Optimizing rotary processes in synthetic molecular motors.

We deal with the issue of quantifying and optimizing the rotation dynamics of synthetic molecular motors. For this purpose, the continuous four-stage rotation behavior of a typical light-activated molecular motor was measured in detail. All reaction constants were determined empirically. Next, we developed a Markov model that describes the full motor dynamics mathematically. We derived expressions for a set of characteristic quantities, i.e., the average rate of quarter rotations or "velocity," V, the spread in the average number of quarter rotations, D, and the dimensionless Péclet number, Pe = V/D. Furthermore, we determined the rate of full, four-step rotations (Omega(eff)), from which we derived another dimensionless quantity, the "rotational excess," r.e. This quantity, defined as the relative difference between total forward (Omega(+)) and backward (Omega(-)) full rotations, is a good measure of the unidirectionality of the rotation process. Our model provides a pragmatic tool to optimize motor performance. We demonstrate this by calculating V, D, Pe, Omega(eff), and r.e. for different rates of thermal versus photochemical energy input. We find that for a given light intensity, an optimal temperature range exists in which the motor exhibits excellent efficiency and unidirectional behavior, above or below which motor performance decreases.

On the geometry of master-slave synchronization.

In 1990, Pecora and Carroll reported the observation that one can synchronize the orbits of two identical dynamical systems, which may be chaotic, by feeding state variables of one of them to the other one with no feedback, a phenomenon often called master-slave synchronization. We report here some results on the theory of master-slave synchronization for maps and flows, which are all inspired by a similar geometric and coordinate independent point of view to the one introduced in master-slave synchronization by Tresser, Worfolk, and Bass. Our results are variations on the theme that projection often can compensate for expansion.(c) 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Focal rigidity of flat tori

Given a closed Riemannian manifold (M, g), i.e. compact and boundaryless, there is a partition of its tangent bundle TM = ∪iΣi called the focal decomposition of TM. The sets Σi are closely associated to focusing of geodesics of (M, g), i.e. to the situation where there are exactly i geodesic arcs of the same length joining points p and q in M. In this note, we study the topological structure of the focal decomposition of a closed Riemannian manifold and its relation with the metric structure of the manifold. Our main result is that flat n-tori, n > 2, are focally rigid in the sense that if two flat tori are focally equivalent then the tori are isometric up to rescaling. The case n = 2 was considered before by F. Kwakkel.

Dada uma variedade Riemanniana (M, g) fechada, isto é, compacta e sem bordo, existe uma partição de seu fibrado tangente TM = ∪iΣi chamada decomposição focal de TM. Os conjuntos Σi estão intimamente associados ao modo como focalizam as geodésicas de (M,g), isto é, à situação em que existem exatamente i arcos de geodésica de mesmo comprimento unindo pontos p e q em M. Nesta nota, estudamos a estrutura topológica da decomposição focal de uma variedade Riemanniana fechada e sua relação com a estrutura métrica de M. Nosso principal resultado é que n-toros planos, n > 2, são focalmente rigidos, isto é, se dois toros planos são focalmente equivalentes, então os dois toros são isométricos módulo mudança de escala. O caso n = 2 foi considerado anteriormente por F. Kwakkel.