Entropy and efficiency of a molecular motor model

TL;DR

This paper applies path-integral formalism and entropy concepts to analyze molecular motor efficiency, deriving bounds using symmetry breaking and ratchet models, with results applicable to various motor models.

Contribution

It introduces a general approach combining entropy, traffic, and symmetry breaking to bound molecular motor efficiencies, demonstrated on a specific model.

Findings

Derived bounds on thermodynamic and Stokes efficiencies

Applied the method to a specific molecular motor model

Extended bounds using ratchet model considerations

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the use of path-integral formalism and the concepts of entropy and traffic in the context of molecular motors. We show that together with time-reversal symmetry breaking arguments one can find bounds on efficiencies of such motors. To clarify this techinque we use it on one specific model to find both the thermodynamic and the Stokes efficiencies, although the arguments themselves are more general and can be used on a wide class of models. We also show that by considering the molecular motor as a ratchet, one can find additional bounds on the thermodynamic efficiency.