Free energy recovery of metastable states from a generalized fluctuation theorem
Abstract Book of the XXIII IUPAP International Conference on Statistical Physics, Genova, Italy, (9-13 July 2007)Abstract
Fluctuation theorems allow to recover free energy
differences between equilibrium states corresponding
to different values of an external control parameter.
I will present a generalized fluctuation
theorem that allows to recover free energies of
metastable states from experimental measurements of
the irreversible work. The new relation is applied to
measure the free energy of metastable unfolded states
and misfolded states observed in single molecule force
experiments in RNA folding.