Slow energy relaxation of macromolecules and nano-clusters in solution

Abstract

Many systems in the realm of nanophysics from both the living and inorganic world display slow relaxation kinetics of energy fluctuations. In this paper we propose a general explanation for such phenomenon, based on the effects of interactions with the solvent. Within a simple harmonic model of the system fluctuations, we demonstrate that the inhomogeneity of coupling to the solvent of the bulk and surface atoms suffices to generate a complex spectrum of decay rates. We show for Myoglobin and for a metal nano-cluster that the result is a complex, non-exponential relaxation dynamics.

arXiv comment5 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Cooling nonlinear lattices toward localisation
• Slow energy relaxation and localization in 1D lattices
• Vibrations of closed-shell Lennard-Jones icosahedral and cuboctahedral clusters and their effect on the cluster ground state energy

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Discrete breathers in nonlinear network models of proteins
• Nonlinear Relaxation Dynamics in Elastic Networks and Design Principles of Molecular Machines
• Effect of discrete breathers on the specific heat of a nonlinear chain
• Nonlinearity of Mechanochemical Motions in Motor Proteins
• The Glass-like Structure of Globular Proteins and the Boson Peak
• Relationships between ligand binding sites, protein architecture and correlated paths of energy and conformational fluctuations
• Energy thresholds of discrete breathers in thermal equilibrium and relaxation processes
• Quantum fluctuations, the Boson peak, and the glassy state of biomolecules
• Energy Transfer in molecular devices
• On the origin of the Boson peak in globular proteins
• Nanosecond motions in proteins impose bounds on the timescale distributions of local dynamics