Entropy production for diffusion processes across a semipermeable interface
File(s)PhysRevResearch.6.023283.pdf (1 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Bressloff, Paul
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The emerging field of stochastic thermodynamics extends classical ideas of entropy, heat, and work to nonequilibrium systems. One notable finding is that the second law of thermodynamics typically only holds after taking appropriate averages with respect to an ensemble of stochastic trajectories. The resulting average rate of entropy production then quantifies the degree of departure from thermodynamic equilibrium. In this paper we investigate how the presence of a semipermeable interface increases the average entropy production of a single diffusing particle. Starting from the Gibbs-Shannon entropy for the particle probability density, we show that a semipermeable interface or membrane 𝒮 increases the average rate of entropy production by an amount that is equal to the product of the flux through the interface and the logarithm of the ratio of the probability density on either side of the interface, integrated along 𝒮. The entropy production rate thus vanishes at thermodynamic equilibrium, but can be nonzero during the relaxation to equilibrium, or if there exists a nonzero stationary equilibrium state (NESS). We then give a probabilistic interpretation of the interfacial entropy production rate using so-called snapping out Brownian motion. This also allows us to construct a stochastic version of entropy production. Finally, we illustrate the theory using the example of diffusion with stochastic resetting on a circle, and find that the average rate of interfacial entropy production is a nonmonotonic function of the resetting rate and the permeability.
Date Issued
2024-06
Date Acceptance
2024-05-28
Citation
Physical Review Research, 2024, 6 (2)
ISSN
2643-1564
Publisher
American Physical Society
Journal / Book Title
Physical Review Research
Volume
6
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further
distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s)
and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further
distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s)
and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
License URL
Identifier
https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.023283
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
023283
Date Publish Online
2024-06-17