Effective dissipation: breaking time-reversal symmetry in driven microscopic energy transmission

TL;DR

This paper investigates how molecular machines can efficiently break time-reversal symmetry at fixed energy dissipation, highlighting the role of energy barriers in enhancing asymmetry, with implications for understanding biomolecular processes.

Contribution

It introduces a simple model showing that intermediate energy barriers maximize asymmetry for a given dissipation, linking theoretical insights to biomolecular observations.

Findings

Intermediate energy barriers produce high asymmetry at fixed dissipation

The model explains observed asymmetries in biomolecular machines

Energy dissipation can be optimized to enhance directional behavior

Abstract

At molecular scales, fluctuations play a significant role and prevent biomolecular processes from always proceeding in a preferred direction, raising the question of how limited amounts of free energy can be dissipated to obtain directed progress. We examine the system and process characteristics that efficiently break time-reversal symmetry at fixed energy loss; in particular for a simple model of a molecular machine, an intermediate energy barrier produces unusually high asymmetry for a given dissipation. We relate the symmetry-breaking factors found in this model to recent observations of biomolecular machines.