Sustainability of transient kinetic regimes and origins of death

Abstract

ABSTRACT: It is generally recognized that a distinguishing feature of life is its peculiar capability to avoid equilibration. The origin of this capability and its evolution along the timeline of abiogenesis is not yet understood. We propose to study an analog of this phenomenon that could emerge in non-biological systems. To this end, we introduce the concept of sustainability of transient kinetic regimes. This concept is illustrated via investigation of cooperative effects in an extended system of compartmentalized chemical oscillators under batch and semi-batch conditions. The computational study of a model system shows robust enhancement of lifetimes of the decaying oscillations which translates into the evolution of the survival function of the transient non-equilibrium regime. This model does not rely on any form of replication. Rather, it explores the role of a structured effective environment as a contributor to the system-bath interactions that define non-equilibrium regimes. We implicate the noise produced by the effective environment of a compartmentalized oscillator as the cause of the lifetime extension.