Quasi-elastic peak lineshapes in adsorbate diffusion on nearly flat surfaces at low coverages: the motional narrowing effect in Xe on Pt(111)

Quasi-elastic helium atom scattering measurements have provided clear evidence for a two-dimensional free gas of Xe atoms on Pt(111) at low coverages. Increasing the friction due to the surface, a gradual change of the shape of the quasi-elastic peak is predicted and analyzed for this system in terms of the so-called motional narrowing effect. The type of analysis presented here for the quasi-elastic peak should be prior to any deconvolution procedure carried out in order to better extract information from the process, e.g. diffusion coefficients and jump distributions. Moreover, this analysis also provides conditions for the free gas regime different than those reported earlier.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures (revised version

Non-Markovian Stochastic Resonance: three state model of ion channel gating

Stochastic Resonance in single voltage-dependent ion channels is investigated within a three state non-Markovian modeling of the ion channel conformational dynamics. In contrast to a two-state description one assumes the presence of an additional closed state for the ion channel which mimics the manifold of voltage-independent closed subconformations (inactivated ``state''). The conformational transition into the open state occurs through a domain of voltage-dependent closed subconformations (closed ``state''). At distinct variance with a standard two-state or also three-state Markovian approach, the inactivated state is characterized by a broad, non-exponential probability distribution of corresponding residence times. The linear response to a periodic voltage signal is determined for arbitrary distributions of the channel's recovery times. Analytical results are obtained for the spectral amplification of the applied signal and the corresponding signal-to-noise ratio. Alternatively, these results are also derived by use of a corresponding two-state non-Markovian theory which is based on driven integral renewal equations [I. Goychuk and P. Hanggi, Phys. Rev. E 69, 021104 (2004)]. The non-Markovian features of stochastic resonance are studied for a power law distribution of the residence time-intervals in the inactivated state which exhibits a large variance. A comparison with the case of bi-exponentially distributed residence times possessing the same mean value, i.e. a simplest non-Markovian two-state description, is also presented

Hydrodynamic View of Wave-Packet Interference: Quantum Caves

Wave-packet interference is investigated within the complex quantum Hamilton-Jacobi formalism using a hydrodynamic description. Quantum interference leads to the formation of the topological structure of quantum caves in space-time Argand plots. These caves consist of the vortical and stagnation tubes originating from the isosurfaces of the amplitude of the wave function and its first derivative. Complex quantum trajectories display counterclockwise helical wrapping around the stagnation tubes and hyperbolic deflection near the vortical tubes. The string of alternating stagnation and vortical tubes is sufficient to generate divergent trajectories. Moreover, the average wrapping time for trajectories and the rotational rate of the nodal line in the complex plane can be used to define the lifetime for interference features.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (major revisions with respect to the previous version have been carried out

A generalized Chudley-Elliott vibration-jump model in activated atom surface diffusion

Here the authors provide a generalized Chudley-Elliott expression for activated atom surface diffusion which takes into account the coupling between both low-frequency vibrational motion (namely, the frustrated translational modes) and diffusion. This expression is derived within the Gaussian approximation framework for the intermediate scattering function at low coverage. Moreover, inelastic contributions (arising from creation and annihilation processes) to the full width at half maximum of the quasi-elastic peak are also obtained.Comment: (5 pages, 2 figures; revised version

Line Shape Broadening in Surface Diffusion of Interacting Adsorbates with Quasielastic He Atom Scattering

The experimental line shape broadening observed in adsorbate diffusion on metal surfaces with increasing coverage is usually related to the nature of the adsorbate-adsorbate interaction. Here we show that this broadening can also be understood in terms of a fully stochastic model just considering two noise sources: (i) a Gaussian white noise accounting for the surface friction, and (ii) a shot noise replacing the physical adsorbate-adsorbate interaction potential. Furthermore, contrary to what could be expected, for relatively weak adsorbate-substrate interactions the opposite effect is predicted: line shapes get narrower with increasing coverage.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures (slightly revised version

Characterization of a new partitivirus strain in Verticillium dahliae provides further evidence of the spread of the highly virulent defoliating pathotype through new introductions

The soilborne pathogen Verticillium dahliae, causal agent of Verticillium wilt, has a worldwide distribution and many hosts of agronomic value. The worldwide spread of a highly virulent defoliating (D) pathotype has greatly increased the threat posed by V. dahliae in olive trees. For effective disease management, it is important to know if the D pathotype is spreading long distances from contaminated material, or if D pathotype isolates may have originated locally from native V. dahliae populations several times. We identified a double-stranded RNA mycovirus in an olive D pathotype isolate from Turkey. Sequencing and phylogenetic analysis clustered the virus with members of the family Partitiviridae. The virus was most similar to a partitivirus previously identified in a V. dahliae isolate from cotton in China (VdPV1), with sequence identities of 94% and 91% at the nucleotide level for RNA1 and RNA2, respectively. The virus therefore corresponded to a strain of the established species, and we designated it VdPV1-ol (VdPV1 from olive). The identification of the same viral species in these two fungal isolates from geographically distant origins provides evidence of their relationships, supporting the hypothesis of long-distance movement of V. dahliae isolates.This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Grants AGL2009- 13445), and the Junta de Andalucía (Grant FEDER P07-TIC-02682) and AGL2013-48980-R.Peer reviewe

Setting up tunneling conditions by means of Bohmian mechanics

Usually tunneling is established after imposing some matching conditions on the (time-independent) wave function and its first derivative at the boundaries of a barrier. Here an alternative scheme is proposed to determine tunneling and estimate transmission probabilities in time-dependent problems, which takes advantage of the trajectory picture provided by Bohmian mechanics. From this theory a general functional expression for the transmission probability in terms of the system initial state can be reached. This expression is used here to analyze tunneling properties and estimate transmissions in the case of initial Gaussian wave packets colliding with ramp-like barriers.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

Analysis of a three-component model phase diagram by Catastrophe Theory: Potentials with two Order Parameters

In this work we classify the singularities obtained from the Gibbs potential of a lattice gas model with three components, two order parameters and five control parameters applying the general theorems provided by Catastrophe Theory. In particular, we clearly establish the existence of Landau potentials in two variables or, in other words, corank 2 canonical forms that are associated to the hyperbolic umbilic, D_{+4}, its dual the elliptic umbilic, D_{-4}, and the parabolic umbilic, D_5, catastrophes. The transversality of the potential with two order parameters is explicitely shown for each case. Thus we complete the Catastrophe Theory analysis of the three-component lattice model, initiated in a previous paper.Comment: 17 pages, 3 EPS figures, Latex file, continuation of Phys. Rev. B57, 13527 (1998) (cond-mat/9707015), submitted to Phys. Rev.

Generalized Arago-Fresnel laws: The EME-flow-line description

We study experimentally and theoretically the influence of light polarization on the interference patterns behind a diffracting grating. Different states of polarization and configurations are been considered. The experiments are analyzed in terms of electromagnetic energy (EME) flow lines, which can be eventually identified with the paths followed by photons. This gives rise to a novel trajectory interpretation of the Arago-Fresnel laws for polarized light, which we compare with interpretations based on the concept of "which-way" (or "which-slit") information.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure