Related papers: Thermally Driven Elastic Micromachines
The fundamental insight into Brownian motion by Einstein is that all substances exhibit continual fluctuations due to thermal agitation balancing with the frictional resistance. However, even at thermal equilibrium, biological activity can…
Nonequilibrium steady state of isothermal biochemical cycle kinetics has been extensively studied, but much less investigated under non-isothermal conditions. However, once the heat exchange between subsystems is rather slow, the isothermal…
A thermal current, generated by a temperature gradient between two reservoirs coupled to a carefully designed photonic or (micro-) electromechanical circuit, might induce non-conservative forces that impulse a mechanical degree of freedom…
When engineering microscopic machines, increasing efficiency can often come at a price of reduced reliability due to the impact of stochastic fluctuations. Here we develop a general method for performing multi-objective optimisation of…
Uncovering the rules governing the nonequilibrium dynamics of the membranes that define biological cells is of central importance to understanding the physics of living systems. We theoretically and computationally investigate the behavior…
We consider the basic, thermodynamic properties of an elementary micro-machine operating at colloidal length scales. In particular, we track and analyse the driven stochastic motion of a carefully designed micro-propeller rotating unevenly…
We apply a recently proposed novel thermostating mechanism to an interacting many-particle system where the bulk particles are moving according to Hamiltonian dynamics. At the boundaries the system is thermalized by deterministic and…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the dynamics of an ensemble of interacting self-propelled semi-flexible polymers in contact with a thermal bath. Our intention is to model complex systems of biological interest. We find that…
We study a micro-magnet that interacts with a spin-polarized electric current, a heat bath, as well as a static magnetic field. The resulting non-equilibrium steady-state transports entropy between the current and the heat bath, without…
Continuous particle exchange thermal machines require no time-dependent driving, can be realised in solid-state electronic devices, and miniaturised to nanometre scale. Quantum dots, providing a narrow energy filter and allowing to…
Fluctuations are significant in mesoscopic systems and of particular importance in understanding quantum transport. Here, we show that fluctuations can be considered as a resource for the operations of open quantum systems as functional…
We study the internal dynamics of an elementary quantum system placed close to a body held at a temperature different from that of the surrounding radiation. We derive general expressions for lifetime and density matrix valid for bodies of…
Thermal fluctuations constantly and evenly excite all vibrational modes in an equilibrium crystal. As the temperature rises, these fluctuations promote the formation of defects and eventually melting. In active solids, the self-propulsion…
Numerical computations have become a pillar of all modern quantitative sciences. Any computation involves modeling--even if often this step is not made explicit--and any model has to neglect details while still being physically accurate.…
Active systems evade the rules of equilibrium thermodynamics by constantly dissipating energy at the level of their microscopic components. This energy flux stems from the conversion of a fuel, present in the environment, into sustained…
Gibbs and Boltzmann definitions of temperature agree only in the macroscopic limit. The ambiguity in identifying the equilibrium temperature of a finite sized `small' system exchanging energy with a bath is usually understood as a…
In striking contrast to equilibrium systems, inertia can profoundly alter the structure of active systems. Here, we demonstrate that driven systems can exhibit effective equilibrium-like states with increasing particle inertia, despite…
We obtain, using semi-analytical transfer operator techniques, the Edwards thermodynamics of a one-dimensional model of blocks connected by harmonic springs and subjected to dry friction. The theory is able to reproduce the linear…
In the presence of ATP, molecular motors generate active force dipoles that drive suspensions of protein filaments far from thermodynamic equilibrium, leading to exotic dynamics and pattern formation. Microscopic modelling can help to…
A 1D model of interacting particles moving over a periodic substrate and in a position dependent temperature profile is considered. When the substrate and the temperature profile are spatially asymmetric a center-of-mass velocity develops,…