Published work

Master equation for non-Markovian quantum Brownian motion: The emergence of lateral coherences

2021

Sapphire Lally, Nicholas Werren, Jim Al-Khalili, Andrea Rocco, submitted to Physics Communications

Understanding the behaviour of a quantum system coupled to its environment is of fundamental interest in the general field of quantum technologies. It also has important repercussions on foundational problems in physics, such as the process of decoherence and the so-called quantum measurement proble...

Quantum biology: An update and perspective

2021

Youngchan Kim, Federico Bertagna, Edeline M D’Souza, Derren J Heyes, Linus O Johannissen, Eveliny T Nery, Antonio Pantelias, Alejandro Sanchez-Pedreño Jimenez, Louie Slocombe, Michael G Spencer, Jim Al-Khalili, Gregory S Engel, Sam Hay, Suzanne M Hingley-Wilson, Kamalan Jeevaratnam, Alex R Jones, Daniel R Kattnig, Rebecca Lewis, Marco Sacchi, Nigel S Scrutton, S Ravi P Silva, Johnjoe McFadden, 2021. Quantum biology: An update and perspective. Quantum Rep. 2021, 3, 80-126.

Understanding the rules of life is one of the most important scientific endeavours and has revolutionised both biology and biotechnology. Remarkable advances in observation techniques allow us to investigate a broad range of complex and dynamic biological processes in which living systems could expl...

Quantum and classical effects in DNA point mutations: Watson–Crick tautomerism in AT and GC base pairs

2021

Slocombe, L., Al-Khalili, J.S. and Sacchi, M., 2021. Quantum and classical effects in DNA point mutations: Watson–Crick tautomerism in AT and GC base pairs. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 23(7), pp.4141-4150.

Proton transfer along the hydrogen bonds of DNA can lead to the creation of short-lived, but biologically relevant point mutations that can further lead to gene mutation and, potentially, cancer. In this work, the energy landscape of the canonical A–T and G–C base pairs (standard, amino–keto) ...

An Open Quantum Systems approach to proton tunnelling in DNA

2021

Slocombe, L., Sacchi, M. and Al-Khalili, J., 2021. An Open Quantum Systems approach to proton tunnelling in DNA. arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.00113.

One of the most important topics in molecular biology is the genetic stability of DNA. One threat to this stability is proton transfer along the hydrogen bonds of DNA that could lead to tautomerisation, hence creating point mutations. We present a theoretical analysis of the hydrogen bonds between t...

Three-body optical potentials in (d ,p ) reactions and their influence on indirect study of stellar nucleosynthesis

2021

Dinmore, M.J., Timofeyuk, N.K. and Al-Khalili, J.S., 2021. Three-body optical potentials in (d, p) reactions and their influence on indirect study of stellar nucleosynthesis. Physical Review C, 104(3), p.034614.

Model uncertainties arising due to suppression of target excitations in the description of deuteron scattering and resulting in a modification of the two-body interactions in a three-body system are investigated for several (d,p) reactions serving as indirect tools for studying the astrophysical (p,...

Three-nucleon force contribution to the deuteron channel in (d ,p ) reactions

2020

Timofeyuk, N.K., Dinmore, M.J. and Al-Khalili, J.S., 2020. Three-nucleon force contribution to the deuteron channel in (d, p) reactions. Physical Review C, 102(6), p.064616.

he contribution of a three-nucleon (3N) force, acting between the neutron and proton in the incoming deuteron with a target nucleon, to the deuteron-target potential in the entrance channel of the A(d,p)B reaction has been calculated within the adiabatic distorted wave approximation (ADWA).

Reaching out

2020

Mack, K., Kruszelnicki, K., Randall, L., Wade, J., Al-Khalili, J. and Vedral, V., 2020. Reaching out. Nature Reviews Physics, 2(6), pp.282-284.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, science is crucial to inform public policy. At the same time, mistrust of scientists and misinformation about scientific facts are rampant. Six scientists, actively involved in outreach, reflect on how to build a better understanding and trust of science.

The Origins of Quantum Biology

2018

Johnjoe McFadden and Jim Al-Khalili 2018 Proc. R. Soc. A 474: 20180674.

Quantum biology is usually considered to be a new discipline, arising from recent research that suggests that biological phenomena such as photosynthe

Effects of an induced three-body force in the incident channel of (d,p) reactions

2018

M. J. Dinmore N. K. Timofeyuk J. S. Al-Khalili and R. C. Johnson submitted for publication in Phys. Rev. C.

A widely accepted practice for treating deuteron breakup in A(d,p)B reactions relies on solving a three-body A+n+p Schr?dinger equation with pairwise

In retrospect: Book of Optics

2015

Jim Al-Khalili Nature 518 (2015) 164-165 doi:10.1038/518164a

The greatest physicist of the medieval era led a life as remarkable as his discoveries were prodigious, spending a decade in prison and at one point p

Advances in Optics in the Medieval Islamic World

2015

J.S. Al-Khalili Contemporary Physics 56 (2015) 109-122 DOI: 10.1080/00107514.2015.1028753.

This paper reviews the state of knowledge in the field of optics, mainly in catoptrics and dioptrics, before the birth of modern science and the well-

Modelling proton tunnelling in the adenine-thymine base pair

2015

AD. Godbeer J.S. Al-Khalili and P.D. Stevenson Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 17 (2015) 13034-13044.

The energies of the canonical (standard, amino-keto) and tautomeric (non-standard, imino-enol) charge-neutral forms of the adenine?thymine base pair (

Environment-induced dephasing versus von Neumann measurements in proton tunneling

2014

A.D. Godbeer J.S. Al-Khalili and P.D. Stevenson Phys. Rev. A 90 (2014) 012102.

In this work we compare two theoretical approaches to modeling the action of the environment on an open quantum system. It is often assumed that as th

Nuclear astrophysics with radioactive ions at FAIR

2014

R. Reifarth S. Altstadt K. G?bel T. Heftrich M. Heil A. Koloczek

The nucleosynthesis of elements beyond iron is dominated by neutron captures in the s and r processes. However

Michael Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity. On the Induction of Electric Currents. On the Evolution of Electricity from Magnetism. On a new Electrical Condition of Matter. On Arago's Magnetic Phenomena

2014

Philosophical Transactions 1832 J.S. Al-Khalili Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 373: 20140208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0208.

The history of science is filled with examples of key discoveries and breakthroughs that have been published as landmark texts or journal papers

Nature''s quantum subways

2013

J.S. Al-Khalili Physics World 26 (3) (2013) 42-45.

Jim Al-Khalili describes the new experiments and theories exploring whether quantum tunnelling of hydrogen causes mutations in our DNA.

Effect of spin-spin interactions on nucleon-nucleus scattering

2013

E.S. Cunningham J.S. Al-Khalili and R.C. Johnson Phys. Rev. C 87 (2013) 054601.

We report on a model for determining spin-spin terms in the optical potential for elastic scattering of a nucleon from a target with non-zero spin. Th

The electron-ion scattering experiment ELISe at the International Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR)?A conceptual design study

2011

A.N. Antonov J.S. Al-Khalili et al. Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A 637 (2011) 60-76.

The electron?ion scattering experiment ELISe is part of the installations envisaged at the new experimental storage ring at the International Facility

Role of the tensor exchange potential in nucleon-nucleus scattering

2011

E.S. Cunningham J.S. Al-Khalili and R.C. Johnson Phys. Rev. C 84 (2011) 041601(R).

We give a microscopic derivation of the spin-spin components of the optical potential for elastic scattering of a nucleon from a target with nonzero s

Three-Body Spectrum of 18C and its Relevance to r-Process Nucleosynthesis

2010

A.Yakhelef N.K.Timofeyuk J.S.Al-Khalili I.J.Thompson Few-Body Systems 47 213 (2010)

The 18C spectrum has been studied in a three body n+n+16C model that includes deformation and the 2+ excitation of the 16C core as well as Pauli proje