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We provide a non-equilibrium thermodynamic description of the life-cycle of a droplet based, chemically feasible, system of protocells. By coupling the protocells metabolic kinetics with its thermodynamics, we demonstrate how the system can…
Trying to identify the entropy production within a cell has been part of debates and studies in the last century. First the idea was to make a resemblance of a cell with a Carnot engine, which is the most thermodynamically perfect machine.…
Self-replication is a capacity common to every species of living thing, and simple physical intuition dictates that such a process must invariably be fueled by the production of entropy. Here, we undertake to make this intuition rigorous…
Cross-reactions and other systematic issues generated by the coupling of functional chemical subsystems pose the largest challenge for assembling a viable protocell in the laboratory. Our current work seeks to identify and clarify such key…
The extension of thermodynamic principles to active matter remains a challenge due to the non-equilibrium nature inherent to active systems. In this study, we introduce a framework to assess entropy in our minimal macroscopic experiment…
It is argued that a typical many body energy eigenstate has a well defined thermodynamic entropy and that individual eigenstates possess thermodynamic characteristics analogous to those of generic isolated systems. We examine large systems…
The stochastic entropy generated during the evolution of a system interacting with an environment may be separated into three components, but only two of these have a non-negative mean. The third component of entropy production is…
Free energy and entropy are examined in detail from the standpoint of classical thermodynamics. The approach is logically based on the fact that thermodynamic work is mediated by thermal energy through the tendency for nonthermal energy to…
Thermodynamics is commonly presented as a theory of macroscopic systems in stable equilibrium, built upon assumptions of extensivity and scaling with system size. In this paper, we present a universal formulation of the elementary…
The building of minimal self-reproducing systems with a physical embodiment (generically called protocells) is a great challenge, with implications for both theory and applied sciences. Although the classical view of a living protocell…
Cells generally convert external nutrient resources to support metabolismand growth. Understanding the thermodynamic efficiency of this conversion is essential to determine the general characteristics of cellular growth. Using a simple…
We consider the entropy production of a strongly coupled bipartite system. The total entropy production can be partitioned into various components, which we use to define local versions of the Second Law that are valid without the usual…
A set of core features is set forth as the essence of a thermodynamic description, which derive from large-deviation properties in systems with hierarchies of timescales, but which are \emph{not} dependent upon conservation laws or…
At very small scales, thermodynamic energy exchanges like work and heat become comparable to thermal energy of the system, which leads to unusual phenomena like the transient violations of Second Law. We explore the generic characters of…
The physical foundations of a variety of emerging technologies --- ranging from the applications of quantum entanglement in quantum information to the applications of nonequilibrium bulk and interface phenomena in microfluidics, biology,…
This thesis investigates the interactions of different degrees of freedom of one joint system within the theory of stochastic thermodynamics. First, a comprehensive introduction to the subjects of stochastic processes, information theory…
The selection of an equilibrium state by maximising the entropy of a system, subject to certain constraints, is often powerfully motivated as an exercise in logical inference, a procedure where conclusions are reached on the basis of…
A general framework to describe a vast majority of biology-inspired systems is to model them as stochastic processes in which multiple couplings are in play at the same time. Molecular motors, chemical reaction networks, catalytic enzymes,…
We consider the relationship between thermodynamics, fitness, and Darwinian selection in autocatalytic molecular replicators. We uncover a thermodynamic bound that relates fitness, replication rate, and thermodynamic affinity of…
Cellular life requires the presence of a set of biochemical mechanisms in order to maintain a predictable process of growth and division. Several attempts have been made towards the building of minimal protocells from a top-down approach,…