Inertia-Driven Information Flow and Symmetry Breaking in a Nonequilibrium Two-Bead System
Abstract
We investigate information-flow generation in a nonequilibrium two-bead system coupled to two heat baths. We show that the system acts as an information-flow generator in both overdamped and underdamped regimes, with the underdamped dynamics revealing a divergence of the scaled information flow along specific paths in the thermal asymmetry--inertia parameter space that is hidden in the overdamped limit. This information generation suggests a possible route toward information engines and demon-like mechanisms in nanomachines. A symmetry-perturbation analysis of the response landscape of information flow reveals a geometric structure reminiscent of a Ginzburg--Landau framework: the symmetric reference state can correspond to a minimum or maximum depending on the perturbation direction, while the flat overdamped landscape develops a finite curvature under inertia. Mass asymmetry shifts the resulting maxima, and Hessian eigenvalue and eigenvector analysis reveals level touching of principal modes and bimodality along a constant-diffusion path. These results establish a minimal framework for understanding how inertia and microscopic heterogeneity shape information landscapes in nonequilibrium systems, with potential extensions to more complex heterogeneous networks.
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BibTeX
@misc{thomas2026inertiadriven,
title = {{Inertia-Driven Information Flow and Symmetry Breaking in a Nonequilibrium Two-Bead System}},
author = {Jetin E. Thomas and Ramandeep S. Johal},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.30849},
eprint = {2608.30849},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.30849},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Inertia-Driven Information Flow and Symmetry Breaking in a Nonequilibrium Two-Bead System
AU - Jetin E. Thomas
AU - Ramandeep S. Johal
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.30849
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.30849
AB - We investigate information-flow generation in a nonequilibrium two-bead system coupled to two heat baths. We show that the system acts as an information-flow generator in both overdamped and underdamped regimes, with the underdamped dynamics revealing a divergence of the scaled information flow along specific paths in the thermal asymmetry--inertia parameter space that is hidden in the overdamped limit. This information generation suggests a possible route toward information engines and demon-like mechanisms in nanomachines. A symmetry-perturbation analysis of the response landscape of information flow reveals a geometric structure reminiscent of a Ginzburg--Landau framework: the symmetric reference state can correspond to a minimum or maximum depending on the perturbation direction, while the flat overdamped landscape develops a finite curvature under inertia. Mass asymmetry shifts the resulting maxima, and Hessian eigenvalue and eigenvector analysis reveals level touching of principal modes and bimodality along a constant-diffusion path. These results establish a minimal framework for understanding how inertia and microscopic heterogeneity shape information landscapes in nonequilibrium systems, with potential extensions to more complex heterogeneous networks.
ER -