Argun, Aykut2016-10-252016-10-252016-092016-092016-10-24http://hdl.handle.net/11693/32481Cataloged from PDF version of article.Thesis (M.S.): Bilkent University, Department of Physics, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University, 2016Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-73).Most natural and engineered processes, such as biomolecular reactions, protein folding, and population dynamics, occur far from equilibrium and, therefore, can- not be treated within the framework of classical equilibrium thermodynamics. Here, we experimentally study how some fundamental thermodynamic quantities and relations are affected by the presence of the non-equilibrium uctuations as- sociated with an active bath. We show, in particular, that, as the confinement of the particle increases, the stationary probability distribution of a Brownian particle confined within a harmonic potential becomes non-Boltzmann, featuring a transition from a Gaussian distribution to a heavy-tailed distribution. Because of this, non-equilibrium relations (e.g. Jarzynski equality, Crooks uctuation the- orem) cannot be applied. We show that these relations can be restored by using the effective potential associated with the stationary probability distribution. We corroborate our experimental findings with theoretical arguments.x, 85 leaves : charts.Englishinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessStochastic thermodynamicsNon-equilibrium relationsActive bathsThesisB154525