Bi-stability resistant to fluctuations
Biological Physics
2017-09-13 v3 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We study a simple micro-mechanical device that does not lose its snap-through behavior in an environment dominated by fluctuations. The main idea is to have several degrees of freedom that can cooperatively resist the de-synchronizing effect of random perturbations. As an inspiration we use the power stroke machinery of skeletal muscles, which ensures at sub-micron scales and finite temperatures a swift recovery of an abruptly applied slack. In addition to hypersensitive response at finite temperatures, our prototypical Brownian snap spring also exhibits criticality at special values of parameters which is another potentially interesting property for micro-scale engineering applications.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1612.05732,
title = {Bi-stability resistant to fluctuations},
author = {Matthieu Caruel and Lev Truskinovsky},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.05732},
year = {2017}
}