Thermodynamic bounds on time-reversal asymmetry

Shiling Liang, Simone Pigolotti

Published 2023-08-28Version 1

Quantifying irreversibility of a system using finite information constitutes a major challenge in stochastic thermodynamics. We introduce an observable that quantifies the time-reversal asymmetry between two states after a finite time lag. Our central result is a bound on the time-reversal asymmetry in terms of the total cycle affinity driving the system out of equilibrium. Our result leads to further thermodynamic bounds on the asymmetry of directed fluxes; on the asymmetry of finite-time cross-correlation; and on the cycle affinity of coarse-grained dynamics.