Pilot-wave quantum theory with a single Bohm's trajectory

The representation of a quantum system as the spatial configuration of its constituents evolving in time as a trajectory under the action of the wave-function, is the main objective of the Bohm theory. However, its standard formulation is referred to the statistical ensemble of its possible trajectories. The statistical ensemble is introduced in order to establish the exact correspondence (the Born's rule) between the probability density on the spatial configurations and the quantum distribution, that is the squared modulus of the wave-function. In this work we explore the possibility of using the pilot wave theory at the level of a single Bohm's trajectory. The pilot wave theory allows a formally self-consistent representation of quantum systems as a single Bohm's trajectory, but in this case there is no room for the Born's rule at least in its standard form. We will show that a correspondence exists between the statistical distribution of configurations along the single Bohm's trajectory and the quantum distribution for a subsystem interacting with the environment in a multicomponent system. To this aim, we present the numerical results of the single Bohm's trajectory description of the model system of six confined rotors with random interactions. We find a rather close correspondence between the coordinate distribution of one rotor along its trajectory and the time averaged marginal quantum distribution for the same rotor. This might be considered as the counterpart of the standard Born's rule. Furthermore a strongly fluctuating behavior with a fast loss of correlation is found for the evolution of each rotor coordinate. This suggests that a Markov process might well approximate the evolution of the Bohm's coordinate of a single rotor and it is shown that the correspondence between coordinate distribution and quantum distribution of the rotor is exactly verified

Chemical Cloaking

Hiding an object in a chemical gradient requires to suppress the distortions it would naturally cause on it. To do so, we propose a strategy based on coating the object with a chemical reaction-diffusion network which can act as an active cloaking device. By controlling the concentration of some species in its immediate surrounding, the chemical reactions redirect the gradient as if the object was not there. We also show that a substantial fraction of the energy required to cloak can be extracted from the chemical gradient itself.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Thermodynamics of Non-Elementary Chemical Reaction Networks

We develop a thermodynamic framework for closed and open chemical networks applicable to non-elementary reactions that do not need to obey mass action kinetics. It only requires the knowledge of the kinetics and of the standard chemical potentials, and makes use of the topological properties of the network (conservation laws and cycles). Our approach is proven to be exact if the network results from a bigger network of elementary reactions where the fast-evolving species have been coarse grained. Our work should be particularly relevant for energetic considerations in biosystems where the characterization of the elementary dynamics is seldomly achieved

Quantum molecular trajectory and stochastic theories of quantum fluctuations

Bohm theory is a formulation of Quantum Mechanics that characterises the state of a quantum system according to both the wave function, as in the conventional formulation, and the coordinates (positions) of all the particles that evolve in time drawing quantum continuous trajectories. Furthermore, a statistical ensemble of all the possible trajectories, raising from the impossibility to know the initial position of all the particles, establishes the exact correspondence with the traditional Quantum Mechanics. From a computational point of view, Bohm theory has found many applications in Chemical Physics especially to develop new methodologies for solving the Schrödinger equation and to address semi-classical approximations of Quantum Mechanics. From a theoretical point of view, the most appealing feature of Bohm theory is its capability to supply a conceptual map between the quantum formalism and our representation of what a chemical system is. Chemical systems are composed of molecules, but the same idea of molecule requires a specific arrangement in the space of particles, i.e., the nuclei of the atoms. The statistical description of conventional Quantum Mechanics on the basis of wave function alone is insufficient to establish a clear correspondence with such a picture of molecules. Indeed, chemists employ usually Classical Mechanics in order to overcome this drawback of the standard quantum theory. On the other hand, if the particles position is included in the quantum formalism, as Bohm theory does, the map can be defined in a self-consistent way. In other words, Bohm theory appears to be the suitable quantum framework to represent molecules and their motion. The chemical representation of molecular systems finds a natural correspondence with a single Bohm trajectory, since it is always implicitly assumed that molecular components have specific spatial position independently of our knowledge about it. Consequently, we develop a quantum method whose fundamental assumption is that a single Bohm trajectory, i.e., a quantum molecular trajectory, describes the molecular systems and the molecular motion correctly. First of all, we examine the correspondence between a single Bohm trajectory and the conventional Quantum Mechanics, without using the ensemble of trajectories. We verify that such a correspondence exists through numerical simulations and we prove formally that the statistical properties of a single Bohm trajectory explain the probabilistic description of Quantum Mechanics. Once the consistency of this original approach has been established, we investigate the predicted properties. For instance, we take into account the constants of motion (such as the energy) corresponding to the time evolution of the coordinates and the behaviour of simple chemical systems, e.g., the vibrational motion of single molecules interacting with a resonant field. In this way, unexpected features of the molecular motion are found. Secondly, we tackle the challenge of describing many components systems (like the chemical systems in ordinary conditions). As a matter of fact, the computation of the Bohm trajectory and of the wave function is extremely demanding. However, the statistical properties of the Bohm trajectory allow the derivation of stochastic theories for examining the dynamics of open quantum systems, i.e., few molecules (or few degrees of freedom) interacting with their environment (the other molecules). One of the developed stochastic methods correlates the dynamics of the reduced density matrix, for the degrees of freedom of interest, to the evolution of the corresponding Bohm coordinates. In other words, the Bohm equation, determining the set of all the particles velocities according to the full wave function, is replaced with a stochastic one that approximates the velocity of a subset of coordinates according to the reduced density matrix. In such a way, the quantum fluctuations induced by the environment are taken into account. The advantage of this method concerns its capability of describing quantum systems, including open quantum systems, in terms of a quantum trajectory. This could allow the understanding of the molecular motion during a spectroscopical experiment. The possibility of investigating reactive systems, such as conformational changes, is particularly interesting. As a matter of fact, chemical reactions can be completely characterised only through the particles motion and we define the suit- able quantum methodology providing a self-consistent description of the molecular motion

Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Non-Ideal Chemical Reaction Networks

All current formulations of nonequilibrium thermodynamics of open chemical reaction networks rely on the assumption of non-interacting species. We develop a general theory which accounts for interactions between chemical species within a mean-field approach using activity coefficients. Thermodynamic consistency requires that rate equations do not obey to standard mass-action kinetics, but account for the interactions with concentration dependent kinetic constants. Many features of the ideal formulations are recovered. Crucially, the thermodynamic potential and the forces driving non-ideal chemical systems out of equilibrium are identified. Our theory is general and holds for any mean-field expression of the interactions leading to lower bounded free energies

Non-ideal reaction-diffusion systems: Multiple routes to instability

We develop a general classification of the nature of the instabilities yielding spatial organization in open non-ideal reaction-diffusion systems. This encompasses dynamics where chemical species diffuse, interact with each other, and undergo chemical reactions driven out-of-equilibrium by external chemostats. We find analytically that these instabilities can be of two types: instabilities caused by molecular interactions (Cahn-Hilliard type), and instabilities caused by multimolecular out-of-equilibrium chemical reactions (Turing type). Furthermore, we identify a class of chemical reaction networks, extending beyond unimolecular networks, that can only undergo Cahn-Hilliard instabilities. We illustrate our analytical findings with numerical simulations on two reaction-diffusion models, each displaying one of the two types of instability

Thermodynamics of concentration vs flux control in chemical reaction networks

We investigate the thermodynamic implications of two control mechanisms of open chemical reaction networks. The first controls the concentrations of the species that are exchanged with the surroundings, while the other controls the exchange fluxes. We show that the two mechanisms can be mapped one into the other and that the thermodynamic theories usually developed in the framework of concentration control can be applied to flux control as well. This implies that the thermodynamic potential and the fundamental forces driving chemical reaction networks out of equilibrium can be identified in the same way for both mechanisms. By analyzing the dynamics and thermodynamics of a simple enzymatic model we also show that, while the two mechanisms are equivalent at steady state, the flux control may lead to fundamentally different regimes where systems achieve stationary growth

Linguistic skills in bilingual children with developmental language disorders: A pilot study

The current pilot study compared the linguistic characteristics of a cohort of simultaneous bilingual children (Italian, L1; German L2) with developmental language disorders (DLDs) and those of bilingual peers with typical language development (TLD). Importantly, the two groups were balanced for a number of environmental variables (e.g., age of first exposure to the L2, acquisition contexts, degree of exposure to both languages) known to affect linguistic development in both TLD and DLDs. The analyses included the assessment of the participants\u2019 phonological short-term memory. Their lexical, grammatical and narrative abilities were analyzed in both languages by administering the Italian and German equivalent forms of the Battery for the assessment of language in children aged 4 to 12 \u2013 BVL_4-12 (Marini et al., 2015). The children with DLDs had reduced phonological short-term memory and lexical skills that, in turn, contributed to the reduced levels of local coherence and informativeness of their narratives. Such difficulties were found at similar levels in their two languages. These results suggest that reduced phonological short-term memory and lexical selection skills may reflect a core symptom in both mono- and bilingual children with developmental language disorders