Entropy production in field theories without time reversal symmetry:

Quantifying the non-equilibrium character of active matter

Cesare Nardini,1, 2, 3 Étienne Fodor,1, 4 Elsen Tjhung,1 Frédéric van Wijland,4 Julien Tailleur,4 and Michael E. Cates1
1
DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK
2
SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh,
Peter Guthrie Tait Road, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, UK
3
Service de Physique de l’État Condensé, CNRS UMR 3680, CEA-Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
4
Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes, UMR 7057 CNRS/P7, Université Paris Diderot,
10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75205 Paris cedex 13, France
arXiv:1610.06112v2 [cond-mat.stat-mech] 23 Apr 2017

Active matter systems operate far from equilibrium due to the continuous energy injection at the
scale of constituent particles. At larger scales, described by coarse-grained models, the global en-
tropy production rate S quantifies the probability ratio of forward and reversed dynamics and hence
the importance of irreversibility at such scales: it vanishes whenever the coarse-grained dynamics
of the active system reduces to that of an effective equilibrium model. We evaluate S for a class of
scalar stochastic field theories describing the coarse-grained density of self-propelled particles with-
out alignment interactions, capturing such key phenomena as motility-induced phase separation.
We show how the entropy production can be decomposed locally (in real space) or spectrally (in
Fourier space), allowing detailed examination of the spatial structure and correlations that underly
departures from equilibrium. For phase-separated systems, the local entropy production is concen-
trated mainly on interfaces with a bulk contribution that tends to zero in the weak-noise limit. In
homogeneous states, we find a generalized Harada-Sasa relation that directly expresses the entropy
production in terms of the wavevector-dependent deviation from the fluctuation-dissipation relation
between response functions and correlators. We discuss extensions to the case where the particle
density is coupled to a momentum-conserving solvent, and to situations where the particle current,
rather than the density, should be chosen as the dynamical field. We expect the new conceptual
tools developed here to be broadly useful in the context of active matter, allowing one to distinguish
when and where activity plays an essential role in the dynamics.

PACS numbers: 05.40.-a; 05.70.Ce; 82.70.Dd; 87.18.Gh

Active matter consists of systems where energy is in-
jected at the level of each constituent particle, for in-
stance to power a self-propelled motion, before being dis-
sipated locally [1]. Interacting assemblies of such par-
ticles exhibit a rich phenomenology, ranging from the
transition to collective motion [2–6] to the emergence of
spatio-temporal chaos [7] and large-scale vortices of self-
propelled composite structures [8, 9]. The sustained in-
jection and dissipation of energy at the microscopic level
drives the dynamics out of equilibrium. Despite this,
it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint a truly nonequilib-
rium signature in the emergent collective properties: the
strong microscopic departure from equilibrium does not
necessarily survive in the large scale physics. This is
particularly striking in the emergence of cohesive mat-
ter in the absence of cohesive forces through the mecha-
nism of motility-induced phase separation [10–12]. While
clearly non-thermal, the large-scale dynamics does not
lead to steady mass currents and closely resembles equi-
librium phase separation. Accordingly, many attempts
have been made to connect this phenomenology to equi-
librium physics [10, 13–21].
The departure from equilibrium in active systems has
often been studied by introducing effective temperatures
as defined by the ratio of response functions to correlators
[22]. These reduce to the true temperature in the equi-
librium limit because the fluctuation-dissipation theorem
then holds [16, 23–26]. In particular, effective tempera-
tures have been measured experimentally, for instance in
living systems from the dynamics of injected tracers [27–
31]. Generically, however, there is no direct connection
between the value of the effective temperature and the
non-equilibrium nature of the dynamics encoded in the
breakdown of time-reversal symmetry (TRS). Another
characteristic feature of non-equilibrium systems is the
emergence of steady-state currents, whose study has long
been of interest [32–37]. On the other hand, TRS break-
down in steady state is in general quantified by the global
entropy production rate S [38]. This can be found, even
far from equilibrium, directly from the probability ratio
of each realization of the dynamics to its time reversed
counterpart [38–41].
The possibility that temporal or spatial coarse-graining
of a nonequilibrium system can restore or partially re-
store TRS, creating an effective equilibrium dynamics,
has been theoretically addressed in a number of different
studies [42–47]. So far however, only a few of these ad-
dress active matter directly [10, 48–52]. Our goal in the
present work is to understand the connection between
emergent phenomena, such as phase separation, and the
existence of irreversibility at coarse-grained scales. We
address this question by studying the entropy produc-
tion of stochastic field theories, which describe at coarse-
grained level active systems undergoing motility-induced
phase separation. Importantly, we progress beyond the
evaluation of the global entropy production rate, which
in steady state is a single number S, to address the more
detailed question of how this is built up of contributions
from different regions of real space or reciprocal space.
This allows us to develop tools for quantifying deviations
from equilibrium in a locally or spectrally resolved fash-
ion, leading to new insight.
To capture the collective physics of self-propelled par-
ticles, various continuum theories have been proposed
based either on coarse-graining procedures or on sym-
metry arguments [1]. A prototypical example is “Active
Model B” [53] which describes diffusive phase separation
between two isotropic phases of active matter at differ-
ent particle densities. It captures in stylized form the
coarse-grained many-body dynamics of active particles
with either discrete [10, 21] or continuous [54, 55] an-
gular relaxation of their self-propulsion direction. (Such
particles can phase separate even when their interactions
are purely repulsive [12].) Within a gradient expansion of
the particle density field φ(r), at zeroth order a bulk free
energy density f (φ) can be constructed, thus providing
a mapping to equilibrium [10]. But at square-gradient
level the mapping to equilibrium is lost and TRS is bro-
ken [53, 54]. Active Model B thus adds minimal TRS-
breaking gradient terms to Model B, which is an equi-
librium square-gradient theory widely employed in the
theory of critical phenomena [56, 57]. This resembles
how the KPZ equation [58] was constructed, by extension
of the Edwards-Wilkinson model [59], as a prototypical
non-equilibrium model of interfacial growth.
The methods used to quantify entropy production rely
on path integral representations of stochastic PDEs and
weak-noise large deviation theory [60–64]. These have
recently been used to address the macroscopic behaviour
of diffusive systems [35, 65]. In that context, several
stochastic field theories associated via suitable coarse
graining [66–69] with lattice [35, 63, 70] and continuum
models [64] have been considered, and large-deviation re-
sults for both density [35, 64] and current [32, 35, 65]
have been obtained. Other results on stochastic thermo-
dynamics and fluctuation theorems for field theories have
been offered [71–74].
We give in Section I a brief review of Active Model
B. Then we define in Section II the global entropy pro-
duction rate S from the probability of observing a real-
ization of the fluctuating density field φ(r, t). A success
of S is to capture in a single number the importance
of non-equilibrium effects in steady state. However, a
nonzero value does not allow straightforward physical in-
sight into where or how TRS is broken in the coarse-
grained dynamics. To rectify this we introduce a spa-
tial decomposition of the entropy production that allows
us to locally resolve the nonequilibrium effects of activ-
ity. For a phase-separated state of Active Model B, we
find that the main contribution arises from the interfaces.
On this basis, one might be tempted to assume that in
homogeneous phases the nonequilibrium nature of the
dynamics becomes unimportant, yielding effective equi-
librium behavior [10, 55]. But in fact this holds only
at mean-field level and is broken by fluctuations, as we
show, both directly, and by constructing a spectral de-
composition of the entropy production. This decomposi-
tion generalizes to active field theories the Harada-Sasa
relation (HSR) [47] which relates S to violations of the
fluctuation-dissipation relation. The experimental feasi-
bility to measure entropy production from HRS has al-
ready been proven [75–77] while its application to many-
body active matter systems is still elusive. We finally
extend our approach to more general systems by con-
sidering (in Section III) a diffusive active density field
coupled to a momentum-conserving fluid (Active Model
H), and (in Section IV) a diffusive model in which the
mean current J has nonzero curl (Active Model B+). In
the latter case we can choose whether to calculate S from
φ(r, t) as before, or from J(r, t) which now contains more
information. The results differ: this shows that the en-
tropy production depends on what variables one chooses
to retain in a coarse-grained description. In Section V
we give our conclusions.
I. ACTIVE MODEL B
We consider a conserved, scalar phase-ordering system
at the fluctuating hydrodynamics level. Based on sym-
metry grounds, the simplest dynamics of its order pa-
rameter field φ(r, t) satisfies
φ̇ = −∇ · J, J = −∇µ + Λ, (1)
where J is a fluctuating current and Λ a spatio-temporal
Gaussian white noise field satisfying
√
Λ= 2DΓ ; hΓα (r, t)Γβ (r0 , t0 )i = δαβ δ(r − r0 )δ(t − t0 ).
(2)
Here the noise strength D is the ratio of the collective
diffusivity to the collective mobility; the latter has been
set to unity in (1). For systems en route to equilibrium,
the deterministic part of the current takes the form
δF[φ]
Jd ≡ −∇µ, µ = µE ≡ . (3)
δφ
This is Model B [56, 57]. The chemical potential µE de-
rives from a free energy F[φ] which is conveniently chosen
of the φ4 -type
Z h
κ i
F[φ] = f (φ) + |∇φ|2 dr, (4)
2
a2 φ2 a4 φ4
f (φ) = + . (5)
2 4
Phase separation then arises, at mean-field level, when-
ever a2 < 0; here a4 and κ are both positive.
For a class of phase-separating active matter models,
it has been argued that the main effect of the activity can
be captured at the fluctuating hydrodynamic level by an
2
additional contribution to the chemical potential given,
in its simplest form, by:
µ = µE + µA , µA ≡ λ|∇φ|2 . (6)
Eqs. (1–6) define Active Model B [53, 54], which is the
simplest coarse-grained description of phase-separating
active systems. Note that the explicit coarse-graining
of self-propelled particles interacting via a density-
dependent propulsion speed indeed leads to a closely
related dynamics, albeit with more complex density-
dependence of the various coefficients [21, 54].
The defining property of µA is that it cannot be writ-
ten as the functional derivative of any F[φ]. It rep-
resents a nonequilibrium chemical potential contribu-
tion, which violates TRS by undermining the free-energy
structure of the steady state. Interestingly, while the
break-down of TRS has often been modelled at the micro-
scopic level with nonequilibrium noise terms that directly
break fluctuation-dissipation relations, it is the determin-
istic part the current J which deviates from equilibrium
form in Active Model B. This differs from recent studies
of the impact of colored noises on Models A and B [78].
Note also that the decomposition of µ into its equilib-
rium and nonequilibrium parts is not unique; since the
only defining property of µA is that it does not derive
from a free energy, an arbitrary equilibrium contribution
can be moved into it from µE . This does not change any
of the results of the next Section, but we will have to
be more careful in Section III where activity affects the
stress tensor as well as the chemical potential.
II. ENTROPY PRODUCTION
To quantify the breaking of TRS, the main quantity
of interest is the noise-averaged, global, steady-state en-
tropy production rate S. According to the precepts of
stochastic thermodynamics [38, 79], it is defined as [39]
1
P[φ]

τ τ
S = lim S , S = ln R , (7)
τ →∞ τ P [φ]
where P is the probability of a path {φ(r, t)}0≤t≤τ , and
P R is the probability of its time-reversed realization. The
average h·i in (7) is taken with respect to noise realiza-
tions. With suitable ergodicity assumptions,1 which we
make throughout this paper, averaging over one long tra-
jectory (τ → ∞) with a single noise realization is equiv-
alent to the noise-average in (7). In this case the angular
brackets h·i in (7) can be dropped, and below we silently
do this whenever it suits our purposes. For general initial
conditions φ(r, 0), this single-trajectory time-average will
also include a transient contribution that scales sublin-
early with its duration τ , and hence does not contribute
1 For phase-separated systems, ergodicity is assumed subject to
specified positions for the interfaces between phases.
to the entropy production rate S; the initial condition is
then irrelevant. All terms of equilibrium form (µE ) con-
tribute only to this transient as we will see below. Im-
portantly, although individual paths can have negative
entropy production, S τ as defined in (7) cannot be neg-
ative. Using standard field-theoretical methods [69, 80–
82], the trajectory weight can be written as
P[φ] = exp [−A] , (8)
where A[φ(r, t)] is the dynamical action.
For Active Model B as studied here, we show below
that the global entropy production can be written as
Z
S = hσ̂(φ, ∇φ, . . . )i dr, (9)
where σ̂ is a local function of the field φ and its deriva-
tives. We then interpret the integrand σ(r) ≡ hσ̂i as a
steady-state local entropy production density. Yet, such
an interpretation carries two caveats. First, there are
several different possible expressions for σ(r) which dif-
fer by transient and/or total derivative terms, all giving
the same integral S; we return to this issue below. Sec-
ond, the existence of a local entropy production density
seemingly implies additivity of S over subsystems. This
is however a subtle point which is discussed in Appendix
A.
The dynamical action for Active Model B is2 [80]
1
Z
A[φ] = A(r, t)drdt,
4D (11)
A = −(φ̇ + ∇ · Jd )∇−2 (φ̇ + ∇ · Jd ).
Here the stochastic integral, like all those below, is de-
fined in the Stratonovich sense [83]. In Eq. (11), we have
silently omitted a time-symmetric contribution stemming
from the Stratonovich time-discretisation (see Appen-
dices B and C for details). The integral operator ∇−2
is the functional inverse to the Laplacian (a Coulomb
integral). The action A measures the logarithm of the
probability that a solution to (1) is arbitrarily close to a
given path {φ(r, t)}0≤t≤τ .
We now introduce the time-reversal operation
t → τ − t,
(12)
φ(r, t) → φR (r, t) = φ(r, τ − t).
This defines φR (r, t) as the path found by running a movie
of φ(r, t) backwards in time. The quantity P R then repre-
sents the probability of observing the trajectory φR (r, t)
2 An equivalent expression for A[φ] is
A = |∇−1 (φ̇ + ∇ · Jd )|2 (10)
with the definition ∇−1 X ≡ ∇∇−2 X. The latter operation
maps a scalar field X to a vector field Y such that ∇.Y = X
with a gauge choice ∇ ∧ Y = 0. The two forms for A in (11) and
(10) are then related by integration by parts.
3
under the “forward” dynamics (1). Since in these dy-
namics the deterministic part of the current Jd is a func-
tional of φ, we have Jd (r, t) → JRd (r, t) = Jd (r, τ − t),
as found by substituting (12) into (1). Thus the deter-
ministic current is not reversed, even though the actual
current J = Jd + Λ is equal and opposite in the forward
and backward paths, because φ̇R = −φ̇. The forward and
backward trajectories are thus likely to require very dif-
ferent realizations of the noise. Put differently, the most
probable forward trajectories have small noise contribu-
tions so that J ' Jd . The total current in the time-
reversed trajectory, JR , is opposed to the deterministic
one JR ' −JRd so that a very atypical noise realization
may be required, such that the probability of observing
the reversed trajectories is very small.
Note that the notion of time-reversed trajectories con-
tains a degree of ambiguity. Here, we simply measure the
probability of the noise realization required to make the
time-reversal of a trajectory φ(r, t) a solution of the for-
ward dynamics. This should not be confused with various
“conjugacy” operations that instead map the forward dy-
namics of one system onto the backward dynamics of an-
other [38]. Such mappings typically involve treating some
of the parameters in the model as odd under time rever-
sal. This happens in magnetism, where S can be found
by comparing a trajectory in an external magnetic field
B with the time-reversed trajectory in an external mag-
netic field −B [83]. Such an extension of TRS is there-
fore mandatory to ensure the absence of entropy produc-
tion in conservative magnetic systems. In the present
case, the external parameters (such as λ in Active Model
B) must not be chosen odd under time reversal, as this
would compare forward trajectories in one system with
backward trajectories in one with different dynamics, and
indeed different phase equilibria [53]. Therefore, such ex-
tensions of TRS are not pertinent to the present paper.
Returning to the main issue, we now observe that the
only anti-symmetric part in the dynamical action is φ̇.
The probability for a forward trajectory to lie arbitrarily
close to the time reversed trajectory {φR (r, t)}0≤t≤τ , as
a functional of {φ(r, t)}0≤t≤τ , is P R = exp [−AR ] with
Z sity field φ is used to define trajectories.
1 As already mentioned following (9) above, there are
AR [φ] = AR (r, t)drdt,
4D (13)
AR = −(φ̇ − ∇ · Jd )∇−2 (φ̇ − ∇ · Jd ),
where we have again omitted a time-symmetric contribu-
tion arising from the time discretization. Relation (7) for
the steady-state entropy production can now be written
AR − A
Z
1 first two forms differ by a transient contribution ∆F/τ →
S = lim = lim (AR − A)drdt. (14)
τ →∞ τ τ →∞ 4Dτ
Using (11,13), we get
 
δF
AR − A = 4(∇−1 φ̇)∇ + µA . (15)
δφ
Performing the spacial integral in (14) by parts and not-
ing that in the Stratonovich convention φ̇δF/δφ = Ḟ, we
find that
Z
1
S = − lim µ(r, t)φ̇(r, t)drdt
τ →∞ Dτ
Z  (16)
1
= − lim µA (r, t)φ̇(r, t)drdt + ∆F .
τ →∞ Dτ
This result is central to all that follows. Here ∆F =
F(τ ) − F(0) is the difference between the final and ini-
tial values of the free energy functional F. This is, of
course, the only term present in the passive limit; the
total free energy change then fixes τ S τ = −∆F, so that
S = 0. ∆F remains bounded even in active systems be-
cause F(τ ) is bounded below and F(0) bounded above
for sensible initial conditions, in each case by terms linear
in the system volume. Hence this transient contribution
always vanishes as τ → ∞. Assuming ergodicity, the
steady-state entropy production then obeys
Z
1
S=− hµA φ̇idr, (17)
D
where the average h·i is now taken over the stationary
measure. Importantly (see footnote 1) since we are inter-
ested in phase separation and similar situations of broken
translational symmetry, we should understand the angle
brackets in this expression as being noise-averages within
an ensemble where interfaces between phases are held sta-
tionary in time. We can then define a local steady-state
entropy production density
1
σφ (r) ≡ − hµA φ̇i(r), (18)
D
whose integral is the entropy production:
Z
S = Sφ ≡ σφ (r)dr. (19)
Here and in (18) we have added a subscript φ to dis-
tinguish these forms from expressions appearing later on
(Section IV) in which the current J rather than the den-
several other local quantities which have the same inte-
gral, S, and hence have equal claim to be called the local
entropy production density. Indeed,
− σφ D ≡ hµφ̇i , hµA φ̇i , hJ.∇µA i , −hJ.Jd i (20)
are all equivalent for the purposes of computing S. The
0, as do the last two. The latter pair are found from
the former by partial integration, differing from them by
terms of the form ∇.Υd,A where Υd = Jµ and ΥA = JµA .
Our numerical studies suggest that these alternative can-
didates for local entropy production are practically indis-
tinguishable in the case of Active Model B. A more com-
plex situation arises for Active Model B+, as described
in Section IV.
4
A Spatial decomposition of entropy production

1 0.004

0.5 0.002

<φ(x)>

σφ(x)
0 0

<φ(x)>
-0.5 D=0.001 -0.002
D=0.002
D=0.02
-1 D=0.04 -0.004

0 40 80 120 160 200 240

x

FIG. 1. Left: Density map of a fluctuating phase-separated droplet in Active Model B in 2D. Center: Local contribution
to the entropy production σ(r) showing a strong contribution at the interfaces. Right: Density and entropy production
for a 1D system comprising a single domain wall, for various noise levels D  a22 /4a4 . The entropy production is strongly
inhomogeneous, attaining a finite value as D → 0 at the interface between dense and dilute regions and converging to zero in
the bulk in this limit. Values of the parameters used are a2 = −0.125, a4 = 0.125, κ = 8, and λ = 2.

A. Spatial decomposition of entropy production of φ0 and φ1 reduce to:

We now turn to the numerical evaluation of σφ (r) in
Active Model B. We defer to future work any study of
the critical region of the model, focusing instead on the
weak noise limit (small D) where sharp interfaces form
between high and low density phases, respectively de-
noted by φh > 0 and φl < 0. Note that φh 6= −φl unless
λ = 0, since activity breaks ±φ symmetry in F [53]. To
study phase separated states in one dimension we con-
sider a single domain wall in the centre of the system
and impose ∇φ = 0 on the distant boundaries. We use
finite difference methods with mid-point spatial discreti-
sation to integrate (1) via a fully explicit first order Euler
algorithm. Importantly, the discretised system exactly
respects detailed balance whenever λ = 0, as shown in
Appendix B where further numerical details are given.
For numerical purposes we evaluate the entropy produc-
tion density as
1
Z state, φ1 has an equilibrium dynamics controlled by the
σφ (r) = − lim µA (r, t)∇2 µ(r, t)dt, (21)
t→∞ Dt
whose equivalence with (18) is established, within our
discretization scheme, in Appendix D.
Our numerics in both one and two dimensions show
that the local entropy production density σφ (r) is
strongly inhomogeneous, being large at the interface be-
tween phases, but small within these phases (Fig. 1). To
quantitatively explain this, we consider the weak noise
expansion of the density
√ tion density σφ (r) shown in Fig. 1 which shows that, as
φ = φ0 + Dφ1 + Dφ2 + O(D3/2 ). (22)
In the weak noise limit, standard field-theoretical meth-
ods, which we outline in Appendix E, show the dynamics
φ̇0 = −∇ · Jd (φ0 ) (23)
 
2 δF0
φ̇1 = ∇ + 2λ∇φ0 · ∇φ1 + ∇ · Γ (24)
δφ1
where Γ is a standard Gaussian white noise as in (2) and
φ2 |∇φ1 |2
Z  
F0 = (a2 + 3a4 φ20 ) 1 + κ dr. (25)
2 2
This shows, as expected, that the statistics of φ0,1 are
independent of D at leading order.
We first consider the case where the mean-field dynam-
ics for φ0 has relaxed to a constant profile. In this case,
it follows from (18) that
√
σφ (r) = −λ Dh|∇φ1 |2 φ̇1 i + O(D). (26)
Inspection of Eq. (24) shows that the only TRS-breaking
term is proportional to ∇φ0 so that, in a homogeneous
√ F0 . The latter is even in φ1 so that the term
free-energy
of order D in the expansion (26) of σφ vanishes by
symmetry. We conclude that in bulk phases σφ ∝ D. We
have checked this by simulations in single-phase systems
where the total entropy production is indeed shown to
scale as S ∝ D; see Fig. 2.
In contrast however, Fig. 2 also shows that the total
entropy production S for a phase-separated system re-
mains finite as D → 0. This D0 term dominates at small
enough D and is caused by entropy production localised
near the interfaces between phases. This is graphically
confirmed in the spatial map of the local entropy produc-
D → 0, σ vanishes aways from interfaces but has a finite
contribution in their vicinity. This can be understood
from the expansion (22) where φ0 (r) is now a (steady)
phase-separated solution of the mean-field dynamics (23),

5
A Spatial decomposition of entropy production
0.3
one-phase
two-phase
0.2
Sφ
0.1
0 0.1
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
D
FIG. 2. Total entropy production Sφ for Active Model B
in one dimension for the case where the system consists of
a single uniform phase (a2 > 0, a4 > 0, red) and for the
case where it shows coexistence between a high-density and
a low density phase (a2 < 0, a4 > 0, green). (Parameter
values are a2 = ±0.25 for the uniform (+) and phase-separates
(−) states, with a4 = 0.25, κ = 4, λ = 1.) In the two-phase
system,
√ any putative sub-extensive (interfacial) term scaling
as D would be swamped by the extensive D1 contribution
from bulk phases.
R tropy production density σ(r) can provide a good quanti-
with a prescribed value of φ(r)dr. Inserting (22) in the
definition (18) of σφ gives
λ including those where activity parameters such as swim-
σφ (r) = − √ |∇φ0 |2 hφ̇1 i − λ|∇φ0 |2 hφ̇2 i
D (27)
√ cases analytical progress could be more difficult, but the
− 2λ∇φ0 · h∇φ1 φ̇1 i + O( D).
In the steady state, hφ̇i i = ∂t hφi i = 0 so that
√ phases whose translational invariance forces σφ (r) to be
σφ (r) = −2λ∇φ0 · hφ̇1 ∇φ1 i + O( D) (28)
where the average is taken over the stationary measure
of the dynamics (24) for φ1 . Given that the statistics of
φ1 are, by construction, D-independent, it follows that
σφ (r) = O(D0 ) wherever the gradient of the determinis-
tic solution is finite, i.e., at interfaces.
In Fig. 3, we show the dependence of the total en-
tropy production Sφ on λ; this scales as Sφ ∝ λ2 . No
linear term is possible, because it would mean that of
two different Active Model B systems, with other param-
eters the same but with opposite signs of λ, one would
have negative global entropy production in steady state.
Accordingly in (28), the term hφ̇1 ∇φ1 i must itself be of
order λ in general. This explains the quadratic scaling,
but only to leading order in small λ (and D). In practice
we find this scaling over a wide range of λ at small D
(Fig. 3), and also at larger D (not shown) but we have
no explanation for these results at present.
In summary, we have found above that σφ ∼ D0 where
h∇φi 6= 0 whereas σφ ∼ D in bulk phases (Fig. 2). This
confirms quantitatively that the TRS breakdown induced
10
ξ = √2
ξ = 2√2
ξ = 4√2
1
Sφ
0.1
0.01
1 10 100
2 2
λ /ξ
FIG. 3. Scaling of the total entropy production as a func-
showing that Sφ ∝ λ2 , as predicted analytically.
tion of λ, q
Here ξ = − 2aκ2 is the passive interface width. Values of
the parameters used are (a2 = −0.5, a4 = 0.5, κ = 2, D =
0.001), (−0.25, 0.25, 4, 0.001) and (−0.125, 0.125, 8, 0.001) for
red, green and blue points respectively.
by activity plays its largest role at interfaces [21, 53].
More generally, the results exemplify how the local en-
tative tool to understand the breaking of TRS when the
system is inhomogeneous. This is likely to be important
in situations more complicated than phase separation,
speed vary in space (see [84] and also Section IV). In such
numerical evaluation of σφ (r) should remain tractable.
On the other hand, this approach gives little information
about the character of TRS breaking in homogeneous
simply flat. In such cases spatial structure is captured
by correlation functions rather than mean values; we ad-
dress this next.
B. Spectral decomposition of entropy production
from fluctuation and response
The fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) is a funda-
mental property of equilibrium dynamics [85]. It states
that the response to an external perturbation is entirely
determined by spontaneous fluctuations in absence of
the perturbation. For active field theories, and non-
equilibrium systems more widely, there is no general re-
lation between correlation and response. Thus, violation
of the FDT in a coarse grained description at some scale
is a proof that activity matters dynamically at this scale,
since no passive model could ever give rise to such a vio-
lation. In equilibrium, the ratio of correlators to response
functions is set by the bath temperature. For nonequilib-
rium dynamics, an effective temperature is sometimes in-
6
B Spectral decomposition of entropy production from fluctuation and response
troduced by analogy with the FDT by looking for asymp-
totic regimes (in time or frequency) where constant val-
ues arise for the correlator/response ratio [25, 86]. One
drawback of such a definition of the effective tempera-
ture is that it generically is different for every perturba-
tion and observable under scrutiny, and therefore bears
no universal meaning.
In this Section, we provide a quantitative relation be-
tween the rate of entropy production S and the FDT vi-
olation for the stochastic field dynamics governed by (1).
We then present detailed numerical results for the case
of Active Model B. For an overdamped single particle
driven out of equilibrium by an external non-gradient
force, such a connection was discovered by Harada and
Sasa [47]. They showed that the violation of the FDT
relating the correlation of the particle position and the
response to a constant force provides a direct access to
the entropy production rate. Therefore, one important
success of the Harada-Sasa relation (HSR) was to iden-
tify, among all possible violations of the FDT in a non-
equilibrium system, the particular observable and per-
turbation that quantitatively determine S. The HSR
equilibrated modes, as enforced by the FDT: ωC(k, ω) =
2DR(k, ω). The spectral decomposition is particularly
interesting for uniform systems, where the real-space lo-
cal density σφ (r) defined in Eq. (18) is obliged to be
constant by translational invariance. It is natural in
such systems to instead consider entropy production as
a function of wavevector (and perhaps also frequency),
and (30) provides the appropriate tool for doing so. Per-
forming the ω integral allows one to quantitatively ex-
plore whether activity matters dynamically at a given
spatial scale. A further asset of the generalized HSR is
that it allows one to evaluate S without complete infor-
mation about the equations of motion. In particular, as
detailed below, we assumed these to lie in the broad class
defined by (1) but made no assumption about the form
of the nonequilibrium chemical potential µA . This is in
contrast to the real-space methods presented in Sec. II A.
We now give the derivation of the HSR result. In terms
of the dynamic action Ah of the perturbed dynamics,
using the property δP = −PδAh , the response can be
written as
δAh 
  
was later generalised to other types of equilibrium dy- R(r1 , r2 , t) = − φ(r1 , t) . (32)
namics, including the under-damped case and that with δh(r2 , 0) h=0
temporally correlated noise [87]. HSRs have also been
developed for systems with a time-scale separation be- We need Ah only to first order in h:
tween fast and slow degrees of freedom [43], and for the Z
1
density field in a system of particles driven by a time- δAh = − h ∂t φ − ∇2 µ drdt + O h2 ,



(33)
independent external force field [88]. In active matter, 2D
some of us recently announced a generalisation of the
so that the spatially diagonal response obeys
HSR in a non-equilibrium microscopic model of particles
propelled by correlated noises [52]. 1

φ(r, t) ∂t φ − ∇2 µ (r, 0) .


We consider the correlation function C and the re- R(r, r, t) = (34)
2D
sponse R to a change of the chemical potential µ → µ−h:
The time-antisymmetric part follows as
C(r1 , r2 , t − s) ≡ hφ(r1 , t)φ(r2 , s)i ,

(29) 1
δhφ(r1 , t)i  R(r, r, t) − R(r, r, −t) = − ∂t C(r, r, t)−
R(r1 , r2 , t − s) ≡ . D
δh(r2 , s)  h=0 1 2
− ∇ hφ(r, t)µ(r, 0) − φ(r, 0)µ(r, t)i ,
Before outlining the derivation of our generalized HSR, 2D (2)
we give the result: (35)
where we have used C(r, r, t) = C(r, r, −t) via (29). Here
∇2(2) denotes the Laplacian operator acting on the second
Z
S = σφ (k, ω)dkdω,
spatial variable of the function on which it acts. Compar-
(30) ing with (17) and ignoring subdominant boundary terms,
ωk −2
σφ (k, ω) ≡ [ωC(k, ω) − 2DR(k, ω)] , we deduce
(2π)d+1 D
Z
1
where S = lim ∂t ∇−2 (2) {D [R(r, r, t) − R(r, r, −t)]
Z D t→0 (36)
C(k, ω) ≡ C(r1 , r2 , t)eik·(r1 −r2 )+iωt dr1,2 dt, +∂t C(r, r, t)} drdt.
Z (31) This is our generalised Harada-Sasa relation in real space
R(k, ω) ≡ R(r1 , r2 , t)eik·(r1 −r2 ) sin(ωt)dr1,2 dt. and time. Fourier transforming then yields (30).
We have computed numerically the spectral decompo-
The spectral decomposition of the entropy production sition of the entropy production rate for Active Model B,
rate (30) expresses S as an integral over Fourier modes using periodic boundary conditions. We extracted the re-
of a spectral density σφ (k, ω). This density can for- sponse using the algorithm of [89] where two systems, one
mally be seen as the contribution to S of the modes with unperturbed and the other with perturbed chemical
in [k, k + dk] × [ω, ω + dω]. It vanishes for thermally potential, are driven by the same noise realisation. This

7
B Spectral decomposition of entropy production from fluctuation and response
FIG. 4. (a) Correlation ωC(k, ω) and (b) response
2DR(k, ω) for Active Model B in one dimension, found by
numerical simulations as detailed in the main text. Parame-
ter values: −a2 = a4 = 0.25, k = 4, D = 0.05 and λ = 8.
allows a very precise measurement of the response, even
without averaging over noise realizations. Nonetheless, a
separate simulation for each value of k and ω is needed
in order to compute the response R(k, ω). In contrast, a
single run (long enough to ensure good statistical aver-
aging) is sufficient to measure the correlator C(k, ω) for
all k and ω simultaneously. This is why our statistical
accuracy is better for C(k, ω) than for R(k, ω).
In Fig. 4, we plot both quantities in a single-phase
system for a wide range of wavelengths and frequencies.
Their mismatch spectrally quantifies the breakdown of
TRS via the entropy production, as shown in Fig. 5(a).
In Fig. 5(b), we present an ‘effective temperature’, de-
fined through D(k, ω)/D = ωC(k, ω)/2DR(k, ω). This
is a popular measure of FDT violations (see above) whose
shortcomings are apparent here. In particular, while the
effective temperature is peaked at large wavenumbers,
this is true neither of the FDT mismatch nor of σφ (k, ω)
itself. The additional factor of ω/k 2 relating the FDT
mismatch to σφ (k, ω) makes the latter highly sensitive
to both high-frequency and low-wavenumber informa-
tion. RWe have checked that the total entropy production
S = σφ (k, ω)dkdω nonetheless approaches numerically
the same quantity calculated in real space via (21). The
spectral density plot in Fig. 5(a) does therefore include
most of the relevant frequency and wavenumber range.
Deferring fuller investigations to future work, we can con-
clude that our generalized HSR for Active Model B yields
a nontrivial spectral decomposition of the entropy pro-
duction, including features not captured by the effective
temperature paradigm.
Note that measuring the probability of trajectories and
their time-reversed counterparts is difficult to do in sim-
ulations and even more so in experiments. On the other
hands, physicists have an established expertise in mea-
suring FDT both in simulations and experiments. Eq.
(30) provides a direct link for such measurements to en-
tropy production that waits exploration for active matter
systems.
III. ACTIVE MODEL H
We now turn attention to Active Model H in which the
diffusive dynamics of φ(r, t) is coupled to a momentum-
conserving fluid with velocity v(r, t). This model was
first introduced in [90] to address the role of fluid motion
in active phase separation. In that work, it was shown
that for so-called contractile activity (where particles pull
fluid inward along a polar axis, determined in effect by
∇φ, and expel it equatorially) domain growth can cease
at a length scale where diffusive coarsening is balanced by
the active stretching of interfaces. As a generalisation to
active systems of the well known Model H [56], this model
offers an interesting arena in which to explore coupling
of an active scalar to a second field whose dynamics is
dissipative, but which would obey TRS without coupling
to the active field.
Diffusive dynamics now takes place in the frame of the
moving fluid so that (1) acquires an advective term,
φ̇ + v · ∇φ = −∇ · J, (37)
where we retain from Active Model B the equations for
the diffusive current
J = Jd + Λ, Jd = −∇(µE + µA ). (38)
We assume the fluid is incompressible and of unit mass
density. The thermal Navier-Stokes equation for momen-
tum conservation then reads
(∂t + v · ∇)v = η∇2 v − ∇p + ∇ · (Σ + Γ̃), (39)
with the noise stress specified by [57]
D E
Γ̃αβ (r, t)Γ̃γν (r0 , t0 ) =
(40)
2ηD (δαγ δβν + δαν δβγ ) δ (r − r0 ) δ (t − t0 ) .
8

FIG. 5. (a) Correlator-response mismatch ωC − 2DR̃
∝ σφ (k, ω)k2 /ω and (b) normalised effective temperature
D(k, ω)/D as a function of k and ω for Active Model B in
one dimension. Parameter values as in Fig. 4. (Control sim-
ulations for the passive limit λ = 0 recover a statistically
insignificant signal for both plots, not shown, confirming that
our numerical algorithm respects TRS when present.)
form (as arises in MIPS to zeroth order in gradients), this
does not lead to a relation ∇ · ΣA = −φ∇µA as one might
expect from (41) [90]. This means it is no longer possible,
as it was in Active Model B, to shift some arbitrary part
of µE into µA without changing the results. Conversely,
one cannot declare all terms in µ that are of equilibrium
form to be part of µE as we did for Active Model B in
Section I; we must now be careful to include in µA any
chemical potential contribution that does not contribute
to the stress via (41). For this reason, when an external
perturbation µ → µ − h(r) is used to calculate response
functions below, we will need to specify whether it is µA
or µE that is being perturbed. Note also that applying a
perturbation h(r) to the coarse grained theory need not
be equivalent to applying a similar one at microscopic
level; the latter would cause more complicated shifts in
both µE and µA [21].
Active Model H comprises the equations (37-42).
In [90], it was further assumed that F[φ] is given by (4),
from which the deviatoric equilibrium stress ΣE takes a
dyadic gradient form. This form turns out to be shared
by ΣA to leading order in gradients:
ΣE = −κ(∇φ)(∇φ), ΣA = −ζ(∇φ)(∇φ). (43)
Here ζ is a mechanical activity parameter which is posi-
tive for extensile and negative for contractile swimmers.
Active Model H thus breaks TRS via two different chan-
nels; first through the non-equilibrium chemical potential
µA in (38), and second because, for ζ 6= 0, the stress ten-
sor and the free energy are not related by (41). Our
analysis covers the case where (4,43) hold, as assumed
in [90], but in fact we need no such restrictions on the
form of F[φ], µA [φ], and ΣA [φ], so far as the latter is a
symmetric tensor.
Using the methods outlined for Active Model B in Sec-
tion I, we can now write the dynamical action density of
Active Model H as
Z
1
A= (Aφ + Aη )drdt,
4D
2
Aφ = ∇−1 [(∂t + v · ∇)φ + ∇ · Jd ] ,

(Recall that we set the mobility of the φ field to unity
1 2
so that D = kB T .) In (39), the pressure field p(r, t) Aη = ∇−1 (∂t + v·∇)vα − η∇2 vα + ∂α p − ∂β Σαβ 

subsumes all isotropic stress contributions and enforces η
fluid incompressibility (∇ · v = 0). The deviatoric stress 1 h −2
i2
− ∇ ∂α vγ ∂γ vα − ∂α ∂γ ΣAαγ + ∇2 p ,
tensor Σ is traceless and symmetric. 2η
In passive systems, Σ = ΣE can be derived from a (44)
free-energy functional F[φ] by standard procedures [57]; as shown in Appendix F. The pressure p appears in the
restoring isotropic pressure contributions one finds equations of motion as a Lagrange multiplier for fluid
incompressibility; accordingly A is as given above for
∇ · ΣE = −φ∇µE . (41) those trajectories {φ(r, t), v(r, t), p(r, t)}0≤t≤τ that have
For an active system, the relation between the deviatoric ∇ · v = 0, but is infinite for all others. We next con-
stress tensor and the free energy breaks down, taking struct a time reversal transformation by supplementing
instead the more general form (12) with
Σ = ΣE + ΣA , (42) ρR (r, t) = ρ(r, τ − t),
where ΣE obeys (41). Note that even if activity creates vαR (r, t) = −vα (r, τ − t), (45)
a chemical potential contribution that is of equilibrium pR (r, t) = p(r, τ − t).

9
We note that both µA and ΣA must be treated even under
time reversal, in line with the discussion already given in
Section II.3 It is then straightforward to compute the
action for the time-reversed dynamics and construct the
entropy production via an obvious extension of (7)
τ τ 1 P[φ, v]
Sφ,v = lim S , S = ln R , (46)
τ →∞ τ P [φ, v]
with the following result:
Z dynamics, and the other with the Navier-Stokes sector.
1  
Sφ,v = − µA (∂t + v · ∇)φ + vαβ ΣAαβ dr.
D in the passive case, the nature of the perturbations and
Here vαβ = (∂α vβ + ∂β vα )/2 is the symmetrised velocity
gradient tensor. This result reduces to (18) for Active
Model B when v = 0, and applies under the same broad
conditions. In particular, it is a steady-state quantity
that excludes transient contributions. (The latter would
be the only terms present in the phase ordering of passive
Model H without boundary driving [91].)
The Harada-Sasa relation can be further generalised to
the case of Active Model H. To this end, we consider per-
turbations of the active parts of the chemical potential
µA → µA − h and of the stress tensor Σ → Σ − ε, with ε
symmetric and traceless. We introduce the correspond-
ing response functions as
where
Z
R(k, ω) ≡ R(r1 , r2 , t)eik·(r1 −r2 ) cos(ωt)dr1,2 dt,
Z (51)
R(k, ω) ≡ R(r1 , r2 , t)eik·(r1 −r2 ) cos(ωt)dr1,2 dt.
The coupling of the scalar field with an external veloc-
ity field thus requires us to consider two different FDT
violations when evaluating S: one associated with the φ
(47) While a pair of such FDTs are satisfied independently
observables entering the HSR could not have been an-
ticipated a priori. In particular, the chemical potential
perturbation δµ = −h(r, t) must act in the diffusive sec-
tor alone and not in the thermodynamic stress. This
requires h to be considered part of µA not of µE . In con-
sequence (50) does not connect with standard expressions
for the (transient) entropy production in the passive limit
in the way one might have expected. This finding is rel-
evant to the wider agenda of generalising the HSR to
more complicated active field theories, for instance with
orientational order [1]: since care is required, a relatively
formal approach is advisable. Our result demonstrates
how the HSR framework singles out, given a set of equa-
tions of motion, exactly which FDT violations should be
probed to quantify TRS breakdown.

δ h(∂t φ + vα ∂α φ)(r1 , t)i 
R(r1 , r2 , t − s) = ,
δh(r2 , s) 
h=0
 (48)
δ hvαβ (r1 , t)i 
R(r1 , r2 , t − s) = . IV. CIRCULATING CURRENTS
δεαβ (r2 , s) ε=0
We define the associated autocorrelation functions:
C (r1 , r2 , t) = h(∂t φ + vα ∂α φ)(r1 , t)(∂t φ + vα ∂α φ)(r2 , 0)i ,
C(r1 , r2 , t) = hvαβ (r1 , t)vαβ (r2 , 0)i .
(49)
We demontrate in Appendix F that the entropy produc-
tion rate can be expressed as
Z as would be needed to capture (for instance) the self-
Sφ,v = [σφ (k, ω) + σv (k, ω)]dkdω,
k −2
σφ (k, ω) = (C − 2DR) (k, ω), (50)
D(2π)d+1
2η
σv (k, ω) = (C − 2DR) (k, ω),
D(2π)d+1
3 To understand this for Active Model H, consider the stress tensor
defined via (43). At first sight the above choice of time reversal
appears to contradict the statement in [90] that ζ is odd under
time reversal. However, this statement refers to the fact that
if one reverses the direction of the fluid flow caused by a swim-
mer (or set of swimmers) as in (45), this has the same effect as
reversing the sign of ζ, which interchanges the contractile and
extensile cases. So, rather than strict time reversal, this is a con-
jugacy operation [38] comparing the probabilities of forward and
reverse paths in two different systems.
Active Model B, while abandoning the free energy
structure of its passive counterpart, retains in (1) the gra-
dient structure of the deterministic current: Jd = −∇µ.
This implies ∇ ∧ Jd ≡ 0 so that, at zeroth order in noise,
there can be no circulating currents in steady state. In
this Section we outline how our approach generalizes to
scalar field theories that allow currents of nonzero curl,
assembled many-body ratched behavior reported for ac-
tive Brownian particles in [84].
One such model, which will be addressed in more detail
in a separate publication [92], has φ̇ = −∇·(Jd +Λ) with
Jd = −∇µ̃ + [(κ0 + κ1 φ)∇2 φ + ν|∇φ|2 ]∇φ (52)
µ̃ = µB + (λ0 + λ1 φ)|∇φ|2
µB = −h + a2 φ + a3 φ2 + a4 φ3 − k∇2 φ.
This model, which we call Active Model B+, is written
here in the presence of a static free energy contribution
−h(r)φ(r). In Jd it includes, for completeness, all active
terms to order (φ3 , ∇3 ). Of these, only κ1 and ν can
create nonzero curl. Indeed only ν can do this in one
dimension, in the sense of creating a nonzero net current
around a loop closed via periodic boundary conditions.
(This is because φ∇2 φ is reduces to gradient form in one
dimension.) By Helmholtz decomposition, Jd can always
10
be written as This is a classical form, familiar from the case of external
driving, such as a current of charged particles in a circular
Jd = Jgd
+ Jrd
g
wire driven by a tangential electromotive force.
Jd = −∇µ ; Jrd = ∇ ∧ A, (53) Interestingly, the generalised Harada-Sasa relation (30)
for some choice of scalar field µ and vector field A, with for Sφ is insensitive to the additional terms in (52) and
superscripts g, r standing for gradient and rotational. By follows from (18) directly as before, without modifica-
similarly decomposing the noise terms one can also for- tion. Indeed, since the circulating currents have no effect
mally define gradient and circulating parts of the total on the dynamics of φ, the FDT mismatch of its correla-
current J = Jg + Jr . tors can give no information about their contribution to
Since Jr is divergence-free, it plays no part in the dy- the entropy production via the last term in (55). A con-
namics of φ. Accordingly (7), which defines Sφ , is obliv- nection between Harada-Sasa theory and this term might
ious to any entropy production arising from circulating be made, by considering the fluctuations of the curly cur-
currents. To capture this additional source of irreversibil- rents themselves and their response to perturbations that
ity, we now promote J(r, t) into an explicit dynamical couple to them. We leave this for future investigations.
variable. This leaves φ dynamically redundant,
Rt as it can
be reconstructed via φ(r, t) = φ(r, 0) − 0 ∇ · J(r, s)ds.
From the point of view of comparing forward and back- V. CONCLUSIONS
ward trajectories, this corresponds to comparing movies
in which the current is recorded (e.g., using tracer parti- We have studied the violation of time reversal symme-
cles) rather than just density fluctuations. try (TRS) in a class of scalar field theories relevant for the
If we fix a current trajectory {J(x, t)}0≤t≤τ , the prob- description of active matter such as self-propelled parti-
ability that J is arbitrarily close to it has again an expo- cles without alignment interactions. We have presented
nential form with action given by general tools for addressing the question of whether ac-
1
Z tivity matters dynamically—meaning, whether it con-
2
AJ = |J − Jd | (r, t)drdt. (54) tributes distinctly to TRS-breaking physics, or whether
4D
the dynamics at large scales could be reproduced by some
A straightforward computation shows that the entropy (possibly complicated) equilibrium model with TRS.
production at the level of currents is Studying the entropy production allows one to quantify
Z TRS breakdown directly at coarse-grained level: it un-
1
SJ = Sφ + hJr .Jrd i(r)dr . (55) ambiguously assesses the extent to which dynamics at
D this scale is genuinely nonequilibrium.
For comparison, note that using (20) Sφ can be written The main models we considered were Active Models
Z B and H [53, 90]. For Active Model B, we defined a lo-
1 cal entropy production density and confirmed this to be
Sφ = hJg .Jgd i(r)dr. (56)
D strongly localized at the interface between phases, with
There are no cross terms between rotational and gra- a bulk contribution that is much weaker at low noise lev-
dient contributions because Jg .(∇ ∧ A)dr vanishes on
R els, by constructing spatial maps to quantify where ac-
partial integration. (This allows either of Jr or Jg to tivity plays a role. We also offered a generalisation of the
be replaced by the full current J in (55,56).) The result Harada-Sasa relation (HSR) to field theories, quantita-
(56) is compatible with the forms (18,21) found above for tively relating the entropy production rate to the viola-
σφ (r), although µA is now a nonlocal functional 4 of φ. tion of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT). This
We listed in (20) several, potentially inequivalent, allows entropy production to be spectrally decomposed
forms for the local entropy production σφ differing by across spatial and temporal Fourier modes, even in trans-
transient contributions and/or formal entropy currents. lationally invariant cases where real-space maps convey
Further options arise for the correspondingly defined lo- no useful information.
cal quantity σJ ; we explore these elsewhere [92]. Mean- Assigning wave-number dependence to an entropy pro-
while, the simplest case of an additional entropy pro- duction allows one to give quantitative underpinning to
duction arising via (55) is when the current contains a a statement like “this active system is effectively passive,
deterministic rotational part Jrd that is non-vanishing as but only at scales larger than the correlation length”.
D → 0. The resulting contribution to SJ is The quantitative link between FDT violation and TRS
Z Z breakdown reinforces the fact that TRS is, first, a scale-
1 r 2 1 dependent phenomenon, and second, one that depends
|Jd | dr = |∇ ∧ A|2 dr. (57)
D D on which variables are retained in a coarse-grained de-
scription. Absence of FDT violation ensures zero entropy
production, but only if the FDT is tested across the full
4 Its calculation involves first constructing µ as a Coulomb integral subset of dynamical fields that we wish to describe. As
of ∇ · J, and then identifying as µA the part of it that cannot be we showed for Active Model H, the requirements are not
represented as a free energy derivative. always obvious. It might therefore be wise to focus first

11
on the entropy production, and only when the form of
this is clear turn to Harada-Sasa type constructions to
make an explicit connection to FDT violations. This
should ensure that no important terms are overlooked.
An open task is to construct a HSR capable of detecting
the entropy production from circulating currents that are
invisible in the dynamics of the density field φ(r, t), as
exemplified by Active Model B+.
In scalar active matter the micro-dynamics is usually
very far from equilibrium, despite which several approx-
imate mappings to equilibrium. Coarse-grained approxi-
mations for the dynamics have been proposed in a num-
ber of systems [93–96], establishing at times a surprising
connection to equilibrium [10, 97]. Note the question
of whether a given non-TRS dynamics can be approx-
imated, at coarse grained level, by one with TRS is a
distinct issue from whether the original microscopic dy-
namics is close to equilibrium [44]. In this article we pro-
vide the tools to decided whether TRS breaking survives
coarse-graining in active matter systems.
In some active matter systems, mesoscopic or macro-
scopic violations of TRS are obvious – for instance when
fluid vortices are visible at the scale of interest. Our ma-
chinery can quantify such violations, but is likely to be
more useful in cases where they are harder to detect. For
example, it would be an interesting follow up of this work
to apply the theoretical results developed here to Model
B coupled to a logistic birth/death term which causes
arrest of phase separation at a particular scale [98]. Par-
ticles (representing bacteria) divide in dilute regions and
die off in dense ones, manifestly violating TRS at the
level of currents. It would be interesting to know if such
a model still has finite entropy production when the den-
sity field alone is monitored.
Finally, there is clearly a connection between the
idea of scale-dependent entropy production and the
renormalization-group concept of “relevance”. However,
these are not interchangeable, since activity could be rel-
evant (changing a universality class) without itself sur-
viving coarse-graining (the new class might restore TRS
at its fixed point). We hope our work will inform future
RG studies both of scalar active field theories and the
more complex vector and tensor theories of active mat-
ter [1, 99–102], for which RG studies of are starting to
systematically uncover new classes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Hugues Chaté, Romain Mari, Fred MacKin-
tosh, Davide Marenduzzo, Thomas Speck, David Tong,
Paolo Visco and Raphael Wittkowski for illuminating dis-
cussions. C. Nardini acknowledges the hospitality pro-
vided by DAMTP, University of Cambridge while this
work was being done. This research has been supported
by EPSRC grant EP/J007404. MEC holds a Royal So-
ciety Research Professorship.
Appendix A: Additivity and locality of entropy
production
For Active Model B and its relatives we established re-
lations such as (9,17) relating the global steady state en-
tropy production rate S to the integral of a local quantity
σ(r). This shows that the entropy production is additive
over regions of space within a larger system. However,
if we were to isolate one of these regions as a subsys-
tem, its entropy production rate would depend on what
boundary conditions were imposed. Only in the ther-
modynamic limit where all subsystems are much larger
than the correlation length, do the contributions from
such internal boundaries become unimportant.
In this Appendix we consider the case where one spec-
ifies fixed information about the time evolution of φ and
its gradients on each internal boundary which is then
shared by the subsystems on either side of that bound-
ary. We examine the additivity of the entropy production
in this case, and discuss conditions under which it makes
sense to view σ(r) as a local entropy production density.
We consider a region of space Ω1 , with Ω2 its comple-
ment; ∂Ω is the boundary separating the two regions. We
restrict attention to local field theories, defined as those
in which the trajectories within Ω1 have no further de-
pendence on those in Ω2 once the boundary information
χ is given. The probability for the system to follow a
given trajectory ψ which equals ψ 1 (r, t) inside Ω1 , and
ψ 2 (r, t) in Ω2 , can then be written as
P[ψ] = P1 [ψ 1 |χ] P2 [ψ 2 |χ] P∂Ω [χ] , (A1)
where Pi [ψ i |χ] is the conditional probability of finding
ψ i in Ωi , given that these fields and their derivatives
satisfy some boundary information χ(t) on ∂Ω, whose
unconditional probability is P∂Ω [χ].
For Active Model B, Eq. (A1) is obviously true if one
works with the current (ψ = J) of which the action A[J]
is a local functional. Less obviously, this is true also
working with the density φ, so long as the boundary data
χ contains enough derivatives of φ both to specify (φ̇ +
∇ · Jd ) on ∂Ω and to ensure that the Poisson equation
∇2 f = (φ̇ + ∇ · Jd ) has an unique solution inside Ωi . In
such cases one has
Wi [ψ i |χ]
Pi [ψ i |χ] = (A2)
Zi [χ]
where Wi is a statistical weight for the conditioned trajec-
tories in Ωi , and Zi [χ] its integral over such trajectories.
For any local action A, we have Wi = exp −Ai [ψ i ] for
trajectories respecting the boundary data and Wi = 0
otherwise; here Ai is an action integrated only over the
domain Ωi . From this follows the statistical weight of
the boundary data itself, W∂Ω [χ] = Z1 [χ]Z2 [χ], and its
normalized probability density
Z1 [χ]Z2 [χ]
P∂Ω [χ] = R . (A3)
Z1 [χ]Z2 [χ] D[χ]
12
Substituting (A2,A3) in (A1) for the forward probability In (A8-A11), Si , P and W are now functionals of config-
P[ψ], and then repeating exactly the same calculation urations and not trajectories.
for the backward probability P R [ψ], gives These arguments for qualified additivity support the
interpretation of σ(r) = hσ̂i in (9) as a local entropy
S = hS1 [χ]iP∂Ω + hS2 [χ]iP∂Ω + Sχ (A4) density, on the basis that σ̂(ψ, ∇ψ, ...) stands conceptu-
ally in relation to the global entropy production S just
where the entropy production of the boundary process is as the equilibrium entropy density S(ψ, ∇ψ, ...) stands in
written relation to the global equilibrium entropy S. Note that in
1

P∂Ω
 the main text we have mainly focused on the weak noise
Sχ = lim ln R . (A5) limit, for which the integral in (9) is performed at a suffi-
τ →∞ τ P∂Ω P∂Ω
ciently coarse-grained level that long-wavelength fluctua-
tion contributions are unimportant. In equilibrium mod-
In (A4), the first two terms sum the entropy productions
els this would correspond to a treatment of S(ψ, ∇ψ, ...)
in our two subsystems; each of these is first calculated
at mean-field or density-functional level.
with quenched boundary data χ as
Having established qualified additivity, and given the
1

Pi
 non-negativity of S, a natural question is whether the
τ τ
Si [χ] = lim Si [χ] Si [χ] = ln R entropy production density σ(r) is itself non-negative.
τ →∞ τ Pi Pi [ψ |χ]
i In partial answer to this, observe first that the various
(A6) contributions in (A4) are non-negative since the relevant
and then averaged over χ (notated as h·iP∂Ω in (A4)). integral fluctuation theorems [38] apply equally to con-
From (A2) we obtain ditional and full probabilities. We thus have:
Si [χ] = 1

P∂Ω

τ
Z 
1 ZiR [χ] Si [χ] ≥ 0, ln R ≥ 0. (A12)
= σ̂(ψ, ∇ψ, ...)dr + lim ln τ P∂Ω P∂Ω
τ →∞ τ Zi [χ]
Ωi Pi [ψ i |χ]
(A7) This might seems to imply the positivity of σ(ψ, ∇ψ, ...)
with σ̂(ψ, ∇ψ, ...) a local function of ψ and its gradients. when the continuum limit is taken. However, due to the
The first term represents the bulk contribution to S while presence of the second term of (A7), this is actually not a
the second only depends on the boundary data. This correct inference unless the statistics of the boundary in-
does not vanish in general, but it does so whenever the formation χ itself exhibits TRS, so that the second term
boundary information χ itself exhibits TRS. vanishes. This suggests (as is physically reasonable) that
Thus the entropy production rate S for two systems any local region of negative σ must be driven, through its
with a shared boundary is strictly additive only if a movie boundary, by a larger, positive entropy production hap-
of events on the boundary itself looks statistically the pening elsewhere. We defer to future work the question
same when shown in reverse. Generically this cannot be of whether such situations can arise in practice for the
expected, so that there is indeed a finite (sub-extensive) active field theories studied here.
boundary contribution, which becomes negligible only
if the subsystems are large compared to the correlation
length. Appendix B: Discretised dynamics
This type of ‘qualified additivity’ is familiar from the
study of systems in equilibrium. Indeed, using arguments In this Appendix, we detail how to perform spatial dis-
that exactly parallel those above, one can show that in cretisation such that detailed balance is always recovered
equilibrium the global entropy defined as in the equilibrium limit for Active Model B. This is the
Z discretisation we used to numerically integrate the model,
S = − P[ψ] ln(P[ψ])D[ψ] (A8) giving the results in Sec. I.
We consider here 1D Model B (µA = 0), although it is
obeys (analogous to (A4)) easy to extend the results of this Appendix to higher
dimensions. We consider a system of finite width L
S = hS1 [χ]iP∂Ω + hS2 [χ]iP∂Ω + Sχ (A9) such that x ∈ [0, L] with periodic boundary conditions.
We discretise x into N lattice points with equal lattice
with the boundary contribution to the entropy spacing ∆ so that N ∆ = L, and the density field as
Z φ(x, t) → φi (t), where i = 1, 2, . . . N ; φi is the value of φ
at x = i∆. The dynamics then becomes:
Sχ = − P∂Ω [χ] ln(P∂Ω [χ]) D[χ] . (A10)
∂F √
Moreover, in analogy with (A7) we find ∂ t φ i = ∇2 + 2D∇ηi , (B1)
∂φi
Si [χ] = − hln W [ψ i |χ]iPi [ψ |χ] + ln Zi [χ] (A11) with hηi (t)ηj (t0 )i = δij δ(t − t0 ). We now choose the fol-
i

13
lowing discretisation for the gradient operator ∇: This is divergent as ∆ → 0, both in the part that de-
pends on f 00 (φi ) and in the second, constant contribu-
ψi+1 − ψi−1 tion. However one still has AS − ARS = 0, as promised,
∇ψi = , (B2)
2∆ which is all we need for the results of the main text. The
for any discrete fields ψi , which implies the discretisation use of any other convention and/or discretization would
for the Laplacian operator: give the same final result for S once the counterpart of
AS −ARS , which is no longer zero, is properly worked out.
ψi+2 − 2ψi + ψi−2
∇2 ψi = . (B3)
4∆2
Appendix D: Spatial discretization
To show detailed balance is satisfied, we substitute
Eqs. (B2,B3) into (B1) to obtain:
√ The result (21) follows from (18) only if hµA ∇.Λi = 0.
1 ∂F 2D This would hold automatically if the stochastic integrals
∂t φi = − 2 Aij + Bij ηj , (B4) were interpreted in the Ito convention in which the time
4∆ ∂φj 2∆
derivative is evaluated at the start of the timestep; how-
where the matrices A and B are given by: ever in this paper we use the (mid-timestep) Stratonovich
  convention, which anticipates part of the subsequent in-
2 0 −1 crement so that φ̇ cannot be simply replaced by ∇2 µ to
 0 2 0 −1  give (21) from (18). Here we address only the special case
 
 −1 0 2 0 −1  of Active Model B in one dimension. We show that (21)
 
A= .. , (B5) still holds, so long as we employ mid-point spatial dis-
 . 
  cretisation.
 . .. 
  Any stochastic integral in the Stratonovich convention
−1 0 2 can be transformed in one in the Ito convention. Sub-
tleties however arise when dealing with stochastic PDEs;
and these are closely linked to the AS term in the dynami-
0 1
  cal action discussed in Appendix C above. Let us first
consider a stochastic differential equation in the form
 −1 0 1
(xi ∈ R, x = (x1 , ..., xn ))


B= −1 0 −1 
, (B6)
 .. 
 .  ẋi = ai (x) + bij ηj , (D1)
−1 0
where hηi (t)ηj (s)i = δij δ(t − s). We want to consider the
with zero elements where not explicitly written. We ob- following Stratonovich integral
serve BB T = B T B = A, which is the condition for
this discretised dynamics to obey exactly detailed bal-
Z t

ance [83, 103]. Using the same discretization for the ac- Iil = fi (x(s))ηl (s)ds, (D2)
0
tive term µA , this ensures that TRS is respected fully in
the limit µA → 0. where x(s) satisfies (D1). Iil can be converted in an Ito
plus a non-stochastic (Riemann) integral as follows [108]
Appendix C: Time-symmetric contribution to A Z t
Iil = fi (x(s)) · ηl (s)ds + Iilconv , (D3)
0
The time symmetric contribution that was omitted
from (11) depends on the prescription used for defining where · denotes that the integral has to be understood in
stochastic integrals (Ito, Stratonovich, or intermediate the Ito sense, and
[104–107]) and also on the spatial discretisation used; in-
deed subscript S denotes our adopted Stratonovich con- Z t
1 ∂fi
vention. As discussed in Appendix B above, we use mid- Iilconv = (x(s))bjl ds. (D4)
2 0 ∂xj
point discretization to maintain exact TRS in the passive
limit. We therefore present here only the form of this This result, when formally generalised to the case of Ac-
term, notated AS in the following, for Active Model B in tive Model B, produces ill-defined formulae, involving
the Stratonovich convention with midpoint discretization the square of a Dirac delta. In order to progress, we
and the choice µA = λ|∇φ|2 . This is straightforwardly then midpoint-discretise the dynamics (1)-(4) as in Ap-
obtained from Eq. (5.15) in [104] as pendix B, with periodic boundary conditions. We have
1 X 00

3κ
 √
R
AS = AS = − 2 f (φi ) + . (C1) µi+2 − 2µi + µi−2 2D
2∆ i 4∆2 φ̇i = + Bij ηj , (D5)
4∆2 2∆

14
where B obeys (B6), that is Bij = δi+1,j − δi−1,j . Now pendix. We have
consider the part of the entropy production coming from 1
Z h i
the stochastic integral: A[φ] = − φ̇0 + ∇ · Jd [φ0 ]
4D
h i
∆ X
Z t ∇−2 φ̇0 + ∇ · Jd [φ0 ] drdt
I=− µA,i (ηi+1 − ηi−1 ). (D6)
2tD∆ i
Z h
0 1 i
− √ φ̇0 + ∇ · Jd [φ0 ] ∇−2
2 D
  
Applying (D4) and using the discrete form of µA 2 δF0
φ̇1 − ∇ + 2λ∇φ0 · ∇φ1 drdt
δφ1
 2 Z   
φi+1 − φi−1 1 δF0
µA,i = λ , (D7) − φ̇1 − ∇ 2
+ 2λ∇φ0 · ∇φ1 ∇−2
2∆ 4 δφ1
  
2 δF0
we have I conv = 0. We conclude that, with midpoint spa- φ̇1 − ∇ + 2λ∇φ0 · ∇φ1 drdt
δφ1
tial discretisation, the expression for the entropy produc- √
tion (18) can be equally interpreted in Ito or Stratonovich + O( D) ,
conventions. Then, using the non-anticipating property (E1)
of the Ito convention, (18) implies (21). where we have used the definition of F0 in (25). In the
small noise limit, the first term in (E1) must vanish to
This result requires the integrand µA,i in (18) to de-
avoid any divergence, yielding the mean-field equation:
pend only on i ± 1 and not on i ± 2. If we wanted to write
φ̇0 = −∇ · Jd (φ0 ). The second term thus also vanishes
the entropy production in the equivalent form
and the third one corresponds to the dynamics of φ1 given
Z by (24).
1
S=− hµφ̇i(r)dr, (D8)
D
Appendix F: Harada-Sasa for Active Model H
we would find (with midpoint spatial discretisation) that
the conversion from Stratonovich to Ito brings in a term We first prove that the action of Active Model H is
given by (44). Introducing the noise vector Υα = ∂β Γαβ ,
Z  its correlations read

1 ∆ X 3κ 00
− lim + f (φ i ) dt, (D9)
t→∞ t 2∆2 4∆2 hΥα (r, t)Υβ (r0 , t0 )i =
i (F1)
= −2ηD δαβ ∇2 + ∂α ∂β δ(r − r0 )δ(t − t0 ) .

which does not admit a continuous limit for ∆ → 0. How- The dynamic action corresponding to the fluid dynamics
ever this divergence cancels against another term is
Z
1
Υα (r, t)Ξαβ (r − r0 , t − t0 )Υβ (r0 , t0 ), (F2)
Z
1 Aη =
− hµ · ∇Λi(r)dr, (D10) 2 r,r0 ,t,t0
D
where
that appears in the Ito but not the Stratonovich inte- Z
gral for S. These fact have been checked in our numeri- Ξαγ (r − r00 , t − t00 ) hΥγ (r00 , t00 )Υβ (r0 , t0 )i =
r00 ,t00 (F3)
cal simulations of Active Model B. Let us finally observe
that (D9) is actually proportional to AS ; see (C1). This = δαβ δ(r − r0 )δ(t − t0 ).
is however non generic and due to the fact that the noise We get the explicit expression for Ξ as
in the dynamics is additive and BB T = B T B = A.
Ξαβ (r − r0 , t − t0 ) =
We conclude by noting that analogous apparent diver-  
gences would be found using other type of spatial dis- 1 1
=− ∇−2 δαβ − ∇−2 ∂α ∂β δ(r − r0 )δ(t − t0 ) .
cretisation or Fourier truncations in the numerical com- 2ηD 2
putation of the entropy production. (F4)
Using incompressibility, the contribution of the fluid dy-
namics to the total action follows as in (44).
We now consider the derivation of the generalised
Appendix E: Small noise expansion Harada-Sasa relation for Active Model H, stated in (50).
It is useful to start from an expression of the entropy
production equivalent to (47) up to boundary terms:
We expand the dynamic action with the D-expansion Z
of φ in (22). Since we use this action only for book- 1
keeping, we choose the simpler Itō convention in this ap- Sφ,v = − hµ(∂t + v · ∇)φ + vαβ Σαβ i dr. (F5)
D

15
This can be rewritten as dynamic action at linear order in ε reads
Z
1
δA = − ∂β εαβ ∇−2 [(∂t + vγ ∂γ ) vα
Z D 2ηD r,t
1
Sφ,v = − lim µ(r, 0) [(∂t + vα ∂α ) φ] (r, t) −η∇2 vα − ∂γ ΣAαγ + ∂α p

2D t→0 Z (F12)
+ µ(r, t) [(∂t + vα ∂α ) φ] (r, 0) (F6) 1
− ∂α ∂γ εαγ ∇−4 (∂β vµ ∂µ vβ
4ηD r,t
E
+ vαβ (r, 0)Σαβ (r, t) + vαβ (r, t)Σαβ (r, 0) dr
−∂β ∂µ ΣAβµ + ∇2 p + O(ε2 ) .

Now employing a formula analogous to (32), the response

The dynamics perturbed as µA → µA − h is given by follows as
1

R(r, r, t) = − vαβ (r, t) ∂β ∇−2 [(∂t + vγ ∂γ ) vα

2ηD
(∂t + vβ ∂β ) φ = −∂α Jα , Jα = −∂α (µ − h)+Γα . (F7)
−η∇2 vα − ∂γ ΣAαγ + ∂α p (r, 0)
 

+ vαβ (r, t) ∂α ∂β ∇−4 (∂γ vµ ∂µ vγ

The corresponding dynamical action shift at linear order 4ηD
in h reads −∂γ ∂µ ΣAγµ + ∇2 p (r, 0) .



(F13)
Z We now observe that we only need the integral over space:
1 2
µ drdt + O h2 .
 

δA = − h (∂t + vβ ∂β ) φ − ∂αα Z Z
2D 1
R(r, r, t)dr = hvαβ (r, t)vαβ (r, 0)i dr
(F8) 2D
From this follows the response 1
Z
+ hvαβ (r, t)Σαβ (r, 0)i dr (F14)
4ηD
Z
1
R(r, r, t) = + hvα (r, t) (∂t + vγ ∂γ ) vα (r, 0)i dr,
4ηD
1
 2
 
[(∂t + vα ∂α ) φ] (r, t) (∂t + vβ ∂β ) φ − ∂ββ µ (r, 0) , where we have used the incompressibility condition and
2D
(F9) integration by parts to eliminate both the pressure term
and its symmetrized form and the contribution given by the third and the fourth
line of (F13). In the t → 0 limit, we have
Z
R(r, r, t) + R(r, r, −t) = lim hvα (r, t) (∂t + vγ ∂γ ) vα (r, 0)i dr =
t→0
1 (F15)
h[(∂t + vα ∂α ) φ] (r, t) [(∂t + vβ ∂β ) φ] (r, 0)i Z  
D 1
= ∂t vα2 (r, 0) + vα vγ ∂γ vα (r, 0) dr = 0.
1 2 (F10) 2
− ∇ h[(∂t + vα ∂α ) φ] (r, t)µ(r, 0)i
2D (2) Using the definition of C in (49) we obtain
1 2
− ∇ h[(∂t + vα ∂α ) φ] (r, 0)µ(r, t)i . Z Z
2D (2) lim [R(r, r, t) + R(r, r, −t)] dr =
1
lim C (r, r, t)dr
t→0 D t→0
Z
1
We see that the first two lines of (F6) can be written + lim hvαβ (r, t)Σαβ (r, 0)i dr
4ηD t→0
Z
1
+ lim hvαβ (r, 0)Σαβ (r, t)i dr.
1 4ηD t→0
h[(∂t + vα ∂α ) φ] (r, t)µ(r, 0)i + (F16)
2
1 Plugging Eqs. (F10) and (F16) in (F6), we finally get
h[(∂t + vα ∂α ) φ] (r, 0)µ(r, t)i
2 Sφ,v =
= ∇−2 −2
(2) C (r, r, t) − D∇(2) [R(r, r, t) + R(r, r, −t)] , 1
Z
(F11) lim ∇−2 (2) {D [R(r, r, t) + R(r, r, −t)] − C (r, r, t)} dr
D t→0
where we employed the definition (49) for the correlation. 2η
Z
+ lim {C(r, r, t) − D [R(r, r, t) + R(r, r, −t)]} dr.
To obtain the last line in the expression for the entropy D t→0
production (F6), we now consider that the response with (F17)
respect to the perturbation ΣA → ΣA − ε with εαβ sym- The generalized Harada-Sasa relation (50) is deduced by
metric in the exchange of α and β and traceless. The Fourier transforming in space and time.

16
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