PreprintCC BY 4.0arXiv
Excursion-Resolved Thermodynamic Inference without Observing Reverse Transitions
Abstract
Experiments often detect only selected transitions, leaving the underlying state dynamics and dissipation hidden. We show that waiting-time distributions between directed visible events can reconstruct the boundary dynamics without observing the reverse of every detected transition. Under a simple source-target closure condition, they determine visible rates and the hidden excursions connecting observed states, yielding a rigorous lower bound on total entropy production that improves the standard waiting-time estimate when reverse events are available. Remarkably, observing only a spanning directed cycle is sufficient to identify the full Markov generator, even when all reverse cycle edges and other microscopic transitions remain unseen.
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BibTeX
@misc{gu2026excursionresolved,
title = {{Excursion-Resolved Thermodynamic Inference without Observing Reverse Transitions}},
author = {Jie Gu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.39205},
eprint = {2609.39205},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39205},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Excursion-Resolved Thermodynamic Inference without Observing Reverse Transitions
AU - Jie Gu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.39205
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39205
AB - Experiments often detect only selected transitions, leaving the underlying state dynamics and dissipation hidden. We show that waiting-time distributions between directed visible events can reconstruct the boundary dynamics without observing the reverse of every detected transition. Under a simple source-target closure condition, they determine visible rates and the hidden excursions connecting observed states, yielding a rigorous lower bound on total entropy production that improves the standard waiting-time estimate when reverse events are available. Remarkably, observing only a spanning directed cycle is sufficient to identify the full Markov generator, even when all reverse cycle edges and other microscopic transitions remain unseen.
ER -