Stochastic thermodynamics of a tagged particle within a harmonic chain

Abstract

We study the stochastic thermodynamics of an overdamped harmonic chain, which can be viewed equivalently as a 1D Rouse chain or as an approximate model of single file diffusion. We discuss mainly two levels of description of this system: the Markovian level for which the trajectories of all the particles of the chain are known and the non-Markovian level in which only the motion of a tagged particle is available. For each case, we analyze the energy dissipation and its dependence on initial conditions. Surprisingly, we find that the average coarse-grained entropy production rate can become transiently negative when an oscillating force is applied to the tagged particle. This occurs due to memory effects as shown in a framework based on path integrals or on a generalized Langevin equation.

17 pages, 7 figures, REVTeX, minor revisions

References in corpus (5)

• Large Deviations in Single File Diffusion
• Symmetries of generating functionals of Langevin processes with colored multiplicative noise
• Fluctuation relations for anomalous dynamics
• Fluctuation theorems and inequalities generalizing the second law of thermodynamics off equilibrium
• Non-adiabatic entropy production for non-Markov dynamics

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Non-equilibrium work distribution for interacting colloidal particles under friction
• Eliminating the cuspidal temperature profile of a non-equilibrium chain
• Tagged particle behavior in a harmonic chain of direction reversing active Brownian particles