Generic Properties of Stochastic Entropy Production

Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Oct 6;119(14):140604. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.140604. Epub 2017 Oct 4.

Abstract

We derive an Itô stochastic differential equation for entropy production in nonequilibrium Langevin processes. Introducing a random-time transformation, entropy production obeys a one-dimensional drift-diffusion equation, independent of the underlying physical model. This transformation allows us to identify generic properties of entropy production. It also leads to an exact uncertainty equality relating the Fano factor of entropy production and the Fano factor of the random time, which we also generalize to non-steady-state conditions.