Geometric signatures of jamming in the mechanical vacuum.

Jamming has traditionally been studied as a mechanical phenomenon and characterized with mechanical order parameters. However, this approach is not meaningful in the "mechanical vacuum" of systems below jamming in which all mechanical properties are precisely zero. We find that the network of nearest neighbors and the geometric structure of the Voronoi cell contain well-defined and meaningful order parameters for jamming, which exist on both sides of the transition.

Tuning the performance of an artificial protein motor.

The Tumbleweed (TW) is a concept for an artificial, tri-pedal, protein-based motor designed to move unidirectionally along a linear track by a diffusive tumbling motion. Artificial motors offer the unique opportunity to explore how motor performance depends on design details in a way that is open to experimental investigation. Prior studies have shown that TW's ability to complete many successive steps can be critically dependent on the motor's diffusional step time.

A nanoscale standard for the Seebeck coefficient.

The Seebeck coefficient, a key parameter describing a material's thermoelectric performance, is generally difficult to measure, and no intrinsic calibration standard exists. Quantum dots and single electron tunneling devices with sharp transmission resonances spaced by many kT have a material-independent Seebeck coefficient that depends only on the electronic charge and the average device temperature T. Here we propose the use of a quantum dot to create an intrinsic, nanoscale standard for the Seebeck coefficient and discuss its implementation.

Different modulation mechanisms of attractive colloidal interactions by lipid and protein functionalization.

The nature of attractive interactions observed between like-charged microparticles near a confining wall remains an outstanding puzzle in colloidal science. The shortage of experimental systems that provide tunable attractions contributes to the lack of progress in solving this mystery. We have recently shown that the functionalization of microspheres with lipid membranes allows simple control of interparticle interactions as a function of membrane composition (Kong, Y.

Synthetic trehalose glycolipids confer desiccation resistance to supported lipid monolayers.

Lipid-derived desiccation resistance in membranes is a rare, unique ability previously observed only with trehalose dimycolate (TDM), an abundant mycobacterial glycolipid. Here we present the first synthetic trehalose glycolipids capable of providing desiccation protection to membranes of which they are constituents. The synthetic glycolipids consist of a simple trehalose disaccharide headgroup, similar to TDM, with hydrophobic tail groups of two 15- or 18-carbon chains.

Realization of a feedback controlled flashing ratchet.

A flashing ratchet transports diffusive particles using a time-dependent, asymmetric potential. The particle speed is predicted to increase when a feedback algorithm based on the particle position is used. We have experimentally realized such a feedback ratchet using an optical line trap, and observed that use of feedback increases velocity by up to an order of magnitude.

An efficient method for the creation of tunable optical line traps via control of gradient and scattering forces.

Interparticle interaction energies and other useful physical characteristics can be extracted from the statistical properties of the motion of particles confined by an optical line trap. In practice, however, the potential energy landscape, U(x), imposed by the line provides an extra, and in general unknown, influence on particle dynamics. We describe a new class of line traps in which both the optical gradient and scattering forces acting on a trapped particle are designed to be linear functions of the line coordinate and in which their magnitude can be counterbalanced to yield a flat U(x).

The Mycobacterium tuberculosis virulence factor trehalose dimycolate imparts desiccation resistance to model mycobacterial membranes.

Mycobacteria, including persistent pathogens like Mycobacterium tuberculosis, have an unusual membrane structure in which, outside the plasma membrane, a nonfluid hydrophobic fatty acid layer supports a fluid monolayer rich in glycolipids such as trehalose 6,6'-dimycolate (TDM; cord factor). Given the abilities of mycobacteria to survive desiccation and trehalose in solution to protect biomolecules and whole organisms during freezing, drying, and other stresses, we hypothesized that TDM alone may suffice to confer dehydration resistance to the membranes of which it is a constituent. We devised an experimental model that mimics the structure of mycobacterial envelopes in which an immobile hydrophobic layer supports a TDM-rich, two-dimensionally fluid leaflet.

Criticality in inhomogeneous magnetic systems: application to quantum ferromagnets.

We consider a phi4 theory with a position-dependent distance from the critical point. One realization of this model is a classical ferromagnet subject to nonuniform mechanical stress. We find a sharp phase transition where the envelope of the local magnetization vanishes uniformly.

Breakdown of the perturbative renormalization group at certain quantum critical points.

It is shown that the presence of multiple time scales at a quantum critical point can lead to a breakdown of the loop expansion for critical exponents, since coefficients in the expansion diverge. Consequently, results obtained from finite-order perturbative renormalization-group treatments may not be an approximation in any sense to the true asymptotic critical behavior. This problem manifests itself as a nonrenormalizable field theory, or, equivalently, as the presence of a dangerous irrelevant variable.

Calculation of relaxation rates from microscopic equations of motion.

For classical systems with anharmonic forces, Newton's equations for particle trajectories are nonlinear, while Liouville's equation for the evolution of functions of position and momentum is linear and is solved by constructing a basis of functions in which the Liouvillian is a tridiagonal matrix, which is then diagonalized. For systems that are chaotic in the sense that neighboring trajectories diverge exponentially, the initial conditions determine the solution to Liouville's equation for short times; but for long times, the solutions decay exponentially at rates independent of the initial conditions. These are the relaxation rates of irreversible processes, and they arise in these calculations as the imaginary parts of the frequencies where there are singularities in the analytic continuations of solutions to Liouville's equation.

Transport anomalies and marginal-fermi-liquid effects at a quantum critical point.

The conductivity and the tunneling density of states of disordered itinerant electrons in the vicinity of a ferromagnetic transition at low temperature are discussed. Critical fluctuations lead to nonanalytic frequency and temperature dependencies that are distinct from the usual long-time tail effects in a disordered Fermi liquid. The crossover between these two types of behavior is proposed as an experimental check of recent theories of the quantum ferromagnetic critical behavior.

Annealed disorder, rare regions, and local moments: A novel mechanism for metal-insulator transitions.

It is shown that, for noninteracting electron systems, annealed magnetic disorder leads to a new mechanism, and a new universality class, for a metal-insulator transition. The transition is driven by a vanishing of the thermodynamic density susceptibility rather than by localization effects. The critical behavior in d = 2+epsilon dimensions is determined, and the underlying physics is discussed.