First Steps in the Development of a Wheat Flour Based Lactic Acid Fermentation Technology. Culture Medium Optimization

Batch fermentation experiments were performed to evaluate the potentials of different fractions of wheat as alternative carbon and nitrogen source for an economical production of lactic acid by a homofermentative mesophilic bacterium (Lactobacillus sp. MKT-878 NCAIM B02375). Hydrolysing the starch content of wheat results in well consumable glucose solution, and simultaneously by hydrolysing the insoluble protein content (gluten) of wheat the nitrogen source can be assured as well. The necessary yeast extract concentration was 30 g L–1 on hydrolysed wheat starch solution without gluten fraction. By means of an optimization process we found that the gluten fraction can substitute the major part of the added yeast extract as nitrogen source, and on the basis of a statistical experimental design we created an optimized medium with 8 g L–1 yeast extract and 16 g L–1 gluten supplementation, resulting in 3.54 g L–1h–1 productivity which can be considered as an industrially acceptable process output

Mean-field theory of orientational ordering in rigid rotor models with identical atoms: spin conversion and thermal equilibration

In coupled rotor models which describe identical rotating nuclei the nuclear spin states restrict the possible angular momenta of each molecule. There are two mean-field approaches to determining the orientational phase diagrams in such systems. In one the nuclear spin conversion times are assumed to be instantaneous in the other infinite. In this paper the intermediate case, when the spin conversion times are significantly slower than those of rotational time scales, but are not infinite on the time-scale of the experiment, is investigated. Via incorporation of the configurational degeneracy it is shown that in the thermodynamic limit the mean-field approach in the intermediate case is identical to the instantaneous spin conversion time approximation. The total entropy can be split into configurational and rotational terms. The mean-field phase diagram of a model of coupled rotors of three-fold symmetry is also calculated in the two approximations. It is shown that the configurational entropy has a maximum as a function of temperature which shifts to lower temperatures with increasing order

Reconstruction of the polarization distribution of the Rice-Mele model

We calculate the gauge-invariant cumulants (and moments) associated with the Zak phase in the Rice-Mele model. We reconstruct the underlying probability distribution by maximizing the information entropy and applying the moments as constraints. When the Wannier functions are localized within one unit cell, the probability distribution so obtained corresponds to that of the Wannier function. We show that in the fully dimerized limit the magnitudes of the moments are all equal. In this limit, if the on-site interaction is decreased towards zero, the distribution shifts towards the midpoint of the unit cell, but the overall shape of the distribution remains the same. Away from this limit, if alternate hoppings are finite and the on-site interaction is decreased, the distribution also shifts towards the midpoint of the unit cell, but it does this by changing shape, by becoming asymmetric around the maximum, and by shifting. We also follow the probability distribution of the polarization in cycles around the topologically nontrivial point of the model. The distribution moves across to the next unit cell, its shape distorting considerably in the process. If the radius of the cycle is large, the shift of the distribution is accompanied by large variations in the maximum. © 2017 American Physical Society

Quantum Monte Carlo Algorithm Based on Two-Body Density Functional Theory for Fermionic Many-Body Systems: Application to 3He

We construct a quantum Monte Carlo algorithm for interacting fermions using the two-body density as the fundamental quantity. The central idea is mapping the interacting fermionic system onto an auxiliary system of interacting bosons. The correction term is approximated using correlated wave functions for the interacting system, resulting in an effective potential that represents the nodal surface. We calculate the properties of 3He and find good agreement with experiment and with other theoretical work. In particular, our results for the total energy agree well with other calculations where the same approximations were implemented but the standard quantum Monte Carlo algorithm was usedComment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Variational Monte Carlo method for the Baeriswyl wave function: Application to the one-dimensional bosonic Hubbard model

A variational Monte Carlo method for bosonic lattice models is introduced. The method is based on the Baeriswyl projected wave function. The Baeriswyl wave function consists of a kinetic energy based projection applied to the wave function at infinite interaction, and is related to the shadow wave function already used in the study of continuous models of bosons. The wave function at infinite interaction, and the projector, are represented in coordinate space, leading to an expression for expectation values which can be evaluated via Monte Carlo sampling. We calculate the phase diagram and other properties of the bosonic Hubbard model. The calculated phase diagram is in excellent agreement with known quantum Monte Carlo results. We also analyze correlation functions. © 2016 American Physical Society

Quantum quench in two dimensions using the variational Baeriswyl wave function

By combining the Baeriswyl wave function with equilibrium and time-dependent variational principles, we develop a nonequilibrium formalism to study quantum quenches for two-dimensional spinless fermions with nearest-neighbor hopping and repulsion. The variational ground-state energy, the charge-density wave (CDW) order parameter, and the short-time dynamics agree convincingly with the results of numerically exact simulations. We find that, depending on the initial and final interaction strength, the quenched system either exhibits oscillatory behavior or relaxes to a time-independent steady state. The time-averaged expectation value of the CDW order parameter rises sharply when crossing from the steady-state regime to the oscillating regime, indicating that the system, being nonintegrable, shows signs of thermalization with an effective temperature above or below the equilibrium critical temperature, respectively. © 2016 American Physical Society