Entropy Production and Time Asymmetry in Nonequilibrium Fluctuations

The time-reversal symmetry of nonequilibrium fluctuations is experimentally investigated in two out-of-equilibrium systems: namely, a Brownian particle in a trap moving at constant speed and an electric circuit with an imposed mean current. The dynamical randomness of their nonequilibrium fluctuations is characterized in terms of the standard and time-reversed entropies per unit time of dynamical systems theory. We present experimental results showing that their difference equals the thermodynamic entropy production in units of Boltzmann’s constant.