Phenomenological framework for nonequilibrium steady states of molecular motors

Abstract

An expression for the energetic efficiency of a molecular motor is presented in terms of an effective temperature, which was defined based on the ratio of the correlation function to the susceptibility of its velocity. We also present a numerical result regarding this temperature for a thermal ratchet model. Furthermore, our expression of efficiency using known values for kinesin can adequately explain the experimental results. The framework presented here has a closed form phenomenologically, and is independent of any detailed models.