Session K1: Poster Session II (2-5:00pm): Education; SPS/Undergrad Research; Metals; Magnetism; Instrumentation and Measurements; Chemical Physics; Artificially Structured Materials; Surfaces, Interfaces and Thin Films; AMO Physics; Quantum Information; Bio Physics

2:00 PM–2:00 PM, Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Room: Exhibit Hall A


Abstract ID: BAPS.2009.MAR.K1.284

Abstract: K1.00284 : Motional Coherence in Fluid Phospholipid Membranes

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Authors:

  Maikel Rheinstadter
    (McMaster University)

  Jhuma Das
    (University of Missouri-Columbia)

  Elijah Flenner
    (Colorado State University)

  Beate Br\"uning
    (University of Goettingen)

  Tilo Seydel
    (Institut Laue-Langevin)

  Ioan Kosztin
    (University of Missouri-Columbia)

Modern experimental and computational techniques give access to collective molecular properties and raise the fundamental question of coherence in biology. While incoherent systems are systems wherein each particle is a separate, localized entity interacting with others through collisions and other energy exchanges, in a coherent regime particles lose their individual identity. Even in simple models, a biological system must be considered as an array of units interacting through coherent reactions. Coherence must therefore possibly be considered as a fundamental property of biomolecular systems. By employing high energy-resolution neutron backscattering, combined with in-situ diffraction, we have investigated slow molecular motions on nanosecond time scales in the fluid phase of phospholipid model membrane of DMPC [1]. A cooperative structural relaxation process was observed. Combined with results from a 0.1 microsecond long all atom molecular dynamics simulation, we found that correlated dynamics in lipid membranes occurs over several lipid distances, spanning a time interval from pico- to nanoseconds. [1] Rheinstadter et al., accepted for Phys. Rev. Lett., http://arXiv.org/abs/0809.3040.

To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2009.MAR.K1.284