O. Zagordi | Searcharxiv

arXiv2008

1D periodic potentials with gaps vanishing at k=0

Appearance of energy bands and gaps in the dispersion relations of a periodic potential is a standard feature of Quantum Mechanics. We investigate the class of one-dimensional periodic potentials for which all gaps vanish at the center of the Brillouin zone. We characterize them through a necessary and sufficient condition. Potentials of the form we focus on arise in different fields of Physics, from supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics, to Korteweg-de Vries equation theory and classical diffusion problems. The O.D.E. counterpart to this problem is the characterisation of periodic potentials for which coexistence occur of linearly independent solutions of the corresponding Schroedinger equation (Hill's equation). This result is placed in perspective of the previous related results available in the literature.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2004

Forcing reversibility in the no strand-bias substitution model allows for the theoretical and practical identifiability of its 5 parameters from pairwise DNA sequence comparisons

Because of the base pairing rules in DNA, some mutations experienced by a portion of DNA during its evolution result in the same substitution, as we can only observe differences in coupled nucleotides. Then, in the absence of a bias between the two DNA strands, a model with at most 6 different parameters instead of 12 is sufficient to study the evolutionary relationship between homologous sequences derived from a common ancestor. On the other hand the same symmetry reduces the number of independent observations which can be made. Such a reduction can in some cases invalidate the calculation of the parameters. A compromise between biologically acceptable hypotheses and tractability is introduced and a five parameter reversible no-strand-bias condition (RNSB) is presented. The identifiability of the parameters under this model is shown by examples.

q-bio.PE↗