System of particles able to self-assemble and self-heal in presence of acoustic waves

In previous posting (see also the article) I told about a system of charged plastic balls above electrode with same charge of sign imbedded in plasma of positively charged Argon ions. This system exhibits life-like properties, in particular a sequence of phase transitions between crystal-like with synchronous oscillations and gas-like states. This requires a feed of metabolic energy which is not present. To my view non-equilibrium thermodynamics with stochastic resonance feeding the energy is not enough to explain the finding.

One can develop a model for the system based on TGD inpired quantum biology. This involves the notion of magnetic body carrying dark matter identified as h_eff=n&;h phases; a network of magnetic flux tubes (magnetic body) controlling biological body (now charged plastic balls) and responsible for coherence and synchrony (of the crystal-like phase now); the control of the oscillations of BB by cyclotron radiation (now the plastic ball system) resulting from decays of cyclotron condensates of charged particles (now protons and Ar ions). The source of metabolic energy would come from dark nucleosynthesis explaining nuclear transmutations occurring in living matter and “cold fusion” and serving as source of metabolic energy in prebiotic stage when the chemical energy storage had not yet emerged. Dark analogs of DNA, RNA, tRNA, and amino-acids are dark protons sequences realizing degeneracies of vertebrate genetic code are dark nuclei and can transform to ordinary nuclei and liberate nuclear binding energy so that the hen-egg question about which came first: metabolism or genetic code, is resolved: hen= egg.

Now I found a popular article “Sound waves direct particles to self-assemble, self-heal” telling about another particle system far from thermal equilibrium and exhibiting life like properties. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) demonstrated how particles, floating on top of a glycerin-water solution, synchronize in response to acoustic waves blasted from a computer speaker. The article “Emergence of an enslaved phononic bandgap in a non-equilibrium pseudo-crystal” telling about the study is published in the journal Nature Materials.

In this case there is an energy feed to the system realized as a monochromatic sound wave. The system responds to an incoming sound wave and gradually the average response of the system which is in the beginning of the experiment essentially constant as function of wavelength develops a wave length gap in the response below the wave length of the incoming sound wave. The emergence of forbidden wavelengths can be interpreted as a synchronous response modellable as a reaction of damped oscillation to a driving force at resonance frequency. The video
of the popular article shows how the wave length gap emerges in time scale of 45 minutes. Also the theoretical prediction for the response is given as a curve and is agrees rather nicely with the outcome.

The comment of the co-lead author Chad Ropp, a postdoctoral researcher in Zhang’s group is following. “We show that individually ‘dumb’ particles can self-organize far from equilibrium by dissipating energy and emerge with a collective trait that is dynamically adaptive to and reflective of their environment. In this case, the particles followed the ‘beat’ of a sound wave generated from a computer speaker.”

To my opinion “beat” cannot however mean here what it means usually since this requires that input acoustic signal would be superposition of signals with nearly same frequencies and beat would occur with frequency which is difference of these.

The abstract of the article gives a more technical description about what happens.

“Material systems that reside far from thermodynamic equilibrium have the potential to exhibit dynamic properties and behaviours resembling those of living organisms. Here we realize a non-equilibrium material characterized by a bandgap whose edge is enslaved to the wavelength of an external coherent drive. The structure dynamically self-assembles into an unconventional pseudo-crystal geometry that equally distributes momentum across elements. The emergent bandgap is bestowed with lifelike properties, such as the ability to self-heal to perturbations and adapt to sudden changes in the drive. We derive an exact analytical solution for both the spatial organization and the bandgap features, revealing the mechanism for enslavement. This work presents a framework for conceiving lifelike non-equilibrium materials and emphasizes the potential for the dynamic imprinting of material properties through external degrees of freedom.

The system has energy feed as acoustic wave (from the left in the video) which gradually shifts the system to the right. Therefore the far from equilibrium thermodynamics without stochastic resonance works satisfactorily. TGD vision provides a competing quantum description.

1. Also now the system involves materials appearing in living matter. Glycerin (glycerol backbone appears in lipids serving as basic building bricks of cell membrane). Glycerin is dissolved in water, which is in a key role in TGD inspired quantum biology. Since I have only access to the abstract of the article, I do not know what is whether the particle are organic material too.

2. The basic difference as compared to the plastic ball system would be that system of particles does not oscillate with the frequency of the acoustic wave but develops a narrow frequency gap (about .1 units using normalized wave length) just below the acoustic frequency. This could be understood as a response of damped oscillator to forced oscillations at resonance frequency.

The response of damped oscillator to oscillator force G₀ exp(iω₀t) at resonance frequency ω₀ is given by

A(t)= A₀ exp(iω₁)exp(-Γt) + F₀exp(iω₁t)exp(-Γt/2)× t, ω₁²= ω²-Γ².

Fourier transform sum of homogenous and driving terms:

A(ω)= A₀(ω)+A₁(ω) . >

1. The homogenous term is given by

A₀(ω)= [ω-ω₁ +iΓ]/[(ω-ω₁)²+Γ²]

A₁(ω) = F₀[ω₀²-ω²-2iΓω]/[(ω²-ω₀²)²+4Γ²ω²] .
Below the driving frequency the sign of the real part of the driving term would be negative and cause the gap. Above the driving frequency the Fourier amplitude would be amplified: the observed amplitude is somewhat lower than the predicted one and essentially same as in the original situation in which the collective response has not developed.

Can one modify quantum description of plastic ball system to explain the frequency gap?

1. The metabolic energy feed would be by acoustic oscillations and should induce the phase transition generating magnetic flux tube network containing dark particles having h_eff n× h responsible for the synchronous oscillations.

2. Quantum criticality at the level of the MB could make adaptation possible. The flux tubes with same ratio of L/S of length and transversal area remaining invariant under scalings of h_eff n× h would correspond to same magnetic energy and cyclotron energies. Adaptation would mean that cyclotron frequency for BE condensate of say protons at magnetic body becomes nearly equal to the frequency of sound wave by a suitable choice of n if the value of magnetic field strength is in reasonable range: this means that flux tubes tune their length and thickness by magnetic motor actions. Note that in pseudo-crystal phase exhibiting life-like aspects it would be MB which drives rather than sound wave. Cyclotron radiation from BE condensates at MB would drive the synchronous oscillations of particles at the nodes of flux tube network performing oscillations (generalization of Alfwen waves to oscillations of flux tube analogous to string vibrations).
3. The quantum model for the plastic ball system would suggests an analog of entrainment with the acoustic frequency occurring also in brain. The frequency spectrum for the response remaining as such outside the gap could be interpreted in terms of driving from both MB and by acoustic signal. The signal from MB to the entire particle system fused to single quantum system by flux tube bonds would generate the gap. Entire particle system including MB would respond coherently to this signal for large values of time whereas individual particles respond to the acoustic signal in the beginning of the experiment.
4. The healing of the system would mean a regeneration of the MB under metabolic energy feed. The ability to react to sudden changes in environment might be understood in terms of the ability of MB to adapt in the proposed manner. It would be interesting to see how the system reacts to the change of the acoustic frequency. The model would require change of the value of n.

To sum up, essentially the same quantum model could describe both the system of plastic balls and the recent system. Only the source of metabolic energy would be different.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.