Regensburg 2019 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 60: Statistical Physics in Biological Systems III

DY 60.7: Vortrag

Freitag, 5. April 2019, 11:30–11:45, H3

Transport and Free Energy Transduction in Chemical Reaction Pathways far from Equilibrium — •Artur Wachtel and Massimiliano Esposito — Complex Systems and Statistical Mechanics, Physics and Materials Science, University of Luxembourg

The metabolism of living cells extracts useful energy and matter from their food. Recent progress in the understanding of the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of chemical reaction networks [1, 2, 3] allows us to address the thermodynamics in biochemical reaction pathways in a systematic and rigorous way.

In this talk I address two important points: transport far from thermodynamic equilibrium and the transduction of free energy. For the first point I draw a similarity to electrical circuits. This similarity is remarkable because the reactions may operate far from the linear regime, thus currents and thermodynamic forces are no longer linearly related.

Transduction is the defining feature of all thermodynamic machines. In living systems it allows building up of nonequilibrium free energy against its natural tendency to degrade. Here, I provide a systematic identification of free energy transduction in nonlinear biochemical reaction pathways, which also leads to a formal definition of its efficiency.

[1] Polettini & Esposito, J Chem Phys 141, 024117 (2014)

[2] Rao & Esposito, Phys Rev X 6, 041064 (2016)

[3] Wachtel, Rao, & Esposito, New J Phys 20, 42002 (2018)