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Experimental Demonstration of Violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics for Small Systems and Short Time Scales
Abstract
We experimentally demonstrate the fluctuation theorem, which predicts appreciable and measurable violations of the second law of thermodynamics for small systems over short time scales, by following the trajectory of a colloidal particle captured in an optical trap that is translated relative to surrounding water molecules. From each particle trajectory, we calculate the entropy production/consumption over the duration of the trajectory and determine the fraction of second law-defying trajectories. Our results show entropy consumption can occur over colloidal length and time scales.
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Citations
Cited by
Computer Simulation of Liquids
Allen, M. P., & Tildesley, D. J. (2017) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780198803195.001.0001 · Cited by 20,945
Stochastic thermodynamics, fluctuation theorems and molecular machines
Seifert, U. (2012) · Reports on Progress in Physics · doi:10.1088/0034-4885/75/12/126001 · Cited by 3,300
Experimental verification of Landauer’s principle linking information and thermodynamics
Bérut, A., Arakelyan, A., Petrosyan, A., Ciliberto, S., Dillenschneider, R., & Lutz, E. (2012) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature10872 · Cited by 1,248
Recent Advances in Optical Tweezers
Moffitt, J. R., Chemla, Y. R., Smith, S. B., & Bustamante, C. (2008) · Annual Review of Biochemistry · doi:10.1146/annurev.biochem.77.043007.090225 · Cited by 1,084
Verification of the Crooks fluctuation theorem and recovery of RNA folding free energies
Collin, D., Ritort, F., Jarzynski, C., Smith, S. B., Tinoco, I., & Bustamante, C. (2005) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature04061 · Cited by 1,049
Metadata
- Authors
- Wang, G. M., Sevick, E. M., Mittag, E., Searles, D. J., & Evans, D. J.
- Venue
- Physical Review Letters
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2002-07-15
- Volume
- 89
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 050601-050601
- ISSN
- 0031-9007 (ISSN-L)
- 1079-7114
- OpenAlex
- W2012703902
- Cited by
- 936
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 20.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Wang, G. M., Sevick, E. M., Mittag, E., Searles, D. J., & Evans, D. J. (2002). Experimental Demonstration of Violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics for Small Systems and Short Time Scales. Physical Review Letters. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.89.050601
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