Self-propulsion symmetries determine entropy production of active particles with hidden states

Jacob Knight; Farid Kaveh; Gunnar Pruessner

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arXiv · 2507.22199

Self-propulsion symmetries determine entropy production of active particles with hidden states

Jacob Knight·Farid Kaveh·Gunnar Pruessner

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Abstract

Entropy production distinguishes equilibrium from non-equilibrium. Calculating the entropy production rate (EPR) is challenging in systems where some degrees of freedom cannot be observed. Here we introduce a perturbative framework to calculate the ``partial EPR'' of a canonical hidden-state system, a generic self-propelled active particle with hidden self-propulsion. We find that the parity symmetry, P, and (time-)reversibility, T, of the hidden variable determine partial entropy production. Non-trivial entropy production appears at least at sixth order in the self-propulsion velocity. We apply our framework to two processes which break P- and T-symmetries respectively: an asymmetric telegraph process and diffusion with stochastic resetting.

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Jacob Knight, Farid Kaveh, Gunnar Pruessner. 2025-07-29. Self-propulsion symmetries determine entropy production of active particles with hidden states. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22199

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