Statistical Physics of Adaptation

Whether by virtue of being prepared in a slowly relaxing, high-free energy initial condition, or because they are constantly dissipating energy absorbed from a strong external drive, many systems subject to thermal fluctuations are not expected to behave in the way they would at thermal equilibrium....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Perunov,Nikolay, Marsland,Robert A, England,Jeremy L
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation(Physiology)
Biological Physics
complex systems
entropy
Evolution(Biology)
free energy
probability
probability distributions
Statistical Physics
steady state
Stochastic processes
thermodynamics
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Summary:Whether by virtue of being prepared in a slowly relaxing, high-free energy initial condition, or because they are constantly dissipating energy absorbed from a strong external drive, many systems subject to thermal fluctuations are not expected to behave in the way they would at thermal equilibrium. Rather, the probability of finding such a system in a given microscopic arrangement may deviate strongly from the Boltzmann distribution, raising the question of whether thermodynamics still has anything to tell us about which arrangements are the most likely to be observed. In this work, we build on past results governing nonequilibrium thermodynamics and define a generalized Helmholtz free energy that exactly delineates the various factors that quantitatively contribute to the relative probabilities of different outcomes in far-from equilibrium stochastic dynamics. By applying this expression to the analysis of two examplesnamely, a particle hopping in an oscillating energy landscape and a population composed of two types of exponentially growing self-replicatorswe illustrate a simple relationship between outcome-likelihood and dissipative history. In closing, we discuss the possible relevance of such a thermodynamic principle for our understanding of self-organization in complex systems, paying particular attention to a possible analogy to the way evolutionary adaptations emerge in living things. Physical Review X , 6, 2, 01 Jan 0001, 01 Jan 0001, Open Access: Publishers Version. May be placed on public websites; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.