Memory Effects Explain the Fractional Viscosity Dependence of Rates associated with Internal Friction: Simple Models and Applications to Butane Dihedral Rotation

Barrier-crossing rates of biophysical processes, ranging from simple conformational changes to protein folding, often deviate from the Kramers prediction of an inverse viscosity dependence. In many recent studies, this has been attributed to the presence of internal friction within the system. Previously, we showed that memory-dependent friction arising from the non-equilibrium solvation of a single particle crossing a smooth one-dimensional barrier can also cause such a deviation and be misinterpreted as internal friction. Here we introduce a simple diatom model and show that even in the absence of explicit solvent, internal memory effects arise due to coupling of the reaction coordinate motion with frictionally orthogonal degrees of freedom. This results in a fractional viscosity dependence and a deviation from Kramers’ theory, typically attributed to the presence of internal friction. This model therefore mimics several biological processes where a local conformational change of a biomolecule is often influenced by its surroundings. This gives rise to an apparent “internal friction” commonly measured in terms of empirical fitting parameters α and σ. We propose a microscopic measure of this internal friction using Grote-Hynes theory which employs memory-dependent friction. We use butane to demonstrate the effect of coupling strength on the internal friction in realistic systems. This model therefore can serve the purpose of understanding internal friction in biological systems in terms of such coupling.