Condensed Matter Seminar: Mimicking Nonequilibrium Steady States with Time-Periodic Driving

Abstract:

Under static conditions, a system satisfying detailed balance generically relaxes to an equilibrium state in which there are no currents. To generate persistent currents, either detailed balance must be broken or the system must be driven in a time-dependent manner.  In both cases, the currents are maintained at the cost of entropy production. Are these two paradigmatic scenarios effectively equivalent? In this talk, I will present a mapping between nonequilibrium stationary states and stochastic pumps.  Nonequilibrium steady states and periodic-driving are often used to model, respectively, biomolecular motors driven by chemical reactions and artificial molecular machines steered by the variation of external, macroscopic parameters. Our results suggest that anything a biomolecular machine can do, an artificial molecular machine can do equally well. This principle are illustrated by showing that kinetic proofreading, a NESS mechanism that explains the low error rates in biochemical reactions, can be effectively mimicked by a constrained periodic driving.

Seminar Organizer: Prof. Shimshon Barad