Feedback Protocols for Dissipation Control in Small Systems

ABSTRACT

The physical understanding of biological processes relies on precise measurements of the energy landscapes of small systems, like proteins or RNA and DNA molecules. Non‐equilibrium pulling measurements establish energy landscapes in finite time but introduce a non‐measurable bias due to work dissipated during the measurement. Theory and simulations are used to compare the efficiencies of different feedback protocols for reducing dissipation and improving free energy measurements under the experimentally relevant condition of equal measurement time. While slower processes are less irreversible, reducing dissipation with feedback does not necessarily improve free‐energy estimation. Feedback strategies, defined as correlated sequences of discrete‐ and continuous‐time feedback protocols, are the most efficient at reducing dissipation and measurement bias in single‐molecule pulling experiments.