Water molecules in a protein cavity detected by a statistical-mechanical theory

Four water molecules confined in a small cavity of hen egg-white lysozyme were detected by means of the three-dimensional (3D) RISM theory, a statistical-mechanical theory of molecular solutions. This is the first theoretical realization of confined molecules in a protein without making nonsense tricks, such as placing the molecules in the space a priori. Possible impacts which the result may have on biochemistry and biophysics, including the molecular recognition, enzymatic reactions, etc., are discussed.     

Experimentelle Best?tigung der modernen Theorie der Molekulargewichtsfraktionierung auf Grund der L?slichkeitsunterschiede

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Analysis of hybrid modes in an optical waveguide bounded at one side by a gyromagnetic medium

Planar optical glass waveguides bounded at one side by a gyromagnetic substrate are investigated theoretically. Exact solutions are obtained for the phase and the attenuation constants of the hybrid mode. Field patterns of the hybrid wavefunction for the HE hybrid mode are also shown. A concrete example is given for the case when the substrate is of permalloy material. The analysis will be very useful for constructing integrated optical devices. A computer program was devised to obtain these results.     

Non-linear laws of echoic memory and auditory change detection in humans

Background  

The detection of any abrupt change in the environment is important to survival. Since memory of preceding sensory conditions is necessary for detecting changes, such a change-detection system relates closely to the memory system. Here we used an auditory change-related N1 subcomponent (change-N1) of event-related brain potentials to investigate cortical mechanisms underlying change detection and echoic memory.     

Squeezing visible light waves into a 3-nm-thick and 55-nm-long plasmon cavity

We demonstrate controlled squeezing of visible light waves into nanometer-sized optical cavities. The light is perpendicularly confined in a few-nanometer-thick SiO2 film sandwiched between Au claddings in the form of surface plasmon polaritons and exhibits Fabry-Perot resonances in a longitudinal direction. As the thickness of the dielectric core is reduced, the plasmon wavelength becomes shorter; then a smaller cavity is realized. A dispersion relation down to a surface plasmon wavelength of 51 nm for a red light, which is less than 8% of the free-space wavelength, was experimentally observed. Any obvious breakdowns of the macroscopic electromagnetics based on continuous dielectric media were not disclosed for 3-nm-thick cores.     

Superconductivity of doped Ar@C60

The synthesis of a mg amount of pure argon containing fullerene allowed the synthesis of the first endohedral superconductors with critical temperatures lower than expected, an indication of the strong influence of the argon atom on the C60 cage.     

Determination of a coupling function in multicoupled oscillators

A new method to determine a coupling function in a phase model is theoretically derived for coupled self-sustained oscillators and applied to Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) oscillators. The synchronous behavior of two coupled BZ reactors is explained extremely well in terms of the coupling function thus obtained. This method is expected to be applicable to weakly coupled multioscillator systems, in which mutual coupling among nearly identical oscillators occurs in a similar manner. The importance of higher-order harmonic terms involved in the coupling function is also discussed.