| Issue |
EPL
Volume 103, Number 3, August 2013
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 30004 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | General | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/103/30004 | |
| Published online | 26 August 2013 | |
Information erasure in copolymers
Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems, Université Libre de Bruxelles Code Postal 231, Campus Plaine, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium, EU
Received: 20 May 2013
Accepted: 26 July 2013
Information erasure at the molecular scale during the depolymerization of copolymers is shown to require a minimum entropy production in accordance with Landauer's principle and as a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. This general result is illustrated with an exactly solvable model of copolymerization, which also shows that the minimum entropy production that is possible for a specific molecular mechanism of depolymerization may be larger than the minimum required by Landauer's principle.
PACS: 05.40.-a – Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion / 05.70.Ln – Nonequilibrium and irreversible thermodynamics / 82.35.-x – Polymers: properties; reactions; polymerization
© EPLA, 2013
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