Noninvasive measurement of dissipation in colloidal systems

According to Harada and Sasa [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 130602 (2005)], heat production generated in a nonequilibrium steady state can be inferred from measuring response and correlation functions. In many colloidal systems, however, it is a nontrivial task to determine response functions, whereas details about spatial steady state trajectories are easily accessible. Using a simple conditional averaging procedure, we show how this fact can be exploited to reliably evaluate average heat production. We test this method using Brownian dynamics simulations, and apply it to experimental data of an interacting driven colloidal system.