Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Nicholas Blinov.
We present the first experimental evidence of recurrences in the rotational dynamics of doped helium clusters. Using the dopant molecule as an experimental microscopic probe of superfluidity, we show that in small He(N)-N2O complexes, superfluidity builds up in stages correlated with the filling and completion of a solvation shell.
Dynamical and structural properties of small (4)He(N)-N(2)O complexes have been analyzed using ground-state and finite-temperature Monte Carlo simulations. The effective rotational constants resulting from the ground-state calculations are in excellent agreement with the results of a recent spectroscopic study [Y. Xu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 163401 (2003)]. After an initial decrease for cluster sizes up to N=8, the rotational constant increases, signaling a transition from a molecular complex to a quantum-solvated system. Such a turnaround is not present in the rotational constants extracted from the finite-temperature Monte Carlo calculations, performed for Boltzmann statistics, thus highlighting the importance of exchange effects to explain the decoupling between a solvated dopant and the helium motion.
A path integral Monte Carlo technique suitable for the treatment of doped helium clusters with inclusion of the rotational degrees of freedom of the dopant is introduced. The extrapolation of the results to the limit of infinite Trotter number is discussed in detail. Benchmark calculations for small weakly bound (4)He(N)--OCS clusters are presented. The Monte Carlo results are compared with those of basis set calculations for the He--OCS dimer. A technique to analyze the orientational imaginary time correlation function is suggested. It allows one to obtain information regarding the effective rotational constant for a doped helium cluster based on a model for the rotational Hamiltonian. The renormalization of the effective rotational constant for (4)He(N)--OCS clusters derived from the orientational imaginary time correlation function is in good agreement with experimental results.
The calculation of single-particle time correlation functions using the Bose-Einstein centroid dynamics formalism is discussed. A new definition of the quasidensity operator is used to calculate the centroid force on a given particle for an anharmonic system. The force includes correlation effects due to quantum statistics and is used for the calculation of the classical-like dynamics of phase-space centroid variables within the centroid molecular dynamics approximation. Time correlation functions are then obtained for single-particle quantities. These correspond to the double-Kubo transform of exact quantum-mechanical correlation functions. The centroid dynamics results are compared to those of exact basis-set calculations and a good agreement is found. The level of accuracy is in fact the same as what was observed earlier for the calculation of center-of-mass correlation functions for Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics, and for any correlation function for Boltzmann statistics. These results show that it is now possible to use Bose-Einstein centroid molecular dynamics to calculate single-particle correlation functions for systems where quantum exchange effects are present.
It is shown that the discrepancy between path integral Monte Carlo [M. Zoppi et al., Phys. Rev. B 65, 092204 (2002)] and path integral centroid molecular dynamics [F. J. Bermejo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5359 (2000)] calculations of the static structure factor of liquid para-hydrogen can be explained based on a deconvolution equation connecting centroid and physical radial distribution functions. An explicit expression for the kernel of the deconvolution equation has been obtained using functional derivative techniques. In the superposition approximation, this kernel is given by the functional derivative of the effective potential with respect to the pairwise classical potential. Results of path integral Monte Carlo calculations for the radial distribution function and the static structure factor of liquid para-hydrogen are presented.