Entropy Production Rate in Stochastically Time-evolving Asymmetric Networks

Abstract

Networks that characterise the interactions between units composing complex systems are typically treated as fixed. Yet, such networks often stochastically evolve over time, shaping the collective behavior of complex systems. To date, we lack a general non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of such time-dependent networks. In this Letter, to address this problem, we model fluctuating interactions between units of nonlinear network systems as uncorrelated colored noise (i.e., annealed disorder) with a correlation time. This approach enables us to quantify how the entropy production rate (EPR) depends on both the time-scale and the strength of the disorder. Using {\it dynamical mean field theory}, we derive an exact expression for EPR at {\it any} transient time that is validated by simulations of the full dynamics and establish a relation between EPR and autocorrelation at stationarity. We find that annealed disorder shifts the transition from the fixed-point to chaos toward a higher variance of the interactions, thereby suppressing chaos but at the cost of greater dissipation.