Non-equilibrium fluctuation theorems in the presence of local heating

Abstract

We study two non-equilibrium work fluctuation theorems, the Crooks' theorem and the Jarzynski equality, for a test system coupled to a spatially extended heat reservoir whose degrees of freedom are explicitly modeled. The sufficient conditions for the validity of the theorems are discussed in detail and compared to the case of classical Hamiltonian dynamics. When the conditions are met the fluctuation theorems are shown to hold despite the fact that the immediate vicinity of the test system goes out of equilibrium during an irreversible process. We also study the effect of the coupling to the heat reservoir on the convergence of $<\exp(-\beta W)>$ to its theoretical mean value, where $W$ is the work done on the test system and $\beta$ is the inverse temperature. It is shown that the larger the local heating, the slower the convergence.