General validity of the second fluctuation-dissipation theorem in the nonequilibrium steady state: Theory and applications

In this paper, we derive a generalized second fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) for stochastic dynamical systems in the steady state and further show that if the system is highly degenerate, then the classical second FDT is valid even when the exact form of the steady state distribution is unknown. The established theory is built upon the Mori-type generalized Langevin equation for stochastic dynamical systems and hence generally applies to nonequilibrium systems driven by stochastic forces. These theoretical results enable us to construct a data-driven nanoscale fluctuating heat conduction model based on the second FDT. We numerically verify that our heat transfer model yields better predictions than the Green-Kubo formula for systems far from the equilibrium.