Consistent expansion of the Langevin propagator with application to entropy production

Abstract

Stochastic thermodynamics is a developing theory for systems out of thermal equilibrium. It allows to formulate a wealth of nontrivial relations among thermodynamic quantities such as heat dissipation, excess work, and entropy production in generic nonequilibrium stochastic processes. A key quantity for the derivation of these relations is the propagator - the probability to observe a transition from one point in phase space to another after a given time. Here, applying stochastic Taylor expansions, we devise a formal expansion procedure for the propagator of overdamped Langevin dynamics. The three leading orders are obtained explicitly. The technique resolves the shortcomings of the current mathematical machinery for the calculation of the propagator. For the evaluation of the first two displacement cumulants, the leading order Gaussian propagator is sufficient. However, some functionals of the propagator, such as the entropy production, which we refer to as "first derivatives of the trajectory", need to be evaluated to a previously-unrecognized higher order. The method presented here can be extended to arbitrarily higher orders in order to accurately compute any other functional of the propagator.