THE TRANSIENT REGIME IN FROHLICHS CONDENSATION PHENOMENON IN BIOSYSTEMS

We consider the emergence of the so-called Frohlich's effect in a bios ystem, a phenomenon consisting of the condensation of excitations in t he polar vibrational modes lying at the bottom of these modes' frequen cy spectrum. This complex behavior of the system, which seems to have relevance in bioenergetics, may arise in open biomaterial, which is go verned by nonlinear kinetic equations, and when under the action of a pumping source of metabolic energy. We analyze here in detail the dyna mics of (i) the transient stage before the establishment of a steady s tate and (ii) the relaxation to the original thermodynamic equilibrium state after the pumping source is turned off. (C) 1997 John Wiley & S ons, Inc.