Biomedical subjects

Patricia R Levstein

Publications and source records attributed to Patricia R Levstein.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Environmentally induced quantum dynamical phase transition in the spin swapping operation.

Quantum information processing relies on coherent quantum dynamics for a precise control of its basic operations. A swapping gate in a two-spin system exchanges the degenerate states |(up arrow, down arrow)> and |(down arrow, up arrow)>. In NMR, this is achieved turning on and off the spin-spin interaction b=DeltaE that splits the energy levels and induces an oscillation with a natural frequency DeltaE/Planck's. Interaction of strength Planck's/tau(SE), with an environment of neighboring spins, degrades this oscillation within a decoherence time scale tau(phi). While the experimental frequency omega and decoherence time tau(phi) were expected to be roughly proportional to b/Planck's and tau(SE), respectively, we present here experiments that show drastic deviations in both omega and tau(phi). By solving the many spin dynamics, we prove that the swapping regime is restricted to DeltaEtau(SE) similar or greater than Planck's. Beyond a critical interaction with the environment the swapping freezes and the decoherence rate drops as 1/tau(phi) proportional to (b/Planck's)2tau(SE). The transition between quantum dynamical phases occurs when omega proportional to sqrt (b/Planck's)2-(k/tau(SE)2 becomes imaginary, resembling an overdamped classical oscillator. Here, 0< or =k2< or =1 depends only on the anisotropy of the system-environment interaction, being 0 for isotropic and 1 for XY interactions. This critical onset of a phase dominated by the quantum Zeno effect opens up new opportunities for controlling quantum dynamics.

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PubMed2006

A method for dynamical characterization and high resolution 1H-NMR in dipolar coupled systems: application to liquid crystals.

We study the variation of 13C spectra as function of off-resonances in protons during decoupling, for continuous wave (cw) and small phase incremental alternation with 64-step (SPINAL-64) schemes in the liquid crystals 4-n-octyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (8CB) and 4-n-pentyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (5CB). The self-decoupling mechanism induced by the strong homonuclear dipolar interactions provides a method to study the dynamics of the proton system through the 13C spectra. In the n-cyanobiphenyl (nCB) liquid crystals each nonquaternary carbon is coupled through dipolar interactions to more than one proton constituting a SI(N) group (with N> or =2). We extend the analytical treatment of the variation of the 13C spectrum with the off-resonance, described for SI groups, to SI(N) under cw decoupling. The dependence of the maxima of the 13C spectra as a function of proton off-resonance follows a Lorentzian line that depends on the rate of exchange among proton spin states. From the fitting parameters of this curve and the heteronuclear interaction measured in cross-polarization experiments, we extract dynamical information of the intramolecular 1H-1H interactions. In the case of SPINAL-64 we experimentally observe the same behavior. Under both kinds of decouplings, we characterize the chemical shift of the protons through the NMR spectra of carbons. The resulting values are in very good agreement with those obtained by other methods.

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PubMed2004

NMR polarization echoes in a nematic liquid crystal.

We have modified the polarization echo (PE) sequence through the incorporation of Lee-Goldburg cross polarization steps to quench the 1H-1H dipolar dynamics. In this way, the 13C becomes an ideal local probe to inject and detect polarization in the proton system. This improvement made possible the observation of the local polarization P(00)(t) and polarization echoes in the interphenyl proton of the liquid crystal N-(4-methoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline. The decay of P(00)(t) was well fitted to an exponential law with a characteristic time tau(C) approximately 310 micros. The hierarchy of the intramolecular dipolar couplings determines a dynamical bottleneck that justifies the use of the Fermi Golden Rule to obtain a spectral density consistent with the structural parameters. The time evolution of P(00)(t) was reversed by the PE sequence generating echoes at the time expected by the scaling of the dipolar Hamiltonian. This indicates that the reversible 1H-1H dipolar interaction is the main contribution to the local polarization decrease and that the exponential decay for P(00)(t) does not imply irreversibility. The attenuation of the echoes follows a Gaussian law with a characteristic time tau(phi) approximately 527 micros. The shape and magnitude of the characteristic time of the PE decay suggest that it is dominated by the unperturbed homonuclear dipolar Hamiltonian. This means that tau(phi) is an intrinsic property of the dipolar coupled network and not of other degrees of freedom. In this case, one cannot unambiguously identify the mechanism that produces the decoherence of the dipolar order. This is because even weak interactions are able to break the fragile multiple coherences originated on the dipolar evolution, hindering its reversal. Other schemes to investigate these underlying mechanisms are proposed.

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