Highly-efficient noise-assisted energy transport in classical oscillator systems

Photosynthesis is a biological process that involves the highly-efficient transport of energy captured from the sun to a reaction center, where conversion into useful biochemical energy takes place. Even though one can always use a quantum perspective to describe any physical process, since everything follows the laws of Quantum Mechanics, is the use of quantum theory imperative to explain this high efficiency? Making use of the quantum-classical correspondence of electronic energy transfer recently introduced by Eisfeld and Briggs [Phys. Rev. E 85, 046118 (2012)], we show here that the highly-efficient noise-assisted energy transport described by Rebentrost et al. [New J. Phys. 11, 033003 (2009)], and Plenio and Huelga [New J. Phys. 10, 113019 (2008)], as the result of the interplay between the quantum coherent evolution of the photosynthetic system and noise introduced by its surrounding environment, it can be found as well in purely classical systems. The wider scope of applicability of the enhancement of energy transfer assisted by noise might open new ways for developing new technologies aimed at enhancing the efficiency of a myriad of energy transfer systems, from information channels in micro-electronic circuits to long-distance high-voltage electrical lines.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Un entorno geométrico para la resignificación de las razones trigonométricas en estudiantes de ingeniería

La necesidad de organizar un nuevo escenario escolar para abordar lo trigonométrico, que no separara tajantemente el contexto geométrico de las razones del contexto analítico de las funciones, provocó la búsqueda por lograr la significación progresiva de las razones trigonométricas en estudiantes de Ingeniería del Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora (ITSON). En ese sentido, se caracterizaron las propuestas de Moore (2009, 2010 y 2014) y de Vohns (2006), ya que permiten su significación progresiva en el contexto del círculo, principalmente porque devuelven a lo trigonométrico su naturaleza geométrica (Montiel, 2013). La perspectiva constructivista de Moore y el diseño de Vohns se articulan con la epistemología basada en la actividad que proponen Montiel (2011), Montiel (2013), Montiel y Jácome (en prensa), lo cual permitió el análisis de las dificultades y las construcciones de lo trigonométrico desde un enfoque teórico de corte social

Coherent delocalization: Views of entanglement in different scenarios

The concept of entanglement was originally introduced to explain correlations existing between two spatially separated systems, that cannot be described using classical ideas. Interestingly, in recent years, it has been shown that similar correlations can be observed when considering different degrees of freedom of a single system, even a classical one. Surprisingly, it has also been suggested that entanglement might be playing a relevant role in certain biological processes, such as the functioning of pigment-proteins that constitute light-harvesting complexes of photosynthetic bacteria. The aim of this work is to show that the presence of entanglement in all of these different scenarios should not be unexpected, once it is realized that the very same mathematical structure can describe all of them. We show this by considering three different, realistic cases in which the only condition for entanglement to exist is that a single excitation is coherently delocalized between the different subsystems that compose the system of interest

Star product approach for Loop Quantum Cosmology

Guided by recent developments towards the implementation of the deformation quantization program within the Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) formalism, in this paper we address the introduction of both the integral and differential representation of the star product for LQC. To this end, we consider the Weyl quantization map for cylindrical functions defined on the Bohr compactification of the reals. The integral representation contains all of the common properties that characterize a star product which, in the case under study here, stands for a deformation of the usual pointwise product of cylindrical functions. Our construction also admits a direct comparison with the integral representation of the Moyal product which may be reproduced from our formulation by judiciously substituting the appropriate characters that identify such representation. Further, we introduce a suitable star commutator that correctly reproduces both the quantum representation of the holonomy-flux algebra for LQC and, in the proper limit, the holonomy-flux classical Poisson algebra emerging in the cosmological setup. Finally, we propose a natural way to obtain the quantum dynamical evolution in LQC in terms of this star commutator for cylindrical functions as well as a differential representation of the star product using discrete finite differences. We expect that our findings may contribute to a better understanding of certain issues arising within the LQC program, in particular, those related to the semiclassical limit and the dynamical evolution of quantum states.Comment: 21 pages, no figure