Solitary waves of α-helix propagation in media with arbitrary inhomogeneities

Abstract

We study the dynamics of solitary waves in α-helical proteins going beyond the standard nearest-neighbour interaction by taking into account influence long-range dipole-dipole interactions of the Kac-Baker type. By means of the coherent state representation of operators, the model Hamiltonian is transformed into a pair of classical lattice equations, which is further reduced to a sole nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation using the continuum approximation of which the dispersive coefficient depends on the long-range interactions (LRI) parameter. It comes out from our results that the bright-like solitons, solitary waves which govern the energy transfer in α-helix, are deeply influenced by the LRI. At the end, we transform the NLS equation for more currently-important inhomogeneous NLS models in media with inhomogeneities. Application of this transformation to two example models is illustrated and soliton-like solutions are also graphically discussed.