Thermodynamic measurement of non-equilibrium stochastic processes in optical tweezers

Abstract: Due to their versatility in investigating phenomena in microscopic scales, optical tweezers have been an excellent platform for studying stochastic thermodynamics. In this context, this work presents experimental measurements of the energetic cost of driven finite-time protocols using colloidal Brownian particles in harmonic potentials. For this simple model system, we compare the results of optimal and sub-optimal protocols in a time-dependent trap, controlling the trap stiffness with different modulation amplitudes and protocol times. We also calculate the Jarzynski relation for the stochastic trajectories from the experimental data as an independent consistency check.