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arXiv · 1607.06043

Effective dissipation: breaking time-reversal symmetry in driven microscopic energy transmission

Aidan I. Brown·David A. Sivak
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Abstract

At molecular scales, fluctuations play a significant role and prevent biomolecular processes from always proceeding in a preferred direction, raising the question of how limited amounts of free energy can be dissipated to obtain directed progress. We examine the system and process characteristics that efficiently break time-reversal symmetry at fixed energy loss; in particular for a simple model of a molecular machine, an intermediate energy barrier produces unusually high asymmetry for a given dissipation. We relate the symmetry-breaking factors found in this model to recent observations of biomolecular machines.

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BibTeXRIS

Aidan I. Brown, David A. Sivak. 2016-07-20. Effective dissipation: breaking time-reversal symmetry in driven microscopic energy transmission. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.94.032137

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