American Physical Society, Physical review E: Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics, 5(89), 2014
DOI: 10.1103/physreve.89.052121
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We introduce the violation fraction $υ$ as the cumulative fraction of time that a mesoscopic system spends consuming entropy at a single trajectory in phase space. We show that the fluctuations of this quantity are described in terms of a symmetry relation reminiscent of fluctuation theorems, which involve a function, $Φ$, which can be interpreted as an entropy associated to the fluctuations of the violation fraction. The function $Φ$, when evaluated for arbitrary stochastic realizations of the violation fraction, is odd upon the symmetry transformations which are relevant for the associated stochastic entropy production. This fact leads to a detailed fluctuation theorem for the probability density function of $Φ$. We study the steady-state limit of this symmetry in the paradigmatic case of a colloidal particle dragged by optical tweezers through an aqueous solution. Finally, we briefly discuss on possible applications of our results for the estimation of free-energy differences from single molecule experiments. ; Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Last revised. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E