Degenerate mixtures of rubidium and ytterbium for engineering open quantum systems

In the last two decades, experimental progress in controlling cold atoms and ions now allows us to manipulate fragile quantum systems with an unprecedented degree of precision. This has been made possible by the ability to isolate small ensembles of atoms and ions from noisy environments, creating truly closed quantum systems which decouple from dissipative channels. However in recent years, several proposals have considered the possibility of harnessing dissipation in open systems, not only to cool degenerate gases to currently unattainable temperatures, but also to engineer a variety of interesting many-body states. This thesis will describe progress made towards building a degenerate gas apparatus that will soon be capable of realizing these proposals. An ultracold gas of ytterbium atoms, trapped by a species-selective lattice will be immersed into a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of rubidium atoms which will act as a bath. Here we describe the challenges encountered in making a degenerate mixture of rubidium and ytterbium atoms and present two experiments performed on the path to creating a controllable open quantum system. The first experiment will describe the measurement of a tune-out wavelength where the light shift of $\Rb{87}$ vanishes. This wavelength was used to create a species-selective trap for ytterbium atoms. Furthermore, the measurement of this wavelength allowed us to extract the dipole matrix element of the $5s \rightarrow 6p$ transition in $\Rb{87}$ with an extraordinary degree of precision. Our method to extract matrix elements has found use in atomic clocks where precise knowledge of transition strengths is necessary to account for minute blackbody radiation shifts. The second experiment will present the first realization of a degenerate Bose-Fermi mixture of rubidium and ytterbium atoms. Using a three-color optical dipole trap (ODT), we were able to create a highly-tunable, species-selective potential for rubidium and ytterbium atoms which allowed us to use $\Rb{87}$ to sympathetically cool $\Yb{171}$ to degeneracy with minimal loss. This mixture is the first milestone creating the lattice-bath system and will soon be used to implement novel cooling schemes and explore the rich physics of dissipation.

Antonio Salieri's La calamita de' cuori (1774): Sources, Form, Context

Antonio Salieri’s La calamita de’ cuori (1774) warrants musicological attention for what it can tell us about Salieri’s compositional craft and what it reveals about the development of form in Viennese Italian-language comic opera of the mid- and late-eighteenth century. In Part I of this dissertation, I explore the performance history of La calamita, present the first plot synopsis and English translation of the libretto, and describe the variants between Carlo Goldoni’s 1752 libretto and the revised version created for Salieri’s opera. I have collated Salieri’s holograph score, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Mus. Hs. 16.508, with four copies having different relationships to it, and I propose a stemma that represents the relationships between these five sources. The analyses in Part II contribute to our understanding of formal practices in eighteenth-century drammi giocosi. My study of Salieri’s La calamita reveals his reliance on a clearly defined binary structure, referred to in this dissertation as “operatic binary form,” in almost half of the arias, ensembles, and instrumental movements of this opera. Salieri’s consistent use of operatic binary form led me to explore its use in drammi giocosi by other prominent composers of this time, including Baldassare Galuppi’s La calamita de’ cuori (1752), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Il dissoluto punito, ossia Il Don Giovanni (1787), and selected arias by Pasquale Anfossi, Florian Leopold Gassmann, Giuseppe Gazzaniga, Franz Joseph Haydn, Giovanni Paisiello, and Niccolò Piccinni dating from 1760 to 1774. This study showed that Salieri and his peers adhered to a recognizable tonal plan and set of design elements in their operatic binary forms, and that their arias fall into three distinct categories defined by the tonality at the beginning of the second half of the binary structure. The analysis presented here adds to our present understanding of operatic form in mid- and late-century drammi giocosi and shows that in La calamita de’ cuori, Salieri was following the normative formal procedures of his time.

Pairings: Quintets and Duos from the Collaborative Piano Repertoire

Chamber music with piano comprises some of the greatest masterpieces in the Western canon. The works range from duo sonatas with various instruments through septets. In regard to duo sonatas, the violin is the instrument most frequently paired with the piano. Of all the chamber works for larger ensembles, the most popular is the quintet. In this dissertation, I will be exploring the similarities and differences between the duo sonatas and quintets of a given composer. I will be surveying Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 along with his Violin and Piano Sonata in A Minor, Op. 105. The next pairing will be Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 and his Piano and Violin Sonata in D Minor, Op. 108. Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G Minor, Op. 57 and his Cello and Piano Sonata in D Minor, Op. 40 will be the last two works examined in this dissertation. This dissertation project consisted of three recitals, presented in the Gildenhorn Recital Hall at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center of the University of Maryland. The recitals featured works by Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann and Dmitri Shostakovich and took place on March 14, 2014, February 13, 2015 and November 22, 2015. All three recitals were recorded on compact discs, which can be accessed at the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM) and at the University of Maryland Hornbake Library.

What's the Matter with Extended Techniques? Getting Beyond the Stigma in the Horn and Percussion Repertoire

For this project I prepared a series of recitals featuring music for horn and percussion, in which the horn part featured extended horn techniques. For this project, I considered anything beyond the open or muted horn an extended technique. These techniques range from the common hand-stopped note passages to complex new techniques involving half-valves, multi-phonics, and more, for new sounds desired by the composer. There are several pieces written for solo horn and percussion, with ensembles ranging from simple duets to solo horn with a full percussion ensemble. However, few include extended techniques for the horn. All of these select pieces are lesser known because of their difficulty, primarily because of the challenge of the extended techniques requested by the composer. In the introduction to this paper I give a brief background to the project, where the current repertoire stands, and my experiences with commissioning works for this genre. I then give a brief history and how-to on the more common extended techniques, which were found in almost every piece. I separated these techniques so that they could be referenced in the performance notes without being extremely repetitive in their description. Then follows the main performance notes of the repertoire chosen, which includes a brief description of the piece itself and a longer discussion for performers and composers who wish to learn more about these techniques. In this section my primary focus is the extended techniques used and I provide score samples with permission to further the education of the next musicians to tackle this genre. All works performed for this project were recorded and accompany this paper in the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM). The following works were included in this project: o Howard J. Buss, Dreams from the Shadows (2015) o Howard J. Buss, Night Tide (1995) o George Crumb, An Idyll for the Misbegotten, trans. Robert Patterson (1986/1997) o Charles Fernandez, Metamorphosis: A Horn’s Life, “Prenatal and Toddler” (2016, unfinished) o Helen Gifford, Of Old Angkor (1995) o Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings… (1990) o Pierre-Yves Level, Duetto pour Cor en Fa et Percussion (1999) o David Macbride, Elegy for Horn and Timpani (2009) o Brian Prechtl, A Song of David (1995) o Verne Reynolds, HornVibes (1986) o Pablo Salazar, Cincontar (2016) o Mark Schultz, Dragons in the Sky (1989) o Faye-Ellen Silverman, Protected Sleep (2007) o Charles Taylor, Sonata for Horn and Marimba (1991) o Robert Wolk, Tessellations (2016) With this project, I intend to promote these pieces and the techniques used to encourage more works written in this style, and reveal to fellow horn players that the techniques should not prevent these great works from being performed. Due to the lack of repertoire, I successfully commissioned new pieces featuring extended techniques, which were featured in the final recital.

W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte An Arrangement and Performance Edition for Wind Instruments and Vocal Soloists

The purpose of this dissertation is to produce a new Harmonie arrangement of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte suitable for modern performance, bringing Joseph Heidenreich’s 1782 arrangement—one of the great treasures of the wind repertoire—to life for future performers and audiences. I took advantage of the capabilities of modern wind instruments and performance techniques, and employed other instruments normally found in the modern wind ensemble to create a work in the tradition of Heidenreich’s that restored as much of Mozart’s original thinking as possible. I expanded the Harmonie band to include flute and string bass. Other instruments provide special effects, a traditional role for wind instruments in the Classical opera orchestra. This arrangement is conceived to be performed with the original vocal soloists, making it a viable option for concert performance or for smaller staged productions. It is also intended to allow the wind players to be onstage with the singers, becoming part of the dramatic action while simultaneously serving as the “opera orchestra.” This allows creative staging possibilities, and offers the wind players an opportunity to explore new aspects of performing. My arrangement also restores Mozart’s music to its original keys and retains much of his original wind scoring. This arrangement expands the possibilities for collaboration between opera studios, voice departments or community opera companies and wind ensembles. A suite for winds without voices (currently in production) will allow conductors to program this major work from the Classical era without dedicating a concert program to the complete opera. Excerpted arias and duets from this arrangement provide vocalists the option of using chamber wind accompaniment on recitals. The door is now open to arrangements of other operas by composers such as Mozart, Rossini and Weber, adding new repertoire for chamber winds and bringing great music to life in a new way.

The conformational landscape of RNA translational regulators and their potential as drug discovery targets

RNA is an underutilized target for drug discovery. Once thought to be a passive carrier of genetic information, RNA is now known to play a critical role in essentially all aspects of biology including signaling, gene regulation, catalysis, and retroviral infection. It is now well-established that RNA does not exist as a single static structure, but instead populates an ensemble of energetic minima along a free-energy landscape. Knowledge of this structural landscape has become an important goal for understanding its diverse biological functions. In this case, NMR spectroscopy has emerged as an important player in the characterization of RNA structural ensembles, with solution-state techniques accounting for almost half of deposited RNA structures in the PDB, yet the rate of RNA structure publication has been stagnant over the past decade. Several bottlenecks limit the pace of RNA structure determination by NMR: the high cost of isotopic labeling, tedious and ambiguous resonance assignment methods, and a limited database of RNA optimized pulse programs. We have addressed some of these challenges to NMR characterization of RNA structure with applications to various RNA-drug targets. These approaches will increasingly become integral to designing new therapeutics targeting RNA.