What is it about?
We report an extraordinary fluctuation distribution of time-varying states in stochastic reactive media that reflects transient non-Boltzmann populations of internal quantized modes. This result has far-reaching implications with respect to the physical chemistry of complex nonequilibrium molecular systems. It says that such systems must be dynamically far from equilibrium in order to sustain net synthetic capability and chemical evolution.
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Why is it important?
The effects of environmental fluctuations are of considerable interest in the context of the origin of life. The significant new insights we report in this paper are: I. In an open, reactive, far-from-equilibrium system at steady state the fluctuations induced by Gaussian thermal fluctuations through the boundary are non-Gaussian, and follow a gamma probability distribution. II. In contrast, the distribution of output fluctuations of dynamical (time-varying) states is robustly left-skewed and right-weighted, and may reflect transient non-Boltzmann populations of internal quantized modes. III. This result has far-reaching implications with respect to the physical chemistry of complex nonequilibrium molecular systems. It says that such systems must be dynamically far from equilibrium, rather than in nonequilibrium steady state, in order to sustain net synthetic capability and chemical evolution.
Perspectives
I sat on this extraordinary result for months, trying to understand what it means and the implications for chemical evolution towards complex living systems. It says that the far-from-equilibrium requirement is a necessary but not sufficient condition for stochastic media to support nonenzymic proto-metabolism, biosynthesis and chemical evolution. Additionally, such media are required to sustain non-steady, or dynamical activity that can produce the unusually skewed fluctuation distribution reported.
Dr Rowena Ball
Australian National University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Anomalous thermal fluctuation distribution sustains proto-metabolic cycles and biomolecule synthesis, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, January 2020, Royal Society of Chemistry,
DOI: 10.1039/c9cp05756k.
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