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LIT-523: Stochastic thermodynamics, fluctuation theorems and molecular machines

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StatusActive — read 2026-10-02 (NOTE-420; §§5, 8.3–8.4, 9.2 and 11 skimmed); worth reading as the systematic reference for stochastic thermodynamics as of 2012: first law, heat and stochastic entropy along single trajectories of Markovian systems coupled to baths, every known fluctuation theorem derived from one master theorem with a conjugate dynamics, dissipation as distinguishability of forward and reverse paths, Sagawa–Ueda feedback, the NESS fluctuation–dissipation theorem and efficiency of molecular machines. It is the framework in which the record's thermodynamics-of-prediction and thermodynamics-of-learning results (LIT-327, LIT-308) are stated. Read it as a review: the derivations are its own and concise, the case studies are reported.
Tagsthermodynamics, natural-sciences, information-theory
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-420 — Stochastic thermodynamics, fluctuation theorems and molecular machines
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-431 — For classical systems with Markovian, microscopically reversible dynamics, the entropy production of a trajectory obeys an exact finite-time symmetry against the time-reversed process, P_F(+ω)/P_R(−ω) = e^ω, wherever ω is odd under reversal; Jarzynski's work equality and the mean second law follow as corollaries, and the symmetry constrains fluctuations, not which steady state a system selects

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Udo Seifert (2012), Reports on Progress in Physics 75(12), 126001 — DOI-10.1088/0034-4885/75/12/126001 (preprint arXiv:1205.4176, 18 May 2012)

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-10-02 with the critics of Prigogine’s extremum principles, the maximum-entropy-production literature and the fluctuation theorems, at the owner’s request to fill out the record’s coverage of dissipative structures. The anthology does not hold it.

NOTE-420 is the reading of 2026-10-02, and it placed the work: Active. Most of it was read closely, and the experimental survey and the heat-engine section were skimmed. It is the reference for the framework the record’s thermodynamics-of-computation papers work in. Goldt and Seifert’s learning bound (LIT-308) is a stochastic-thermodynamics result in this sense, built on Horowitz’s subsystem second law (NOTE-296). Still et al.’s nonpredictive-dissipation identity (LIT-327) is stated with the same nonequilibrium free energy, which LIT-327 takes from other sources. It derives Jarzynski’s equality (LIT-517) and Crooks’s theorem (LIT-522) as special cases of one master theorem.

Its bearing on THEORY-026 is twofold, and neither part is support for the account’s claim.

  • Framework. It states the bound ⟨w⟩ − ΔF ≥ D[p(x_t)‖p_eq(x_t)] (Eq. 150, from Vaikuntanathan and Jarzynski, in units with T = 1). For a fixed protocol started in equilibrium, that is the statement that LIT-327’s protocol-level dissipation ⟨W_ex⟩ − F^add is nonnegative. NOTE-420 explains the match.
  • Scope. It does not address the per-step nostalgia under a non-Markov drive, which is what THEORY-026’s promotion condition asks for.

It also frames THEORY-030’s subject: §7.3 states that work extracted by feedback is paid back by erasure “according to Landauer’s principle”, and reports the colloidal experiment in which erasure heat approaches the Landauer bound for slow cycles.

On Prigogine’s programme it is the modern descendant, not a defence. Seifert notes (§1.1) that “stochastic thermodynamics” revives a name the Brussels school used in the mid-1980s at the ensemble level for chemical systems. In a footnote to §6.1 he points to Polettini 2011 “for a relation to the minimum entropy production principle”, and otherwise says nothing on extremum principles. Its linear-response section (§10.4) recovers Onsager symmetry from the cycle representation, and its efficiency results are stated beyond linear response.

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