Seminars

Atomic Structure Revealed by EUV Photoabsorption of 6th Row Ions

On Slow Relaxation: Examples from Glass Transition, Biomolecular Folding, and Granular Jamming, and Computational Methods to Simulate Their Kinetics

Grains and glasses, widely different materials, arrest their motions upon decreasing temperature and external load, respectively, in common ways, leading to a universal jamming phase diagram conjecture. However, unified theories are lacking, mainly because of the disparate nature of the particle interactions. In my talk I will show that folded biomoleculs (proteins and RNA) exhibit signatures common to both glassiness and jamming by using temperature- and force-unfolding molecular dynamics simulations. I will also present how molecular dynamics simulations can be used in concert with liquid-state NMR spectroscopy to study the temperature dependence and the onset of a glass transition in RNA. Time permitting, I will conclude with novel methods from my group to simulate the slow relaxation kinetics in such systems and others.