Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 224, 825–838 (2015)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2015-02430-y

Regular Article

Thermodynamics of information processing at the molecular scale

Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Code Postal 231, Campus Plaine, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

Received: 11 November 2014
Revised: 7 May 2015
Published online: 17 July 2015

Abstract

The thermodynamics of copolymerization processes leading to the formation and replication of copolymers is presented. Copolymers are natural one-dimensional supports of information, which may be coded in the sequence of monomeric units randomly attached or detached during their synthesis. Multivariate fluctuation relations are here established for copolymerization processes synthesizing Bernoulli and first-order Markov chains. Thereof, the thermodynamic entropy production is deduced and shown to depend on quantities characterizing information possibly stored in the copolymer sequence. This article is supplemented with comments by D. Ruelle and Y. Pomeau and a final reply by the author.