Second Law of Thermodynamics without Einstein Relation

Materials that are constantly driven out of thermodynamic equilibrium, such as active and living systems, typically violate the Einstein relation. This may arise from active contributions to particle fluctuations which are unrelated to the dissipative resistance of the surrounding medium.

We show that in these cases the widely used relation between informatic entropy production and heat dissipation does not hold. Consequently, fluctuation relations for the mechanical work, such as the Jarzynski and Crooks theorems, are invalid.

We propose a temperaturelike variable which restores this correspondence and gives rise to a generalized second law of thermodynamics, whereby the dissipated heat is necessarily non-negative and vanishes at equilibrium. The Clausius inequality, Carnot maximum efficiency theorem, and relation between the extractable work and the change of free energy are recovered as well.