Entropy production in nonequilibrium steady states: A different approach and an exactly solvable canonical model

We discuss entropy production in nonequilibrium steady states by focusing on paths obtained by sampling at regular (small) intervals, instead of sampling on each change of the system's state. This allows us to study directly entropy production in systems with microscopic irreversibility, for the first time. The two sampling methods are equivalent, otherwise, and the fluctuation theorem holds also for the novel paths. We focus on a fully irreversible three-state loop, as a canonical model of microscopic irreversibility, finding its entropy distribution, rate of entropy pr oduction, and large deviation function in closed analytical form, and showing that the widely observed kink in the large deviation function arises solely f rom microscopic irreversibility.

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