Comment on "Exact fluctuation theorem without ensemble quantities"

Abstract

In a recent work by Cuetara et al. (Phys. Rev. E 89, 052119 (2014)), the authors claimed that if a system is prepared under suitable initial conditions, then the total entropy production (EP) for the system and reservoirs can be expressed in terms of physically measurable quantities. However, the backward protocol used in their work is not time-reversed of the forward protocol so that the quantity obtained from the ratio of the forward and backward path probabilities is neither the total EP nor any measurable quantity. We propose a suitable setup which satisfies their pursuit. We also provide a theoretical background as to what quantity satisfies the fluctuation theorem depending on the intial conditions chosen for the forward and backward processes.