Biochemical machines for the interconversion of mutual information and work
Statistical Mechanics
2017-01-18 v2 Soft Condensed Matter
Biomolecules
Abstract
We propose a physically-realisable biochemical device that is coupled to a biochemical reservoir of mutual information, fuel molecules and a chemical bath. Mutual information allows work to be done on the bath even when the fuel molecules appear to be in equilibrium; alternatively, mutual information can be created by driving from the fuel or the bath. The system exhibits diverse behaviour, including a regime in which the information, despite increasing during the reaction, enhances the extracted work. We further demonstrate that a modified device can function without the need for external manipulation, eliminating the need for a complex and potentially costly control.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1604.05474,
title = {Biochemical machines for the interconversion of mutual information and work},
author = {Thomas McGrath and Nick S. Jones and Pieter Rein ten Wolde and Thomas E. Ouldridge},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.05474},
year = {2017}
}