Speaker: Prof.Eli Pollak, Weizmann Institute of Science

Time: 10:00 a.m., May 17, 2023, GMT+8

Venue: Rm A717, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering

Abstract:

Recent experimental measurements of protein transition path time distributionspresented challenges to theory. These results lead to insights such as the paradigm of atransition path barrier height smaller than the activation energy and the observationof long time tails in the measured distributions, which may be identified with a longlived intermediate between folded and unfolded states. The concept of transition pathtime distributions for proteins led to the question of its quantum analog. Thispresented the challenge of understanding quantum mechanical transition times andthe time scale of quantum tunneling. Highlights of these studies include the theoreticalresolution of the tunneling flight as the Wigner phase time, verification that thetunneling flight time may be superluminal, and understanding that this does notcontradict special relativity. A recent study of electronic transition path timedistributions demonstrated resonance scattering and the inability of the fewestswitches surface hopping algorithm to account for such phenomena. Transition pathtime distributions for fermions. bosons. and distinguishable particles were alscpresented.

Biography:

Prof. Eli Pollak is a professor of chemical physics at the Weizmann Institute ofScience in Israel. His research interests include time in quantum mechanics, quantumdynamics in real time, quantum thermodynamics, and nonadiabatic scattering.

Source: College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering