Collective Power: Minimal Model for Thermodynamics of Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions

We propose a thermodynamically consistent minimal model to study synchronization which is made of driven and globally interacting three-state units. This system exhibits at the mean-field level two bifurcations separating three dynamical phases: a single stable fixed point, a stable limit cycle indicative of synchronization, and multiple stable fixed points. These complex emergent dynamical behaviors are understood at the level of the underlying linear Markovian dynamics in terms of metastability. Stochastic thermodynamics is used to study the dissipated work across dynamical phases as well as across scales. This dissipated work is found to be reduced by the attractive interactions between the units and to nontrivially depend on the system size.

Reference: T. Herpich, J. Thingna and M. Esposito, Phys. Rev. X 8, 031056 (2018)