160 research outputs found
Adiabatic Landau-Zener-St\"uckelberg transition with or without dissipation in low spin molecular system V15
The spin one half molecular system V15 shows no barrier against spin
reversal. This makes possible direct phonon activation between the two levels.
By tuning the field sweeping rate and the thermal coupling between sample and
thermal reservoir we have control over the phonon-bottleneck phenomena
previously reported in this system. We demonstrate adiabatic motion of molecule
spins in time dependent magnetic fields and with different thermal coupling to
the cryostat bath. We also discuss the origin of the zero-field tunneling
splitting for a half-integer spin.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. B - Rapid Communication
First- and second-order transitions of the escape rate in ferrimagnetic or antiferromagnetic particles
Quantum-classical escape-rate transition has been studied for two general
forms of magnetic anisotropy in ferrimagnetic or antiferromagnetic particles.
It is found that the range of the first-order transition is greatly reduced as
the system becomes ferrimagnetic and there is no first-order transition in
almost compensated antiferromagnetic particles. These features can be tested
experimentally in nanomagnets like molecular magnets.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Europhys. Let
Quantum Coherence Oscillations in Antiferromagnetic Chains
Macroscopic quantum coherence oscillations in mesoscopic antiferromagnets may
appear when the anisotropy potential creates a barrier between the
antiferromagnetic states with opposite orientations of the Neel vector. This
phenomenon is studied for the physical situation of the nuclear spin system of
eight Xe atoms arranged on a magnetic surface along a chain. The oscillation
period is calculated as a function of the chain constant. The environmental
decoherence effects at finite temperature are accounted assuming a dipole
coupling between the spin chain and the fluctuating magnetic field of the
surface. The numerical calculations indicate that the oscillations are damped
by a rate , where is the number of spins and is
the relaxation time of a single spin.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, two postscript figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.
Nuclear spin driven quantum relaxation in LiY_0.998Ho_0.002F_4
Staircase hysteresis loops of the magnetization of a LiY_0.998Ho_0.002F_4
single crystal are observed at subkelvin temperatures and low field sweep
rates. This behavior results from quantum dynamics at avoided level crossings
of the energy spectrum of single Ho^{3+} ions in the presence of hyperfine
interactions. Enhanced quantum relaxation in constant transverse fields allows
the study of the relative magnitude of tunnel splittings. At faster sweep
rates, non-equilibrated spin-phonon and spin-spin transitions, mediated by weak
dipolar interactions, lead to magnetization oscillations and additional steps.Comment: 5 pages, 5 eps figures, using RevTe
Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling of Ferromagnetic Domain Walls
Quantum tunneling of domain walls out of an impurity potential in a
mesoscopic ferromagnetic sample is investigated. Using improved expressions for
the domain wall mass and for the pinning potential, we find that the cross-over
temperature between thermal activation and quantum tunneling is of a different
functional form than found previously. In materials like Ni or YIG, the
crossover temperatures are around 5 mK. We also find that the WKB exponent is
typically two orders of magnitude larger than current estimates. The sources
for these discrepancies are discussed, and precise estimates for the transition
from three-dimensional to one-dimensional magnetic behavior of a wire are
given. The cross-over temperatures from thermal to quantum transitions and
tunneling rates are calculated for various materials and sample sizes.Comment: 10 pages, 2 postscript figures, REVTe
Analysis of the Association between CIMP and BRAFV600E in Colorectal Cancer by DNA Methylation Profiling
A CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) is displayed by a distinct subset of colorectal cancers with a high frequency of DNA hypermethylation in a specific group of CpG islands. Recent studies have shown that an activating mutation of BRAF (BRAFV600E) is tightly associated with CIMP, raising the question of whether BRAFV600E plays a causal role in the development of CIMP or whether CIMP provides a favorable environment for the acquisition of BRAFV600E. We employed Illumina GoldenGate DNA methylation technology, which interrogates 1,505 CpG sites in 807 different genes, to further study this association. We first examined whether expression of BRAFV600E causes DNA hypermethylation by stably expressing BRAFV600E in the CIMP-negative, BRAF wild-type COLO 320DM colorectal cancer cell line. We determined 100 CIMP-associated CpG sites and examined changes in DNA methylation in eight stably transfected clones over multiple passages. We found that BRAFV600E is not sufficient to induce CIMP in our system. Secondly, considering the alternative possibility, we identified genes whose DNA hypermethylation was closely linked to BRAFV600E and CIMP in 235 primary colorectal tumors. Interestingly, genes that showed the most significant link include those that mediate various signaling pathways implicated in colorectal tumorigenesis, such as BMP3 and BMP6 (BMP signaling), EPHA3, KIT, and FLT1 (receptor tyrosine kinases) and SMO (Hedgehog signaling). Furthermore, we identified CIMP-dependent DNA hypermethylation of IGFBP7, which has been shown to mediate BRAFV600E-induced cellular senescence and apoptosis. Promoter DNA hypermethylation of IGFBP7 was associated with silencing of the gene. CIMP-specific inactivation of BRAFV600E-induced senescence and apoptosis pathways by IGFBP7 DNA hypermethylation might create a favorable context for the acquisition of BRAFV600E in CIMP+ colorectal cancer. Our data will be useful for future investigations toward understanding CIMP in colorectal cancer and gaining insights into the role of aberrant DNA hypermethylation in colorectal tumorigenesis
Suppression of tunneling by interference in half-integer--spin particles
Within a wide class of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems, quantum
tunneling of magnetization direction is spin-parity dependent: it vanishes for
magnetic particles with half-integer spin, but is allowed for integer spin. A
coherent-state path integral calculation shows that this topological effect
results from interference between tunneling paths.Comment: 14 pages (RevTeX), 2 postscript figures available upon reques
Propagation of local decohering action in distributed quantum systems
We study propagation of the decohering influence caused by a local
measurement performed on a distributed quantum system. As an example, the gas
of bosons forming a Bose-Einstein condensate is considered. We demonstrate that
the local decohering perturbation exerted on the measured region propagates
over the system in the form of a decoherence wave, whose dynamics is governed
by elementary excitations of the system. We argue that the post-measurement
evolution of the system (determined by elementary excitations) is of importance
for transfer of decoherence, while the initial collapse of the wave function
has negligible impact on the regions which are not directly affected by the
measurement.Comment: 6 REVTeX pages, no figures. Introduction and discussion sections are
extende
Tunnel splitting and quantum phase interference in biaxial ferrimagnetic particles at excited states
The tunneling splitting in biaxial ferrimagnetic particles at excited states
with an explicit calculation of the prefactor of exponent is obtained in terms
of periodic instantons which are responsible for tunneling at excited states
and is shown as a function of magnetic field applied along an arbitrary
direction in the plane of hard and medium axes. Using complex time
path-integral we demonstrate the oscillation of tunnel splitting with respect
to the magnitude and the direction of the magnetic field due to the quantum
phase interference of two tunneling paths of opposite windings . The
oscillation is gradually smeared and in the end the tunnel splitting
monotonously increases with the magnitude of the magnetic field when the
direction of the magnetic field tends to the medium axis. The oscillation
behavior is similar to the recent experimental observation with Fe
molecular clusters. A candidate of possible experiments to observe the effect
of quantum phase interference in the ferrimagnetic particles is proposed.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, acceptted to be pubblished in Physical Review
Two-level system with a thermally fluctuating transfer matrix element: Application to the problem of DNA charge transfer
Charge transfer along the base-pair stack in DNA is modeled in terms of
thermally-assisted tunneling between adjacent base pairs. Central to our
approach is the notion that tunneling between fluctuating pairs is rate-limited
by the requirement of their optimal alignment. We focus on this aspect of the
process by modeling two adjacent base pairs in terms of a classical damped
oscillator subject to thermal fluctuations as described by a Fokker-Planck
equation. We find that the process is characterized by two time scales, a
result that is in accord with experimental findings.Comment: original file is revtex4, 10 pages, three eps figure
- …