English

Master Equation Approach to Molecular Motors

Statistical Mechanics 2009-11-07 v1 Soft Condensed Matter

Abstract

A master equation approach to molecular motors allows to describe a mechano-chemical cyclic system where chemical and translational degrees of freedom are treated on an equal footing. A generalized detailed balance condition in the out of equilibrium regime is shown to be compatible with the Fokker-Planck equation in the continuum limit. The Onsager reciprocity relations hold for stationary states close to equilibrium, provided the generalized detailed balance condition is satisfied. Semi-phenomenological considerations in the case of motor proteins lead to a discrete kinetics model, for which interesting observable quantities can be directly calculated and compared with experimental data.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0108427,
  title  = {Master Equation Approach to Molecular Motors},
  author = {Gianluca Lattanzi and Amos Maritan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0108427},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

12 pages, 3 figures, editorially approved for publication on Physical Review E

R2 v1 2026-07-22T10:26:38.260Z