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Neutrons and x-rays are coherent probes, and their coherent properties are used in scattering experiments. Only coherent scattering probes can elucidate collective molecular motions. While phonons in crystals were studied for half a century now, the study of collective molecular motions in soft-matter and biology is a rather new but upcoming field. Collective dynamics often determine material properties and interactions, and are crucial to establish dynamics-function relations. We review properties of neutrons and x-rays and derive the origin of coherent and incoherent scattering. Taking molecular motions in membranes and proteins as example, the difference between coherent and incoherent dynamics is discussed, and how local and collective motions can be accessed in x-ray and neutron scattering experiments. Matching of coherent properties of the scattering probe may become important in soft-matter and biology because of (1) the missing long ranged order and (2) the large length scales involved. It is likely to be important in systems, where fluctuating nanoscale domains strongly determine material properties. Inelastic scattering can provide very local structural information in disordered systems. Inelastic neutron scattering experiments point to a coexistence of short-lived nanoscale gel and fluid domains in phospholipid bilayers in the range of the gel-fluid phase transition, which may be responsible for critical behavior and determine elastic properties.
Lipid membranes in a physiological context cannot be understood without taking into account their mobile environment. Here, we report on a high energy-resolution neutron backscattering study to investigate slow motions on nanosecond time scales in hi
Quantum biology is an emerging field of research that concerns itself with the experimental and theoretical exploration of non-trivial quantum phenomena in biological systems. In this tutorial overview we aim to bring out fundamental assumptions and
Life is characterized by a myriad of complex dynamic processes allowing organisms to grow, reproduce, and evolve. Physical approaches for describing systems out of thermodynamic equilibrium have been increasingly applied to living systems, which ofte
Is there a functional role for quantum mechanics or coherent quantum effects in biological processes? While this question is as old as quantum theory, only recently have measurements on biological systems on ultra-fast time-scales shed light on a pos
Atomic Parity Violation (APV) is usually quantified in terms of the weak nuclear charge $Q_W$ of a nucleus, which depends on the coupling strength between the atomic electrons and quarks. In this work, we review the importance of APV to probing new p