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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Experiments and computer simulations with individual molecules of DNA,RNA, and proteins have directly benefited from recent results in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, which have offered new means of estimating equilibrium free energies from nonequilibrium processes. In this talk I will review two such results -- namely the Jarzynski equality and the Crooks fluctuation theorem, both of which relate free energy differences to work measurements -- and introduce a new result that relies on position rather than work measurements to estimate free energy differences from nonequilibrium processes.