The eternal triangle

Geometric frustration in the myosin superlattice of vertebrate muscle

Geometric frustration results from an incompatibility between minimum energy arrangements and the geometry of a system, and gives rise to interesting and novel phenomena. Here, we report geometric frustration in a native biological macromolecular system---vertebrate muscle. We analyse the disorder in the myosin filament rotations in the myofibrils of vertebrate striated (skeletal and cardiac) muscle, as seen in thin-section electron micrographs, and show that the distribution of rotations corresponds to an archetypical geometrically frustrated system---the triangular Ising antiferromagnet. Spatial correlations are evident out to at least six lattice spacings. The results demonstrate that geometric frustration can drive the development of structure in complex biological systems, and may have implications for the nature of the actin--myosin interactions involved in muscle contraction. Identification of the distribution of myosin filament rotations with an Ising model allows the extensive results on the latter to be applied to this system. It shows how local interactions (between adjacent myosin filaments) can determine long-range order and, conversely, how observations of long-range order (such as patterns seen in electron micrographs) can be used to estimate the energetics of these local interactions. Furthermore, since diffraction by a disordered system is a function of the second-order statistics, the derived correlations allow more accurate diffraction calculations, which can aid in interpretation of X-ray diffraction data from muscle specimens for structural analysis.

Diffraction by a frustrated system: the triangular Ising antiferromagnet

Expressions are derived for diffraction by the triangular Ising antiferromagnet, a disordered lattice system consisting of two kinds of scatterer and exhibiting geometric frustration. Analysis of the expressions shows characteristics of the diffraction patterns, including the presence of Bragg and diffuse diffraction, superlattice reflections, and their behavior with temperature. These characteristics are illustrated by numerical simulations. The results have application to diffraction imaging of disordered systems.

Stiffness from disorder in triangular-lattice Ising thin films

We study the triangular lattice Ising model with a finite number of vertically stacked layers and demonstrate a low temperature reentrance of two Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions, which results in an extended disordered regime down to T=0. Numerical results are complemented with the derivation of an effective low-temperature dimer theory. Contrary to order by disorder, we present a new scenario for fluctuation-induced ordering in frustrated spin systems. While short-range spin-spin correlations are enhanced by fluctuations, quasi-long-range ordering is precluded at low enough temperatures by proliferation of topological defects.

Quantum simulation of a system with competing two- and three-body interactions

Quantum phase transitions occur at zero temperature, when the ground state of a Hamiltonian undergoes a qualitative change as a function of a control parameter. We consider a particularly interesting system with competing one-, two-, and three-body interactions. Depending on the relative strength of these interactions, the ground state of the system can be a product state, or it can exhibit genuine tripartite entanglement. We experimentally simulate such a system in a NMR quantum simulator and observe the different ground states. By adiabatically changing the strength of one coupling constant, we push the system from one ground state to a qualitatively different ground state. We show that these ground states can be distinguished and the transitions between them observed by measuring correlations between the spins or the expectation values of suitable entanglement witnesses.