Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28811368›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2017

Fluctuation spectra and force generation in nonequilibrium systems.

Alpha A Lee, Dominic Vella, John S Wettlaufer

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Optimal Chirality Enhances Long-Range Fluctuation-Induced Interactions in Active Fluids.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025
    Article
  2. Active matter as the underpinning agency for extraordinary sensitivity of biological membranes to electric fields.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  3. Programmable 2D materials through shape-controlled capillary forces.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Alpha A LeeSchool of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; john.wettlaufer@yale.edu alphalee@g.harvard.edu dominic.vella@maths.ox.ac.uk.
Dominic VellaMathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6GG, United Kingdom; john.wettlaufer@yale.edu alphalee@g.harvard.edu dominic.vella@maths.ox.ac.uk.
John S WettlauferMathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6GG, United Kingdom; john.wettlaufer@yale.edu alphalee@g.harvard.edu dominic.vella@maths.ox.ac.uk.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Many biological systems are appropriately viewed as passive inclusions immersed in an active bath: from proteins on active membranes to microscopic swimmers confined by boundaries. The nonequilibrium forces exerted by the active bath on the inclusions or boundaries often regulate function, and such forces may also be exploited in artificial active materials. Nonetheless, the general phenomenology of these active forces remains elusive. We show that the fluctuation spectrum of the active medium, the partitioning of energy as a function of wavenumber, controls the phenomenology of force generation. We find that, for a narrow, unimodal spectrum, the force exerted by a nonequilibrium system on two embedded walls depends on the width and the position of the peak in the fluctuation spectrum, and oscillates between repulsion and attraction as a function of wall separation. We examine two apparently disparate examples: the Maritime Casimir effect and recent simulations of active Brownian particles. A key implication of our work is that important nonequilibrium interactions are encoded within the fluctuation spectrum. In this sense, the noise becomes the signal.

Indexed as

Computer SimulationModels, TheoreticalAnimalsBiophysical PhenomenaBiophysicsMembranes, ArtificialMotionStress, MechanicalMembranes, Artificialactive matterCasimir effectfluctuationsnonequilibrium physics

Identifiers

PMID28811368
PMCPMC5584411

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.