1212.3186 (A. C. Barato et al.)

Information-theoretic vs. thermodynamic entropy production in autonomous
sensory networks    [PDF]

A. C. Barato, U. Seifert

For sensory networks, we determine the rate with which they acquire information about the changing external conditions. Comparing this rate with the thermodynamic entropy production that quantifies the cost of maintaining the network, we find that there is no universal bound restricting the rate of obtaining information to be less than this thermodynamic cost. These results obtained within a general bipartite model consisting of a stochastically changing environment that affects the instantaneous transition rates within the system are illustrated with a simple four-states model motivated by cellular sensing. On the technical level, we require and justify a new conjecture on the mutual information rate involving a non-Markovian process.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.3186