Topography of funneled landscapes determines the thermodynamics and kinetics of protein folding

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Stability and collapse of a coupled Bose-Einstein condensate

The dynamics of a coupled Bose-Einstein condensate involving trapped atoms in two quantum states is studied using the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation including an interaction which can transform atoms from one state to the other. We find interesting oscillation of the number of atoms in each of the states. For all repulsive interactions, stable condensates are formed. When some of the atomic interactions are attractive, the possibility of collapse is studied by including an absorptive contact interaction and a quartic three-body recombination term. One or both components of the condensate may undergo collapse when one or more of the nonlinear terms are attractive in nature. (C) 2001 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Bose-Einstein condensation dynamics in three dimensions by the pseudospectral and finite-difference methods

We suggest a pseudospectral method for solving the three-dimensional time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation, and use it to study the resonance dynamics of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate induced by a periodic variation in the atomic scattering length. When the frequency of oscillation of the scattering length is an even multiple of one of the trapping frequencies along the x, y or z direction, the corresponding size of the condensate executes resonant oscillation. Using the concept of the differentiation matrix, the partial-differential GP equation is reduced to a set of coupled ordinary differential equations, which is solved by a fourth-order adaptive step-size control Runge-Kutta method. The pseudospectral method is contrasted with the finite-difference method for the same problem, where the time evolution is performed by the Crank-Nicholson algorithm. The latter method is illustrated to be more suitable for a three-dimensional standing-wave optical-lattice trapping potential.

Macroscopic quantum tunneling and resonances in coupled Bose-Einstein condensates with oscillating atomic scattering length

We study the macroscopic quantum tunneling, self-trapping phenomena in two weakly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates with periodically time-varying atomic scattering length.The resonances in the oscillations of the atomic populations are investigated. We consider oscillations in the cases of macroscopic quantum tunneling and the self-trapping regimes. The existence of chaotic oscillations in the relative atomic population due to overlaps between nonlinear resonances is showed. We derive the whisker-type map for the problem and obtain the estimate for the critical amplitude of modulations leading to chaos. The diffusion coefficient for motion in the stochastic layer near separatrix is calculated. The analysis of the oscillations in the rapidly varying case shows the possibility of stabilization of the unstable pi-mode regime. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier B.V. B.V. PACS: 03.75.Fi; 05.30.Jp.

Three-boson recombination at ultralow temperatures

The effects of trimer continuum resonances are considered in the three-body recombination rate of a Bose system at finite energies for large and negative two-body scattering lengths (a). The thermal average of the rate allows to apply our formula to Bose gases at ultra-low temperatures. We found a good quantitative description of the experimental three-body recombination length of cesium atoms to deeply bound molecules up to 500 nK. Consistent with the experimental data, the increase of the temperature moves the resonance peak of the three-body recombination rate to lower values of vertical bar a vertical bar exhibiting a saturation behavior. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Stability and collapse of a hybrid Bose-Einstein condensate of atoms and molecules

The dynamics of stability and collapse of a trapped atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) coupled to a molecular one is studied using the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation including a nonlinear interaction term which can transform two atoms into a molecule and vice versa. We find an interesting oscillation of the number of atoms and molecules for a BEC of fixed mass. This oscillation is a consequence of continuous transformation in the condensate of two atoms into a molecule and vice versa. For the study of collapse an absorptive contact interaction and an imaginary quartic three-body recombination term are included in the GP equation. It is possible to have a collapse of one or both components when one or more of the nonlinear terms in the GP equation are attractive in nature, respectively.

Bose-Einstein condensates with inhomogeneous scattering length in one and two dimensions

We report on investigations of the properties of bright solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of point-like spatial inhomogeneities, in one and two dimensions. By considering an analytical variational approach and full numerical simulations, we describe such processes due to interactions between the soliton and the inhomogeneity as the trapping, reflection, and transmission of bright matter solitons. We also study the critical number of particles as a function of the magnitude of the impurity.

Self-trapping of a binary Bose-Einstein condensate induced by interspecies interaction

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Universality and Scaling Limit of Weakly-Bound Tetramers

The occurrence of a new limit cycle in few-body physics, expressing a universal scaling function relating the binding energies of two successive tetramer states, is revealed by considering a renormalized zero-range two-body interaction in bound state of four identical bosons. The tetramer energy spectrum is obtained by adding a boson to an Efimov bound state with energy B-3 in the unitary limit (for zero two-body binding energy or infinite two-body scattering length). Each excited N-th tetramer energy B-4((N)) is shown to slide along a scaling function as a short-range four-body scale is changed, emerging from the 3+1 threshold for a universal ratio B-4((N))/B-3 = 4.6, which does not depend on N. The new scale can also be revealed by a resonance in the atom-trimer recombination process.

Soliton dynamics at an interface between a uniform medium and a nonlinear optical lattice

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

SnO2 nanocrystals synthesized by microwave-assisted hydrothermal method: towards a relationship between structural and optical properties

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Electrochemical capacitance spectroscopy and capacitive relaxation of the changeover process in iron hexacyanoferrate molecular compound

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Joint Experimental and Theoretical Analysis of Order Disorder Effects in Cubic BaZrO3 Assembled Nanoparticles under Decaoctahedral Shape

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Antioxidant Properties of Plant Extracts: an EPR and DFT Comparative Study of the Reaction with DPPH, TEMPOL and Spin Trap DMPO

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Synthesis and characterization of ZnO and ZnO : Ga films and their application in dye-sensitized solar cells

Highly crystalline ZnO and Ga-modified zinc oxide (ZnO:Ga) nanoparticles containing 1, 3 and 5 atom% of Ga3+ were prepared by precipitation method at low temperature. The films were characterized by XRD, BET, XPS and SEM. No evidence of zinc gallate formation (ZnGa2O4), even in the samples containing 5 atom% of gallium, was detected by XRD. XPS data revealed that Ga is present into the ZnO matrix as Ga3+, according to the characteristic binding energies. The particle size decreased as the gallium level was increased as observed by SEM, which might be related to a faster hydrolysis reaction rate. The smaller particle size provided films with higher porosity and surface area, enabling a higher dye loading. When these films were applied to dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) as photoelectrodes, the device based on ZnO: Ga 5 atom% presented an overall conversion efficiency of 6% (at 10 mW cm(-2)), a three-fold increase compared to the ZnO-based DSSCs under the same conditions. To our knowledge, this is one of the highest efficiencies reported so far for ZnO-based DSSCs. Transient absorption (TAS) study of the photoinduced dynamics of dye-sensitized ZnO:Ga films showed that the higher the gallium content, the higher the amount of dye cation formed, while no significant change on the recombination dynamics was observed. The study indicates that Ga-modification of nanocrystalline ZnO leads to an improvement of photocurrent and overall efficiency in the corresponding device.