Variational time reversal for free energy estimation in nonequilibrium steady states

Studying the structure of systems in nonequilibrium steady states necessitates tools that quantify population shifts and associated deformations of equilibrium free energy landscapes under persistent currents. Within the framework of stochastic thermodynamics, we establish a variant of the Kawasaki–Crooks equality that relates nonequilibrium free energy corrections in driven systems to heat dissipation statistics along time-reversed relaxation trajectories computable with molecular simulation. Using stochastic control theory, we arrive at a variational approach to evaluate the Kawasaki–Crooks equality and use it to estimate distribution functions of order parameters in overdamped Langevin models of active matter, attaining substantial improvement in accuracy over simple perturbative methods.