Joint probability distributions and fluctuation theorems

REINALDO GARCÍA-GARCÍA; VIVIEN LECOMTE; ALEJANDRO B. KOLTON; DANIEL DOMÍNGUEZ

JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL MECHANICS-THEORY AND EXPERIMENT

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2012 vol. 2012 p. 1 - 37

1742-5468

We derive various exact results for Markovian systems that spontaneously relax to a non-equilibrium steady state by using joint probability distribution symmetries of different entropy production decompositions. The analytical approach is applied to diverse problems such as the description of the fluctuations induced by experimental errors, for unveiling symmetries of correlation functions appearing in fluctuation–dissipation relations recently generalized to non-equilibrium steady states, and also for mapping averages between different trajectory-based dynamical ensembles. Many known fluctuation theorems arise as special instances of our approach for particular twofold decompositions of the total entropy production. As a complement, we also briefly review and synthesize the variety of fluctuation theorems applying to stochastic dynamics of both continuous systems described by a Langevin dynamics and discrete systems obeying a Markov dynamics, emphasizing how these results emerge from distinct symmetries of the dynamical entropy of the trajectory followed by the system. For Langevin dynamics, we embed the ´dual dynamics´ with a physical meaning, and for Markov systems we show how the fluctuation theorems translate into symmetries of modified evolution operators.