39 research outputs found
Transitions between levels of a quantum bouncer induced by a noise-like perturbation
The probability of transition between levels of a quantum bouncer, induced by
a noise-like perturbation, is calculated. The results are applied to two
sources of noise (vibrations and mirror surface waviness) which might play an
important role in future GRANIT experiment, aiming at precision studies of/with
the neutron quantum bouncer
Internal state conversion in ultracold gases
We consider an ultracold gas of (non-condensed) bosons or fermions with two
internal states, and study the effect of a gradient of the transition frequency
between these states. When a RF pulse is applied to the sample,
exchange effects during collisions transfer the atoms into internal states
which depend on the direction of their velocity. This results, after a short
time, in a spatial separation between the two states. A kinetic equation is
solved analytically and numerically; the results agree well with the recent
observations of Lewandowski et al.Comment: Accepted version, to appear in PR
Surface Roughness and Effective Stick-Slip Motion
The effect of random surface roughness on hydrodynamics of viscous
incompressible liquid is discussed. Roughness-driven contributions to
hydrodynamic flows, energy dissipation, and friction force are calculated in a
wide range of parameters. When the hydrodynamic decay length (the viscous wave
penetration depth) is larger than the size of random surface inhomogeneities,
it is possible to replace a random rough surface by effective stick-slip
boundary conditions on a flat surface with two constants: the stick-slip length
and the renormalization of viscosity near the boundary. The stick-slip length
and the renormalization coefficient are expressed explicitly via the
correlation function of random surface inhomogeneities. The effective
stick-slip length is always negative signifying the effective slow-down of the
hydrodynamic flows by the rough surface (stick rather than slip motion). A
simple hydrodynamic model is presented as an illustration of these general
hydrodynamic results. The effective boundary parameters are analyzed
numerically for Gaussian, power-law and exponentially decaying correlators with
various indices. The maximum on the frequency dependence of the dissipation
allows one to extract the correlation radius (characteristic size) of the
surface inhomogeneities directly from, for example, experiments with torsional
quartz oscillators.Comment: RevTeX4, 14 pages, 3 figure
On the Stability and Single-Particle Properties of Bosonized Fermi Liquids
We study the stability and single-particle properties of Fermi liquids in
spatial dimensions greater than one via bosonization. For smooth non-singular
Fermi liquid interactions we obtain Shankar's renormalization- group flows and
reproduce well known results for quasi-particle lifetimes. We demonstrate by
explicit calculation that spin-charge separation does not occur when the Fermi
liquid interactions are regular. We also explore the relationship between
quantized bosonic excitations and zero sound modes and present a concise
derivation of both the spin and the charge collective mode equations. Finally
we discuss some aspects of singular Fermi liquid interactions.Comment: 13 pages plus three postscript figures appended; RevTex 3.0;
BUP-JBM-
A method to measure the resonance transitions between the gravitationally bound quantum states of neutrons in the GRANIT spectrometer
We present a method to measure the resonance transitions between the
gravitationally bound quantum states of neutrons in the GRANIT spectrometer.
The purpose of GRANIT is to improve the accuracy of measurement of the quantum
states parameters by several orders of magnitude, taking advantage of long
storage of Ultracold neutrons at specula trajectories. The transitions could be
excited using a periodic spatial variation of a magnetic field gradient. If the
frequency of such a perturbation (in the frame of a moving neutron) coincides
with a resonance frequency defined by the energy difference of two quantum
states, the transition probability will sharply increase. The GRANIT experiment
is motivated by searches for short-range interactions (in particular
spin-dependent interactions), by studying the interaction of a quantum system
with a gravitational field, by searches for extensions of the Standard model,
by the unique possibility to check the equivalence principle for an object in a
quantum state and by studying various quantum optics phenomena
A Ribosomal Misincorporation of Lys for Arg in Human Triosephosphate Isomerase Expressed in Escherichia coli Gives Rise to Two Protein Populations
We previously observed that human homodimeric triosephosphate isomerase (HsTIM) expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to apparent homogeneity exhibits two significantly different thermal transitions. A detailed exploration of the phenomenon showed that the preparations contain two proteins; one has the expected theoretical mass, while the mass of the other is 28 Da lower. The two proteins were separated by size exclusion chromatography in 3 M urea. Both proteins correspond to HsTIM as shown by Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC/ESI-MS/MS). The two proteins were present in nearly equimolar amounts under certain growth conditions. They were catalytically active, but differed in molecular mass, thermostability, susceptibility to urea and proteinase K. An analysis of the nucleotides in the human TIM gene revealed the presence of six codons that are not commonly used in E. coli. We examined if they were related to the formation of the two proteins. We found that expression of the enzyme in a strain that contains extra copies of genes that encode for tRNAs that frequently limit translation of heterologous proteins (Arg, Ile, Leu), as well as silent mutations of two consecutive rare Arg codons (positions 98 and 99), led to the exclusive production of the more stable protein. Further analysis by LC/ESI-MS/MS showed that the 28 Da mass difference is due to the substitution of a Lys for an Arg residue at position 99. Overall, our work shows that two proteins with different biochemical and biophysical properties that coexist in the same cell environment are translated from the same nucleotide sequence frame