Edge of Chaos and Genesis of Turbulence

The edge of chaos is analyzed in a spatially extended system, modeled by the regularized long-wave equation, prior to the transition to permanent spatiotemporal chaos. In the presence of coexisting attractors, a chaotic saddle is born at the basin boundary due to a smooth-fractal metamorphosis. As a control parameter is varied, the chaotic transient evolves to well-developed transient turbulence via a cascade of fractal-fractal metamorphoses. The edge state responsible for the edge of chaos and the genesis of turbulence is an unstable travelling wave in the laboratory frame, corresponding to a saddle point lying at the basin boundary in the Fourier space

Existence, uniqueness and analyticity of space-periodic solutions to the regularised long-wave equation

We consider space-periodic evolutionary and travelling-wave solutions to the regularised long-wave equation (RLWE) with damping and forcing. We establish existence, uniqueness and smoothness of the evolutionary solutions for smooth initial conditions, and global in time spatial analyticity of such solutions for analytical initial conditions. The width of the analyticity strip decays at most polynomially. We prove existence of travelling-wave solutions and uniqueness of travelling waves of a sufficiently small norm. The importance of damping is demonstrated by showing that the problem of finding travelling-wave solutions to the undamped RLWE is not well-posed. Finally, we demonstrate the asymptotic convergence of the power series expansion of travelling waves for a weak forcing.Comment: 29 pp., 4 figures, 44 reference

A novel type of intermittency in a nonlinear dynamo in a compressible flow

The transition to intermittent mean--field dynamos is studied using numerical simulations of isotropic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence driven by a helical flow. The low-Prandtl number regime is investigated by keeping the kinematic viscosity fixed while the magnetic diffusivity is varied. Just below the critical parameter value for the onset of dynamo action, a transient mean--field with low magnetic energy is observed. After the transition to a sustained dynamo, the system is shown to evolve through different types of intermittency until a large--scale coherent field with small--scale turbulent fluctuations is formed. Prior to this coherent field stage, a new type of intermittency is detected, where the magnetic field randomly alternates between phases of coherent and incoherent large--scale spatial structures. The relevance of these findings to the understanding of the physics of mean--field dynamo and the physical mechanisms behind intermittent behavior observed in stellar magnetic field variability are discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figure

Nonintegrable Interaction of Ion-Acoustic and Electromagnetic Waves in a Plasma

In this paper we re-examine the one-dimensional interaction of electromagnetic and ion acoustic waves in a plasma. Our model is similar to one solved by Rao et al. (Phys. Fluids, vol. 26, 2488 (1983)) under a number of analytical approximations. Here we perform a numerical investigation to examine the stability of the model. We find that for slightly over dense plasmas, the propagation of stable solitary modes can occur in an adiabatic regime where the ion acoustic electric field potential is enslaved to the electromagnetic field of a laser. But if the laser intensity or plasma density increases or the laser frequency decreases, the adiabatic regime loses stability via a transition to chaos. New asymptotic states are attained when the adiabatic regime no longer exists. In these new states, the plasma becomes rarefied, and the laser field tends to behave like a vacuum field.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX, 6 ps figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Chaotic saddles in nonlinear modulational interactions in a plasma

A nonlinear model of modulational processes in the subsonic regime involving a linearly unstable wave and two linearly damped waves with different damping rates in a plasma is studied numerically. We compute the maximum Lyapunov exponent as a function of the damping rates in a two-parameter space, and identify shrimp-shaped self-similar structures in the parameter space. By varying the damping rate of the low-frequency wave, we construct bifurcation diagrams and focus on a saddle-node bifurcation and an interior crisis associated with a periodic window. We detect chaotic saddles and their stable and unstable manifolds, and demonstrate how the connection between two chaotic saddles via coupling unstable periodic orbits can result in a crisis-induced intermittency. The relevance of this work for the understanding of modulational processes observed in plasmas and fluids is discussed.Comment: Physics of Plasmas, in pres

Nonlinear Optical Properties of Bacteriorhodopsin: Assignment of the Third-order Polarizability Based on Two-photon Absorption Spectroscopy

The third-order (pi) -electron polarizability, (gamma) (pi), of bacteriorhodopsin in the 0.0 - 1.2 eV optical region is assigned based on an analysis of the experimental two-photon properties of the low-lying singlet state manifold. The following selected values of (gamma) (pi) (units of 10-36 esu) are observed: (gamma) (0;0,0,0) equals 2482 +/- 327; (gamma) (-3(omega) ;(omega) ,(omega) ,(omega) ) equals 2976 +/- 385 ((omega) equals 0.25 eV), 5867 +/- 704 ((omega) = 0.5 eV), 14863 +/- 1614 ((omega) = 0.66 eV), 15817 +/- 2314 ((omega) equals 1.0 eV), 10755 +/- 1733 ((omega) equals 1.17 eV). The third-order polarizability of this protein which contains an all-trans retinyl protonated Schiff base chromophore with six double bonds, is comparable to that observed for much longer chain polyenes (for example, dodecapreno (beta) -carotene, a polyene with 19 double bonds, exhibits a third-order (pi) -electron polarizability at 0.66 eV of 17000 +/- 6000 X 10-36 esu. The authors attribute the enhanced third-order nonlinearity associated with the protein bound chromophore of bacteriorhodopsin to two mutually enhancing origins. First, the chromophore is protonated, and the resultant charge reorganization enhances the polarizability in a fashion that is similar to that known to occur for polaronic and bipolaronic chromophores. It is estimated that protonation generates a five-fold enhancement in (gamma) (pi). Second, the protein bound chromophore exhibits a large change in dipole moment upon excitation into the lowest-lying, strongly-allowed 1B*u+-like state ((Delta) (mu) = 13.5 D). The latter property is responsible for a Type III enhancement of the third-order polarizability, and yields at least a 20-fold increase in (gamma) (pi)

Origins of the Quantum Efficiency Duality In the Primary Photochemical Event of Bacteriorhodopsin

Experimental and theoretical evidence is presented which suggests that two distinct forms of light-adapted bacteriorhodopsin may exist. We propose that these two forms have characteristic photocycles with significantly different primary quantum yields. INDO-PSDCI molecular orbital procedures and semiempirical molecular dynamics simulations predict that one ground state geometry of bR undergoes photochemistry with a primary quantum yield, Φ1, of ~ 0.27, and that a second ground state geometry, with a slightly displaced counterion, yields Φ1 ~ 0.74. This theoretical model is supported by the observation that literature measurements of Φ1 tend to fall into one of two categories- those that observe Φ1 ~ 0.33 or below, and those that observe Φ1 ~ 0.6 or above. The observation that all photostationary state measurements of the primary quantum yield give values near 0.3, and all direct measurements of the quantum yield result in values near 0.6, suggests that photochemical back reactions may select the bacteriorhodopsin conformation with the lower quantum yield. The two photocycles may have developed as a natural biological requirement that the bacterium have the capacity to adjust the efficiency of the photocycle in relation to the intensity of light and/or membrane electrochemical gradient

Reversible changes in protein phosphorylation during germinal vesicle breakdown and pronuclear formation in bovine oocytes in vitro

This study examined the event of protein phosphorylation in bovine oocytes during germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) and formation of pronuclei following fertilisation in vitro. Immature oocytes were obtained from abattoir materials and cultured in vitro. The oocytes were labelled with [32P]orthophosphate at 3 h intervals from 0 to 12 h following maturation in culture or from 3 to 18 h following insemination. One-dimensional gel electrophoresis indicated that levels of protein phosphorylation are low prior to GVBD. However, the levels of protein phosphorylation at approximately 40 kDa, 27 kDa, 23 kDa and 18 kDa increased substantially following GVBD and then decreased gradually as maturation in culture progressed. In contrast, the levels of protein phosphorylation increased gradually in the oocytes following pronucleus formation. Further, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis indicated that the protein at approximately 18 kDa reversibly changed in the oocytes during maturation and fertilisation. These results indicate that the reversible changes of this phosphoprotein may be related to either cell cycle transition or pronucleus formation during maturation and fertilisation in bovine oocytes.</p

Detection of Current Sheets and Magnetic Reconnections a the Turbulent Leading Edge of an Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection

The relation between current sheets, turbulence, and magnetic reconnections at the leading edge of an interplanetary coronal mass ejection detected by four Cluster spacecraft on 2005 January 21 is studied. We report the observational evidence of two magnetically reconnected current sheets in the vicinity of a front magnetic cloud boundary layer with the following characteristics: (1) a Kolmogorov power spectrum in the inertial subrange of the magnetic turbulence, (2) the scaling exponent of structure functions of magnetic fluctuations exhibiting multi-fractal scaling predicted by the She-Leveque magnetohydrodynamic model, and (3) bifurcated current sheets with the current density computed by both single-spacecraft and multi-spacecraft techniques