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Machine learning the thermodynamic arrow of time

Nature Physics volume 17, pages 105–113 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

The asymmetry in the flow of events that is expressed by the phrase ‘time’s arrow’ traces back to the second law of thermodynamics. In the microscopic regime, fluctuations prevent us from discerning the direction of time’s arrow with certainty. Here, we find that a machine learning algorithm that is trained to infer the direction of time’s arrow identifies entropy production as the relevant physical quantity in its decision-making process. Effectively, the algorithm rediscovers the fluctuation theorem as the underlying thermodynamic principle. Our results indicate that machine learning techniques can be used to study systems that are out of equilibrium, and ultimately to answer open questions and uncover physical principles in thermodynamics.

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Fig. 1: Non-equilibrium physics, time’s arrow and machine learning.
Fig. 2: Brownian particle in a moving potential.
Fig. 3: Spin chain in a time-dependent magnetic field.
Fig. 4: Spin chain with a time-dependent coupling.
Fig. 5: Interpreting the neural network’s inner mechanism.
Fig. 6: Mixture of experts (MoE).

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Code availability

All relevant codes or algorithms are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

A.S. thanks E. van Nieuwenburg, G. Rostkoff and A. Izadi Rad for helpful discussions. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative of the Army Research Office (grant no. ARO W911NF-15-1-0397) and the Physics Frontiers Centers of the National Science Foundation at the Joint Quantum Institute (A.S. and M.H.), and from the National Science Foundation under grant no. DMR-1506969 (C.J.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Alireza Seif, Mohammad Hafezi & Christopher Jarzynski

  2. Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Alireza Seif & Mohammad Hafezi

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and The Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Mohammad Hafezi

  4. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Christopher Jarzynski

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All authors contributed to the design of the research, the analysis of the data, and the writing of the manuscript. A.S. performed the numerical simulations and implemented the machine learning algorithms.

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Correspondence to Alireza Seif.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–5, Table 1 and Discussions 1–4.

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Seif, A., Hafezi, M. & Jarzynski, C. Machine learning the thermodynamic arrow of time. Nat. Phys. 17, 105–113 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-1018-2

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