Ion channels play a key role in regulating cell behavior and in electrical signaling. In these settings, polar and charged functional groups, as well as protein response, compensate for dehydration in an ion-dependent way, giving rise to the ion selective transport critical to the operation of cells. Dehydration, though, yields...
The double slit experiment provides a classic example of both interference and the effect of observation in quantum physics. When particles are sent individually through a pair of slits, a wave-like interference pattern develops, but no such interference is found when one observes which “path” the particles take. We present...
The study of time-dependent, many-body transport phenomena is increasingly within reach of ultra-cold atom experiments. We show that the introduction of spatially inhomogeneous interactions, e.g., generated by optically controlled collisions, induce negative differential conductance in the transport of atoms in one-dimensional optical lattices. Specifically, we simulate the dynamics of interacting...
The sum of the Holevo quantity (that bounds the capacity of quantum channels to transmit classical information about an observable) and the quantum discord (a measure of the quantumness of correlations of that observable) yields an observable-independent total given by the quantum mutual information. This split naturally delineates information about...
Measurement of a quantum system - the process by which an observer gathers information about it - provides a link between the quantum and classical worlds. The nature of this process is the central issue for attempts to reconcile quantum and classical descriptions of physical processes. Here, we show that...
A state selected at random from the Hilbert space of a many-body system is overwhelmingly likely to exhibit highly non-classical correlations. For these typical states, half of the environment must be measured by an observer to determine the state of a given subsystem. The objectivity of classical reality—the fact that...
DNA has a well-defined structural transition-the denaturation of its double-stranded form into two single strands-that strongly affects its thermal transport properties. We show that, according to a widely implemented model for DNA denaturation, one can engineer DNA 'heattronic' devices that have a rapidly increasing thermal conductance over a narrow temperature...
We study an Ising chain undergoing a quantum phase transition in a quantum magnetic field. Such a field can be emulated by coupling the chain to a central spin initially in a superposition state. We show that - by adiabatically driving such a system - one can prepare a quantum...
Using the microcanonical picture of transport-a framework ideally suited to describe the dynamics of closed quantum systems such as ultracold atom experiments-we show that the exact dynamics of noninteracting fermions and bosons exhibits very different transport properties when the system is set out of equilibrium by removing the particles from...
Topological defects, such as monopoles, vortex lines or domain walls, mark locations where disparate choices of a broken-symmetry vacuum elsewhere in the system lead to irreconcilable differences(1,2). They are energetically costly (the energy density in their core reaches that of the prior symmetric vacuum) but topologically stable (the whole manifold...