Inertia-Driven Information Flow and Symmetry Breaking in a Nonequilibrium Two-Bead System

Abstract

We investigate information-flow generation in a nonequilibrium two-bead system coupled to two heat baths. We show that the system acts as an information-flow generator in both overdamped and underdamped regimes, with the underdamped dynamics revealing a divergence of the scaled information flow along specific paths in the thermal asymmetry--inertia parameter space that is hidden in the overdamped limit. This information generation suggests a possible route toward information engines and demon-like mechanisms in nanomachines. A symmetry-perturbation analysis of the response landscape of information flow reveals a geometric structure reminiscent of a Ginzburg--Landau framework: the symmetric reference state can correspond to a minimum or maximum depending on the perturbation direction, while the flat overdamped landscape develops a finite curvature under inertia. Mass asymmetry shifts the resulting maxima, and Hessian eigenvalue and eigenvector analysis reveals level touching of principal modes and bimodality along a constant-diffusion path. These results establish a minimal framework for understanding how inertia and microscopic heterogeneity shape information landscapes in nonequilibrium systems, with potential extensions to more complex heterogeneous networks.