Two onsets of anharmonicity are observed in the dynamics of the protein lysozyme. One at T approximately 100 K appears in all samples regardless of hydration level and is consistent with methyl group ...rotation. The second, the well-known dynamical transition at T approximately 200-230 K, is only observed at a hydration level h greater than approximately 0.2 and is ascribed to the activation of an additional relaxation process. Its variation with hydration correlates well with variations of catalytic activity suggesting that the relaxation process is directly related to the activation of modes required for protein function.
Quasielastic neutron and light-scattering techniques along with molecular dynamics simulations were employed to study the influence of hydration on the internal dynamics of lysozyme. We identified ...three major relaxation processes that contribute to the observed dynamics in the picosecond to nanosecond time range: 1), fluctuations of methyl groups; 2), fast picosecond relaxation; and 3), a slow relaxation process. A low-temperature onset of anharmonicity at
T
∼
100
K is ascribed to methyl-group dynamics that is not sensitive to hydration level. The increase of hydration level seems to first increase the fast relaxation process and then activate the slow relaxation process at
h
∼
0.2. The quasielastic scattering intensity associated with the slow process increases sharply with an increase of hydration to above
h
∼
0.2. Activation of the slow process is responsible for the dynamical transition at
T
∼
200
K. The dependence of the slow process on hydration correlates with the hydration dependence of the enzymatic activity of lysozyme, whereas the dependence of the fast process seems to correlate with the hydration dependence of hydrogen exchange of lysozyme.
We present a magnetometer based on optically pumped Cs atoms that measures the magnitude and direction of a 1 μT magnetic field. Multiple circularly polarized laser beams were used to probe the free ...spin precession of the Cs atoms. The design was optimized for long-time stability and achieves a scalar resolution better than 300 fT for integration times ranging from 80 ms to 1000 s. The best scalar resolution of less than 80 fT was reached with integration times of 1.6 to 6 s. We were able to measure the magnetic field direction with a resolution better than 10 μrad for integration times from 10 s up to 2000 s.
An analytic solution to the magnetostatic inverse problem in the framework of vector spherical harmonic basis functions is presented. This formalism is used for the design of a spherical magnetic ...field compensation system and its performance is compared with an already existing rectangular coil system. The proposed set of spherical coils with 15 degrees of freedom achieves a shielding factor of 1000 or better in a large part of the volume enclosed by the coils for a dipolar type external perturbation.
The phonon density of states of nanocrystalline bcc Fe and nanocrystalline fcc Ni3Fe were measured by inelastic neutron scattering in two different ranges of energy. As has been reported previously, ...the nanocrystalline materials showed enhancements in their phonon density of states at energies from 2 to 15 meV, compared to control samples composed of large crystals. The present measurements were extended to energies in the micro-eV range, and showed significant, but smaller, enhancements in the number of modes in the energy range from 5 to 18 microeV. These modes of micro-eV energies provide a long-wavelength limit that bounds the fraction of modes at milli-eV energies originating with the cooperative dynamics of the nanocrystalline microstructure.
Neutron production and thermal moderation at the PSI UCN source Becker, H.; Bison, G.; Blau, B. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
03/2015, Letnik:
777
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We report on gold foil activation measurements performed along a vertical channel along the tank of the ultracold neutron source at the Paul Scherrer Institute. The activities obtained at various ...distances from the spallation target are in very good agreement with MCNPX simulations which take into account the detailed description of the source as built.
We describe a spin-echo method for ultracold neutrons (UCNs) confined in a precession chamber and exposed to a |B0|=1 μT magnetic field. We have demonstrated that the analysis of UCN spin-echo ...resonance signals in combination with knowledge of the ambient magnetic field provides an excellent method by which to reconstruct the energy spectrum of a confined ensemble of neutrons. The method takes advantage of the relative dephasing of spins arising from a gravitationally induced striation of stored UCNs of different energies, and also permits an improved determination of the vertical magnetic-field gradient with an exceptional accuracy of 1.1 pT/cm. This novel combination of a well-known nuclear resonance method and gravitationally induced vertical striation is unique in the realm of nuclear and particle physics and should prove to be invaluable for the assessment of systematic effects in precision experiments such as searches for an electric dipole moment of the neutron or the measurement of the neutron lifetime.
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