeping the diffusion coefficient D=lL /L ² constant, l being the transition rate of the model. The mass and heat transports are also studied in the scaling limit under an additional assumption that the edges of the chain are in equilibrium with different temperatures. In the linear heat transport regime, Fourier's law of heat conduction and the thermodynamic expression of the associated entropy production are obtained.     

Time-Reversal and Entropy

There is a relation between the irreversibility of thermodynamic processes as expressed by the breaking of time-reversal symmetry, and the entropy production in such processes. We explain on an elementary mathematical level the relations between entropy production, phase-space contraction and time-reversal starting from a deterministic dynamics. Both closed and open systems, in the transient and in the steady regime, are considered. The main result identifies under general conditions the statistical mechanical entropy production as the source term of time-reversal breaking in the path space measure for the evolution of reduced variables. This provides a general algorithm for computing the entropy production and to understand in a unified way a number of useful (in)equalities. We also discuss the Markov approximation. Important are a number of old theoretical ideas for connecting the microscopic dynamics with thermodynamic behavior.     

Positivity of entropy production in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics

We analyze different mechanisms of entropy production in statistical mechanics, and propose formulas for the entropy production ratee() in a state . When is steady state describing the long term behavior of a system we show thate()0, and sometimes we can provee()>0.     

Dynamics of Entropy Production Rate in Two Coupled Bosonic Modes Interacting with a Thermal Reservoir

The Markovian time evolution of the entropy production rate is studied as a measure of irreversibility generated in a bipartite quantum system consisting of two coupled bosonic modes immersed in a common thermal environment. The dynamics of the system is described in the framework of the formalism of the theory of open quantum systems based on completely positive quantum dynamical semigroups, for initial two-mode squeezed thermal states, squeezed vacuum states, thermal states and coherent states. We show that the rate of the entropy production of the initial state and nonequilibrium stationary state, and the time evolution of the rate of entropy production, strongly depend on the parameters of the initial Gaussian state (squeezing parameter and average thermal photon numbers), frequencies of modes, parameters characterising the thermal environment (temperature and dissipation coefficient), and the strength of coupling between the two modes. We also provide a comparison of the behaviour of entropy production rate and Rényi-2 mutual information present in the considered system.     

Regularization of Quantum Relative Entropy in Finite Dimensions and Application to Entropy Production

The fundamental concept of relative entropy is extended to a functional that is regular-valued also on arbitrary pairs of nonfaithful states of open quantum systems. This regularized version preserves almost all important properties of ordinary relative entropy such as joint convexity and contractivity under completely positive quantum dynamical semigroup time evolution. On this basis a generalized formula for entropy production is proposed, the applicability of which is tested in models of irreversible processes. The dynamics of the latter is determined by either Markovian or non-Markovian master equations and involves all types of states.     

Time Dependence of Entropy Flux and Entropy Production of a Dissipative Dynamical System Driven by Non-Gaussian Noise

A stochastic dissipative dynamical system driven by non-Gaussian noise is investigated. A general approximate Fokker-Planck equation of the system is derived through a path-integral approach. Based on the definition of Shannon＇s information entropy, the exact time dependence of entropy flux and entropy production of the system is calculated both in the absence and in the presence of non-equilibrium constraint. The present calculation can be used to interpret the interplay of the dissipative constant and non-Gaussian noise on the entropy flux and entropy production.     

Time Evolution in Macroscopic Systems. II. The Entropy

The concept of entropy in nonequilibrium macroscopic systems is investigated in the light of an extended equation of motion for the density matrix obtained in a previous study. It is found that a time-dependent information entropy can be defined unambiguously, but it is the time derivative or entropy production that governs ongoing processes in these systems. The differences in physical interpretation and thermodynamic role of entropy in equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems is emphasized and the observable aspects of entropy production are noted. A basis for nonequilibrium thermodynamics is also outlined.     

Entropy Production in Thermostats II

We show that an arbitrary Anosov Gaussian thermostat close to equilibrium has positive entropy poduction unless the external field E has a global potential. The configuration space is allowed to have any dimension and magnetic forces are also allowed. We also show the following non-perturbative result. Suppose a Gaussian thermostat satisfies for every 2-plane σ, where K _w is the sectional curvature of the associated Weyl connection and is the orthogonal projection of E onto σ. Then the entropy production of any SRB measure is positive unless E has a global potential. A related non-perturbative result is also obtained for certain generalized thermostats on surfaces.     

On Thermodynamic Limits of Entropy Densities

We give some sufficient conditions which guarantee that the entropy density in the thermodynamic limit is equal to the thermodynamic limit of the entropy densities of finite-volume (local) Gibbs states.     

Entropy calculated from the frequency of states of individual particles

Entropy is related to the frequency of states for individual particles. Taking the Ising lattice as an example, a local state for an individual spin is defined by the orientation of the spin and of its neighbors. The ratio of the frequencies of two local states involved in a spin-flipping conflgurational transition is related to an entropy change. Implementation is by computer simulation. A stochastic process is used to construct an initial lattice configuration, corresponding to state of known entropy. This configuration is subsequently relaxed to a desired equilibrium state, with the help of a (uniform Metropolis) Monte Carlo spin flipping and the attendant entropy change is calculated from the sequence of frequency ratios for all transitions. The calculation is approximate since it treats a process that can be described by a hypothetical sequence of states at internal equilibrium, which cannot be true for a relaxation at finite rate. Nonetheless, the results obtained have been quite accurate. The theory, therefore, provides an additional method for measuring the entropy of systems simulated with the help of a computer. It also indicates a practical way for bridging the Boltzmann entropy of individual particle states (which Jaynes has shown to be incorrect, in its original form, for strongly interacting particles), to the Gibbs entropy ofN-particle configurations.     

Entropy Production in Exactly Solvable Systems

The rate of entropy production by a stochastic process quantifies how far it is from thermodynamic equilibrium. Equivalently, entropy production captures the degree to which global detailed balance and time-reversal symmetry are broken. Despite abundant references to entropy production in the literature and its many applications in the study of non-equilibrium stochastic particle systems, a comprehensive list of typical examples illustrating the fundamentals of entropy production is lacking. Here, we present a brief, self-contained review of entropy production and calculate it from first principles in a catalogue of exactly solvable setups, encompassing both discrete- and continuous-state Markov processes, as well as single- and multiple-particle systems. The examples covered in this work provide a stepping stone for further studies on entropy production of more complex systems, such as many-particle active matter, as well as a benchmark for the development of alternative mathematical formalisms.     

On the Rate of Entropy Production for the Boltzmann Equation

We show that there exists a wide class of distribution functions (with moments of any order as close to their equilibrium values as we like) which can provide an abnormally low rate of entropy production. The result is valid for the Boltzmann equation with any cross section (|V|, ) satisfying a mild restriction. The functions are constructed in an explicit form and we discuss some applications of our results.     

Cyclic Thermodynamic Processes and Entropy Production

We study the time evolution of a periodically driven quantum-mechanical system coupled to several reservoirs of free fermions at different temperatures. This is a paradigm of a cyclic thermodynamic process. We introduce the notion of a Floquet Liouvillean as the generator of the dynamics of the coupled system on an extended Hilbert space. We show that the time-periodic state which the state of the coupled system converges to after very many periods corresponds to a zero-energy resonance of the Floquet Liouvillean. We then show that the entropy production per cycle is (strictly) positive, a property that implies Carnot's formulation of the second law of thermodynamics.     

Spin Entropy

Two types of randomness are associated with a mixed quantum state: the uncertainty in the probability coefficients of the constituent pure states and the uncertainty in the value of each observable captured by the Born’s rule probabilities. Entropy is a quantification of randomness, and we propose a spin-entropy for the observables of spin pure states based on the phase space of a spin as described by the geometric quantization method, and we also expand it to mixed quantum states. This proposed entropy overcomes the limitations of previously-proposed entropies such as von Neumann entropy which only quantifies the randomness of specifying the quantum state. As an example of a limitation, previously-proposed entropies are higher for Bell entangled spin states than for disentangled spin states, even though the spin observables are less constrained for a disentangled pair of spins than for an entangled pair. The proposed spin-entropy accurately quantifies the randomness of a quantum state, it never reaches zero value, and it is lower for entangled states than for disentangled states.     

Comments on the Entropy of Nonequilibrium Steady States

We discuss the entropy of nonequilibrium steady states. We analyze the so-called spontaneous production of entropy in certain reversible deterministic nonequilibrium system, and its link with the collapse of such systems towards an attractor that is of lower dimension than the dimension of phase space. This means that in the steady state limit, the Gibbs entropy diverges to negative infinity. We argue that if the Gibbs entropy is expanded in a series involving 1, 2,... body terms, the divergence of the Gibbs entropy is manifest only in terms involving integrals whose dimension is higher than, approximately, the Kaplan–Yorke dimension of the steady state attractor. All the low order terms are finite and sum in the weak field limit to the local equilibrium entropy of linear irreversible thermodynamics.     

The Fluctuation Theorem as a Gibbs Property

Common ground to recent studies exploiting relations between dynamical systems and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics is, so we argue, the standard Gibbs formalism applied on the level of space-time histories. The assumptions (chaoticity principle) underlying the Gallavotti–Cohen fluctuation theorem make it possible, using symbolic dynamics, to employ the theory of one-dimensional lattice spin systems. The Kurchan and Lebowitz–Spohn analysis of this fluctuation theorem for stochastic dynamics can be restated on the level of the space-time measure which is a Gibbs measure for an interaction determined by the transition probabilities. In this note we understand the fluctuation theorem as a Gibbs property, as it follows from the very definition of Gibbs state. We give a local version of the fluctuation theorem in the Gibbsian context and we derive from this a version also for some class of spatially extended stochastic dynamics.     

Microscopic Features of Bosonic Quantum Transport and Entropy Production

The microscopic features of bosonic quantum transport in a nonequilibrium steady state, which breaks time reversal invariance spontaneously, are investigated. The analysis is based on the probability distributions, generated by the correlation functions of the particle current and the entropy production operator. The general approach is applied to an exactly solvable model with a point‐like interaction driving the system away from equilibrium. The quantum fluctuations of the particle current and the entropy production are explicitly evaluated in the zero frequency limit. It is shown that all moments of the entropy production distribution are non‐negative, which provides a microscopic version of the second law of thermodynamics. On this basis a concept of efficiency, taking into account all quantum fluctuations, is proposed and analyzed. The role of the quantum statistics in this context is also discussed.