Discrete Breathers in a Realistic Coarse-Grained Model of Proteins

We report the results of molecular dynamics simulations of an off-lattice protein model featuring a physical force-field and amino-acid sequence. We show that localized modes of nonlinear origin (discrete breathers) emerge naturally as continuations of a subset of high-frequency normal modes residing at specific sites dictated by the native fold. In the case of the small $\beta$-barrel structure that we consider, localization occurs on the turns connecting the strands. At high energies, discrete breathers stabilize the structure by concentrating energy on few sites, while their collapse marks the onset of large-amplitude fluctuations of the protein. Furthermore, we show how breathers develop as energy-accumulating centres following perturbations even at distant locations, thus mediating efficient and irreversible energy transfers. Remarkably, due to the presence of angular potentials, the breather induces a local static distortion of the native fold. Altogether, the combination of this two nonlinear effects may provide a ready means for remotely controlling local conformational changes in proteins.Comment: Submitted to Physical Biolog

Experimental quantum cosmology in time-dependent optical media

It is possible to construct artificial spacetime geometries for light by using intense laser pulses that modify the spatiotemporal properties of an optical medium. Here we theoretically investigate experimental possibilities for studying spacetime metrics of the form $\textrm{d}s^2=c^2\textrm{d}t^2-\eta(t)^2\textrm{d}x^2$. By tailoring the laser pulse shape and medium properties, it is possible to create a refractive index variation $n=n(t)$ that can be identified with $\eta(t)$. Starting from a perturbative solution to a generalised Hopfield model for the medium described by an $n=n(t)$ we provide estimates for the number of photons generated by the time-dependent spacetime. The simplest example is that of a uniformly varying $\eta(t)$ that therefore describes the Robertson-Walker metric, i.e. a cosmological expansion. The number of photon pairs generated in experimentally feasible conditions appears to be extremely small. However, large photon production can be obtained by periodically modulating the medium and thus resorting to a resonant enhancement similar to that observed in the dynamical Casimir effect. Curiously, the spacetime metric in this case closely resembles that of a gravitational wave. Motivated by this analogy we show that a periodic gravitational wave can indeed act as an amplifier for photons. The emission for an actual gravitational wave will be very weak but should be readily observable in the laboratory analogue.Comment: Version accepted fro publication in New Journal of Physic

The IR-Completion of Gravity: What happens at Hubble Scales?

We have recently proposed an "Ultra-Strong" version of the Equivalence Principle (EP) that is not satisfied by standard semiclassical gravity. In the theory that we are conjecturing, the vacuum expectation value of the (bare) energy momentum tensor is exactly the same as in flat space: quartically divergent with the cut-off and with no spacetime dependent (subleading) ter ms. The presence of such terms seems in fact related to some known difficulties, such as the black hole information loss and the cosmological constant problem. Since the terms that we want to get rid of are subleading in the high-momentum expansion, we attempt to explore the conjectured theory by "IR-completing" GR. We consider a scalar field in a flat FRW Universe and isolate the first IR-correction to its Fourier modes operators that kills the quadratic (next to leading) time dependent divergence of the stress energy tensor VEV. Analogously to other modifications of field operators that have been proposed in the literature (typically in the UV), the present approach seems to suggest a breakdown (here, in the IR, at large distances) of the metric manifold description. We show that corrections to GR are in fact very tiny, become effective at distances comparable to the inverse curvature and do not contain any adjustable parameter. Finally, we derive some cosmological implications. By studying the consistency of the canonical commutation relations, we infer a correction to the distance between two comoving observers, which grows as the scale factor only when small compared to the Hubble length, but gets relevant corrections otherwise. The corrections to cosmological distance measures are also calculable and, for a spatially flat matter dominated Universe, go in the direction of an effective positive acceleration.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figures. Final version, references adde

Determining the carrier-envelope phase of intense few-cycle laser pulses

The electromagnetic radiation emitted by an ultra-relativistic accelerated electron is extremely sensitive to the precise shape of the field driving the electron. We show that the angular distribution of the photons emitted by an electron via multiphoton Compton scattering off an intense (I>10^{20}\;\text{W/cm^2}), few-cycle laser pulse provides a direct way of determining the carrier-envelope phase of the driving laser field. Our calculations take into account exactly the laser field, include relativistic and quantum effects and are in principle applicable to presently available and future foreseen ultra-strong laser facilities.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Modelling a Particle Detector in Field Theory

Particle detector models allow to give an operational definition to the particle content of a given quantum state of a field theory. The commonly adopted Unruh-DeWitt type of detector is known to undergo temporary transitions to excited states even when at rest and in the Minkowski vacuum. We argue that real detectors do not feature this property, as the configuration "detector in its ground state + vacuum of the field" is generally a stable bound state of the underlying fundamental theory (e.g. the ground state-hydrogen atom in a suitable QED with electrons and protons) in the non-accelerated case. As a concrete example, we study a local relativistic field theory where a stable particle can capture a light quantum and form a quasi-stable state. As expected, to such a stable particle correspond energy eigenstates of the full theory, as is shown explicitly by using a dressed particle formalism at first order in perturbation theory. We derive an effective model of detector (at rest) where the stable particle and the quasi-stable configurations correspond to the two internal levels, "ground" and "excited", of the detector.Comment: 13 pages, references added, final versio

Coulomb-Blockade directional coupler

A tunable directional coupler based on Coulomb Blockade effect is presented. Two electron waveguides are coupled by a quantum dot to an injector waveguide. Electron confinement is obtained by surface Schottky gates on single GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction. Magneto-electrical measurements down to 350 mK are presented and large transconductance oscillations are reported on both outputs up to 4.2 K. Experimental results are interpreted in terms of Coulomb Blockade effect and the relevance of the present design strategy for the implementation of an electronic multiplexer is underlined.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Applied Physics Letter

Many-body hierarchy of dissipative timescales in a quantum computer

We show that current noisy quantum computers are ideal platforms for the simulation of quantum many-body dynamics in generic open systems. We demonstrate this using the IBM Quantum Computer as an experimental platform for confirming the theoretical prediction from Wang et al., [Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 100604 (2020)] of an emergent hierarchy of relaxation timescales of many-body observables involving different numbers of qubits. Using different protocols, we leverage the intrinsic dissipation of the machine responsible for gate errors, to implement a quantum simulation of generic (i.e., structureless) local dissipative interactions

Interaction-Induced Transparency for Strong-Coupling Polaritons

The propagation of light in strongly coupled atomic media takes place through the formation of polaritons-hybrid quasiparticles resulting from a superposition of an atomic and a photonic excitation. Here we consider the propagation under the condition of electromagnetically induced transparency and show that a novel many-body phenomenon can appear due to strong, dissipative interactions between the polaritons. Upon increasing the photon-pump strength, we find a first-order transition between an opaque phase with strongly broadened polaritons and a transparent phase where a long-lived polariton branch with highly tunable occupation emerges. Across this nonequilibrium phase transition, the transparency window is reconstructed via nonlinear interference effects induced by the dissipative polariton interactions. Our predictions are based on a systematic diagrammatic expansion of the nonequilibrium Dyson equations which can be controlled, even in the nonperturbative regime of large single-atom cooperativities, provided the polariton interactions are sufficiently long-ranged. Such a regime can be reached in photonic crystal waveguides thanks to the tunability of interactions, allowing us to observe the interaction-induced transparency transition even at low polariton densities

The final state and thermodynamics of dark energy universe

As it follows from the classical analysis, the typical final state of the dark energy universe where dominant energy condition is violated is finite time, sudden future singularity (Big Rip). For a number of dark energy universes (including scalar phantom and effective phantom theories as well as specific quintessence model) we demonstrate that quantum effects play the dominant role near Big Rip, driving the universe out of future singularity (or, at least, making it milder). As a consequence, the entropy bounds with quantum corrections become well-defined near Big Rip. Similarly, black holes mass loss due to phantom accretion is not so dramatic as it was expected: masses do not vanish to zero due to transient character of phantom evolution stage. Some examples of cosmological evolution for negative, time-dependent equation of state are also considered with the same conclusions. The application of negative entropy (or negative temparature) occurence in the phantom thermodynamics is briefly discussed.Comment: LaTeX file 36 pages, version to appear in PR