Imaging of cooperative motion on a simulated energy landscape

The transport through a modulated energy landscape is a classical problem that, in different forms, arises in different biological systems, such as protein folding and the motion of molecular motors. The calculations become increasingly difficult if a realistic potential landscape is taken into account and in many experimental settings the control of parameters is not possible. We propose and experimentally demonstrate an experimental apparatus that allows direct simulation and imaging of stochastic molecular motion on a time-dependent energy landscape.