10,156 research outputs found
Requirements for contractility in disordered cytoskeletal bundles
Actomyosin contractility is essential for biological force generation, and is
well understood in highly organized structures such as striated muscle.
Additionally, actomyosin bundles devoid of this organization are known to
contract both in vivo and in vitro, which cannot be described by standard
muscle models. To narrow down the search for possible contraction mechanisms in
these systems, we investigate their microscopic symmetries. We show that
contractile behavior requires non-identical motors that generate large enough
forces to probe the nonlinear elastic behavior of F-actin. This suggests a role
for filament buckling in the contraction of these bundles, consistent with
recent experimental results on reconstituted actomyosin bundles.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures; text shortene
Scaling Invariance in a Time-Dependent Elliptical Billiard
We study some dynamical properties of a classical time-dependent elliptical
billiard. We consider periodically moving boundary and collisions between the
particle and the boundary are assumed to be elastic. Our results confirm that
although the static elliptical billiard is an integrable system, after to
introduce time-dependent perturbation on the boundary the unlimited energy
growth is observed. The behaviour of the average velocity is described using
scaling arguments
QCD near the Light Cone
Starting from the QCD Lagrangian, we present the QCD Hamiltonian for near
light cone coordinates. We study the dynamics of the gluonic zero modes of this
Hamiltonian. The strong coupling solutions serve as a basis for the complete
problem. We discuss the importance of zero modes for the confinement mechanism.Comment: 32 pages, ReVTeX, 2 Encapsulated PostScript figure
Quantum Mechanics of the Vacuum State in Two-Dimensional QCD with Adjoint Fermions
A study of two-dimensional QCD on a spatial circle with Majorana fermions in
the adjoint representation of the gauge groups SU(2) and SU(3) has been
performed. The main emphasis is put on the symmetry properties related to the
homotopically non-trivial gauge transformations and the discrete axial symmetry
of this model. Within a gauge fixed canonical framework, the delicate interplay
of topology on the one hand and Jacobians and boundary conditions arising in
the course of resolving Gauss's law on the other hand is exhibited. As a
result, a consistent description of the residual gauge symmetry (for
SU(N)) and the ``axial anomaly" emerges. For illustrative purposes, the vacuum
of the model is determined analytically in the limit of a small circle. There,
the Born-Oppenheimer approximation is justified and reduces the vacuum problem
to simple quantum mechanics. The issue of fermion condensates is addressed and
residual discrepancies with other approaches are pointed out.Comment: 44 pages; for hardcopies of figures, contact
[email protected]
Local Spectral Density for a Periodically Driven System of Coupled Quantum States with Strong Imperfection in Unperturbed Energies
A random matrix theory approach is applied in order to analyze the
localization properties of local spectral density for a generic system of
coupled quantum states with strong static imperfection in the unperturbed
energy levels. The system is excited by an external periodic field, the
temporal profile of which is close to monochromatic one. The shape of local
spectral density is shown to be well described by the contour obtained from a
relevant model of periodically driven two-states system with irreversible
losses to an external thermal bath. The shape width and the inverse
participation ratio are determined as functions both of the Rabi frequency and
of parameters specifying the localization effect for our system in the absence
of external field.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Optics and Spectroscop
Deformed Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble Analysis of the Interacting Boson Model
A Deformed Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (DGOE) which interpolates between the
Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble and a Poissonian Ensemble is constructed. This new
ensemble is then applied to the analysis of the chaotic properties of the low
lying collective states of nuclei described by the Interacting Boson Model
(IBM). This model undergoes a transition order-chaos-order from the
limit to the limit. Our analysis shows that the quantum fluctuations of
the IBM Hamiltonian, both of the spectrum and the eigenvectors, follow the
expected behaviour predicted by the DGOE when one goes from one limit to the
other.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures (avaiable upon request), IFUSP/P-1086 Replaced
version: in the previous version the name of one of the authors was omitte
Interference scheme to measure light-induced nonlinearities in Bose-Einstein condensates
Light-induced nonlinear terms in the Gross-Pitaevskii equation arise from the
stimulated coherent exchange of photons between two atoms. For atoms in an
optical dipole trap this effect depends on the spatial profile of the trapping
laser beam. Two different laser beams can induce the same trapping potential
but very different nonlinearities. We propose a scheme to measure light-induced
nonlinearities which is based on this observation.Comment: 2 figure
Revealing and Controlling Energy Barriers and Valleys at Grain Boundaries in Ultrathin Organic Films
Comment on ``Critical Behavior in Disordered Quantum Systems Modified by Broken Time--Reversal Symmetry''
In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 1003 (1998)] Hussein and Pato
employed the maximum entropy principle (MEP) in order to derive interpolating
ensembles between any pair of universality classes in random matrix theory.
They apply their formalism also to the transition from random matrix to Poisson
statistics of spectra that is observed for the case of the Anderson-type
metal-insulator transition. We point out the problems with the latter
procedure.Comment: 1 page in PS, to appear in PRL Sept. 2
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