Nonequilibrium thermodynamics of glycolytic traveling wave: Benjamin-Feir instability

TL;DR

This paper investigates the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of glycolytic traveling waves, focusing on Benjamin-Feir instability, using complex Ginzburg-Landau equations to analyze how diffusion influences wave stability and entropy production.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical scheme incorporating a complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with diffusion effects to study instabilities in glycolytic traveling waves, revealing new criteria and energy dynamics.

Findings

Diffusion modifies wave-number selection and amplitude in traveling waves.

Entropy production rates reflect concentration dynamics and are minimally affected by diffusion.

Benjamin-Feir instability impacts the energy profile and free energy behavior of traveling waves.

Abstract

Evolution of the nonequilibrium thermodynamic entities corresponding to dynamics of the Hopf instabilities and traveling waves at a nonequilibrium steady state of a spatially extended glycolysis model is assessed here by implementing an analytically tractable scheme incorporating a complex Ginzburg-Landau equation (CGLE). In the presence of self and cross diffusion, a more general amplitude equation exploiting the multiscale Krylov-Bogoliubov averaging method serves as an essential tool to reveal the various dynamical instability criteria, especially Benjamin-Feir (BF) instability, to estimate the corresponding nonlinear dispersion relation of the traveling wave pattern. The critical control parameter, wave-number selection criteria, and magnitude of the complex amplitude for traveling waves are modified by self- and cross-diffusion coefficients within the oscillatory regime, and their variabilities are exhibited against the amplitude equation. Unlike the traveling waves, a low-amplitude broad region appears for the Hopf instability in the concentration dynamics as the system phase passes through minima during its variation with the control parameter. The total entropy production rate of the uniform Hopf oscillation and glycolysis wave not only qualitatively reflects the global dynamics of concentrations of intermediate species but almost quantitatively. Despite the crucial role of diffusion in generating and shaping the traveling waves, the diffusive part of the entropy production rate has a negligible contribution to the system's total entropy production rate. The Hopf instability shows a more complex and colossal change in the energy profile of the open nonlinear system than in the traveling waves. A detailed analysis of BF instability shows a contrary nature of the semigrand Gibbs free energy with discrete and continuous wave numbers for the traveling wave.