Recovery of free energy branches in single molecule experiments
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-02-21 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Biological Physics
Abstract
We present a method for determining the free energy of coexisting states from irreversible work measurements. Our approach is based on a fluctuation relation that is valid for dissipative transformations in partially equilibrated systems. To illustrate the validity and usefulness of the approach, we use optical tweezers to determine the free energy branches of the native and unfolded states of a two-state molecule as a function of the pulling control parameter. We determine, within 0.6 kT accuracy, the transition point where the free energies of the native and the unfolded states are equal.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0901.3886,
title = {Recovery of free energy branches in single molecule experiments},
author = {Ivan Junier and Alessandro Mossa and Maria Manosas and Felix Ritort},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0901.3886},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. 4 pages + Supp. Mat. (6 pages)