DNA dynamics - Experiment proposals

We argue that a breather wave, describing DNA dynamics, behaves like a real soliton. We rely on a Peyrard-Bishop-Dauxois (PBD) model. In addition, we propose a couple of experiments to confirm or reject this statement. These experiments should study solitonic interactions using micromanipulation technique. Also, we suggest how to measure a solitonic width and its amplitude.     

Increasing Superplasticity and Strong Dynamic Behaviour of Zr--Cu--Ni--Al Bulk Metallic Glass

The plasticity and the dynamic fragility of bulk metallic glass of a Zr62 CuxsNiloAllo alloy are studied by three- point beam bending methods. We find that the alloy behaves super plastic not only at room temperature, but also at high temperatures. More importantly, it is found that the superplasticity increases with increasing temperature. In addition, the dynamic fragility parameter m for the supercooled liquid of this alloy is measured to be 34.87 and the supercooled liquid of Zr62 CuxsNixoAlxo alloy behaves as a strong liquid.     

Diffusion and segmental dynamics of double-stranded DNA

Diffusion and segmental dynamics of the double-stranded lambda-phage DNA polymer are quantitatively studied over the transition range from stiff to semiflexible chains. Spectroscopy of fluorescence fluctuations of single-end fluorescently labeled monodisperse DNA fragments unambiguously shows that double-stranded DNA in the length range of 10(2) - 2 x 10(4) base pairs behaves as a semiflexible polymer with segmental dynamics controlled by hydrodynamic interactions.     

Radiative Energy Shifts of an Atom Coupled to the Derivative of a Scalar Field near a Reflecting Boundary

We study the radiative energy level shifts of a two-level atom in dipole coupling to the derivative of a massless scalar quantum field in a spacetime with a perfectly reflecting boundary, and calculate the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the level shift. It is found that the energy level shift of the excited state is an oscillating function of the atom＇s distance from the boundary and it can either be positive or negative, while that of the ground state is always positive. The most remarkable feature is that the energy level shift of the ground state behaves like 1/z^4 when the atom＇s distance from the boundary, z, is very large as compared to the transition wavelength of the atom, while it behaves like 1/z^3 when z is very small     

Disorder-averaged currents in edged topological disordered mesoscopic cylinder

Edged topological disorder in quantum mesoscopic cylinder threaded with magnetic flux is investigated by using exact diagonalization. The Fermi energy continuously varies with respect to magnetic flux against saw-tooth variation in ordered mesoscopic cylinder. In addition, the energy levels repel each other and energy gap appears in variation of energy spectra as a function of magnetic flux in edged topological disordered mesoscopic cylinder rather than ordered ones. In strong edged topological disorder, a narrow mesoscopic cylinder which is a low-dimensional sample behaves in the same way as a three-dimensional system.     

Mechanically controlled DNA extrusion from a palindromic sequence by single molecule micromanipulation

A magnetic tweezers setup is used to control both the stretching force and the relative linking number DeltaLk of a palindromic DNA molecule. We show here, in absence of divalent ions, that twisting negatively the molecule while stretching it at approximately 1 pN induces the formation of a cruciform DNA structure. Furthermore, once the cruciform DNA structure is formed, the extrusion of several kilo-base pairs of palindromic DNA sequence is directly and reversibly controlled by varying DeltaLk. Indeed the branch point behaves as a nanomechanical gear that links rotation with translation, a feature related to the helicity of DNA. We obtain experimentally a very good linear relationship between the extension of the molecule and DeltaLk. We use then this experiment to obtain a precise measurement of the pitch of B-DNA in solution: 3.61 +/- 0.03 nm/turn.     

Finite element modelling of a rotating piezoelectric ultrasonic motor

The evaluation of the performance of ultrasonic motors as a function of input parameters such as the driving frequency, voltage input and pre-load on the rotor is of key importance to their development and is here addressed by means of a finite element three-dimensional model. First the stator is simulated as a fully deformable elastic body and the travelling wave dynamics is accurately reproduced; secondly the interaction through contact between the stator and the rotor is accounted for by assuming that the rotor behaves as a rigid surface. Numerical results for the whole motor are finally compared to available experimental data.     

Trivial and non-trivial superconductivity in dsDNA

A double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) is modeled by two coupled one-dimensional Kitaev's chain and the topological superconductivity is studied. It is shown that the zero energy mode exists under some specific conditions. The wave function of zero mode is calculated and it is shown that the Majorana quasi-particles exist on the ends of each strand. By calculating the winding number, we show that the topological phase transition can happen if the hopping integral between two strands is very smaller than the pairing potential between the Cooper pairs. It means that the dsDNA behaves as a trivial superconductor, commonly, but single-stranded DNA (or two coupled ssDNA with very small hopping between them) may behave as a non-trivial superconductor. Finally, we suggest an experimental setup for probable detection of Majorana quasi-particle in DNA.     

Stochastic resonance in a bias monostable system with frequency mixing force and multiplicative and additive noise

The stochastic resonance in a bias monostable system subject to frequency mixing force and multiplicative and additive noise is investigated. Based on the adiabatic elimination theory, the analytic expressions of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the fundamental and higher harmonics are obtained. It is shown that the SNR is a non-monotonic function of the intensities of the multiplicative and additive noise, as well as the system parameter. Moreover, the SNR for the fundamental harmonic decreases with the increase of the system bias, while the SNR for the higher harmonics behaves non-monotonically as the system bias varies.     

Correlated photon-pair emission from pulse-pumped quantum dots embedded in a microcavity

We theoretically investigate the optical response of a quantum dot, embedded in a microcavity and incoherently excited by pulsed pumping. The exciton and biexciton transitions are off-resonantly coupled with the left- and right-polarized mode of the cavity, while the two-photon resonance condition is fulfilled. Rich behaviors are shown to occur in the time dependence of the second-order correlation functions which refer to counter-polarized photons. The system’s dynamics turns out to be much faster than typical experimental detection times. The experimentally accessible time-averaged quantities confirm that such a dot-cavity system behaves as a good emitter of single polarization-correlated photon pairs.     

Phase-sensitive multimodal optical parametric amplifier for beam angle amplification

The single-mode phase-sensitive parametric amplifier has been proposed as an approximation to an ideal quantum phase amplifier. We demonstrate numerically that a real, multimode parametric amplifier operated in the spatial domain, and realized by the use of three-wave mixing in nonlinear media, behaves similar to a single-mode quantum phase amplifier, but exhibits smaller phase gain. Constraints for operation in this regime are found to be consistent with small departures of phase from the ideal deamplification condition.     

Two mechanisms of spiral-pair-source creation in excitable media

Two new modes of generating spiral pairs in an excitable medium have been found. They depend on a geometrical structure (GS) inside the medium. This may be formed e.g. as a result of scars or fibrosis in the heart tissue, or artificially built in a chemical reaction substrate. Both sources involve a GS composed of a circular “convergent lens” bounded by two opaque “walls”. One mode can be induced by a single wave and behaves as a “flip-flop” type of a limit cycle. The other mode is generated by a train of plane waves impinging on the GS, and is created at the focus of the converging wave-fragments.     

Spin structure factors and valence-bond-solid states of the trimerized Heisenberg chains in a magnetic field

By means of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method, the static spin structure factors and the magnetization plateaus of the trimerized Heisenberg ferromagnet-ferromagnet-antiferromagnet and antiferromagnet-antiferromagnet-ferromagnet spin chains in the presence of a magnetic field are elaborately studied. It is found that in the plateau states, the static structure factor with three peaks does not vary with the external magnetic field as well as the exchange couplings; the spin correlation function behaves as a perfect sequence and has a simple relation with the magnetization per site. An approximate wave function for the plateau states is proposed, and a picture based on the valence-bond-solid states is presented in order to understand the origin and the total number of the magnetization plateaus, which are shown to be in agreement with the DMRG results.     

Retardation effects in the rotating string model

A new method to study the retardation effects in mesons is presented. It is based on a generalized rotating string model, in which a nonzero value of the relative time between the quark and the antiquark is allowed. This approach leads to a retardation term in the Hamiltonian which behaves as a perturbation of the nonretarded Hamiltonian and preserves the Regge trajectories for light mesons. The straight-line ansatz is used to describe the string, and the relevance of this approximation is tested. It is shown that the string is actually curved because of retardation, but this bending does not bring a relevant contribution to the energy spectrum of the model.     

Conformation of circular DNA in two dimensions

The conformation of circular DNA molecules of various lengths adsorbed in a 2D conformation on a mica surface is studied. The results confirm the conjecture that the critical exponent nu is topologically invariant and equal to the self-avoiding walk value (in the present case nu=3/4), and that the topology and dimensionality of the system strongly influence the crossover between the rigid regime and the self-avoiding regime at a scale L approximately 7l{p}. Additionally, the bond correlation function scales with the molecular length L as predicted. For molecular lengths L相似文献   

Auto-prepulse operation of a long-pulse XeCl laser

A standard corona preionized XeCl laser prototype has been excited by a very simple L-C circuit consisting of a large storage capacitance charged at relatively low voltage (12 kV) and discharged via a switch on the electrodes, tightly coupled with the peaking capacitors. The resulting overvoltage following the switch closure behaves as an effective and automatic prepulse, providing a homogeneous discharge lasting up to 400 ns. Energy output levels of the order of 150 mJ at 1.4% overall efficiency have been achieved.     

BCS–BEC crossover in one-dimensional integrable model

The crossover from Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid with singlet pairs to Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) of molecules is studied in one dimension. By use of the nested Bethe ansatz method, the ground state properties of spin-1/2 fermions interacting through attractive δ-function are analyzed explicitly for strong and weak couplings. Based on those results, we confirm a crossover picture, that is, in the BEC regime (strong couplings) the system is described by molecules with weak repulsion while in the BCS regime (weak couplings) it behaves as the weakly attractive fermions.     

Weak temperature gradient effect on the stability of the circular Couette flow

We have investigated the influence of a weak radial temperature gradient in a wide gap and large aspect ratio Couette-Taylor system. The inner cylinder is rotating and can be heated or cooled, the outer cylinder is at rest and immersed in a large thermal bath. We found that a radial temperature gradient destabilizes the Couette flow leading to a pattern of traveling helicoidal vortices occurring only near the bottom of the system. The size of the pattern increases as the rotation frequency of the cylinder is increased. We have characterized the spatiotemporal properties of the pattern and we have shown that it behaves as a wall mode found in the simulation of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with homogeneous boundary conditions.     

Rescattering and vibrations in homonuclear diatomic molecules in a strong electromagnetic field

The electron of a driven by a strong electromagnetic field induces molecular vibrations. Numerical and analytical results show that the molecule behaves as a parametric oscillator and can be treated as a kicked oscillator. The results are discussed from the point of view of the electron's periodic dressing and undressing processes.