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Decomposing the Local Arrow of Time in Interacting Systems

Christopher W. Lynn, Caroline M. Holmes, William Bialek, and David J. Schwab
Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 118101 – Published 6 September 2022
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Abstract

We show that the evidence for a local arrow of time, which is equivalent to the entropy production in thermodynamic systems, can be decomposed. In a system with many degrees of freedom, there is a term that arises from the irreversible dynamics of the individual variables, and then a series of non-negative terms contributed by correlations among pairs, triplets, and higher-order combinations of variables. We illustrate this decomposition on simple models of noisy logical computations, and then apply it to the analysis of patterns of neural activity in the retina as it responds to complex dynamic visual scenes. We find that neural activity breaks detailed balance even when the visual inputs do not, and that this irreversibility arises primarily from interactions between pairs of neurons.

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  • Received 8 March 2022
  • Revised 3 June 2022
  • Accepted 24 June 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.118101

© 2022 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics of Living SystemsStatistical Physics & ThermodynamicsInterdisciplinary PhysicsNetworks

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Decomposing the Local Arrow of Time in the Brain

Published 6 September 2022

Researchers have developed a way to quantitatively evaluate irreversibility in complex networks.

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Authors & Affiliations

Christopher W. Lynn1,2, Caroline M. Holmes2, William Bialek1,2, and David J. Schwab1

  • 1Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York 10016, USA
  • 2Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics and Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

See Also

Emergence of local irreversibility in complex interacting systems

Christopher W. Lynn, Caroline M. Holmes, William Bialek, and David J. Schwab
Phys. Rev. E 106, 034102 (2022)

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Vol. 129, Iss. 11 — 9 September 2022

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