Physics

Edward Ackad

Professor

Computational/Theoretical Physics

Office SE-0322
618-650-2390
eackad@siue.edu

B.S., Concordia University
Ph.D., York University

Computational/Theoretical Physics:  Ultra-intense light-matter interactions.  Currently investigating the classical and quantum response of clusters in ultra-intense laser pulses using HPC (including GPUs).  Other interests include computational models of other systems using HPC.

Biophysics: Predicting the enzymatic activity of proteases in silico, understanding drug ingress/egress in p450, and understanding the effects of phosphorization in Prospero.

Research

• Laser-Cluster Interactions at short wavelengths (X-rays) 
  Here is a movie of an Xenon cluster in a 13nm ultra- Intense/Short pulse where the electrons are in white and the ions range from blue for neutral and become increasingly red as they ionize. Compare that with a movie of an ultra- Intense/Short IR pulse which moves the electrons of the cluster to ionize. Other interesting things happen when the cluster is heterogeneous as in this movie. 
                                             
• High Harmonic generation in clusters
• Nanomachining with IR beyond the diffraction limit
• Dynamical basis for drug resistance in Hepatitis C virus (catalytic triad movie) (protease with the drug movie)
                                        

Recent Publications

• The NS4A Cofactor Dependent Enhancement of HCV NS3 Protease Activity Correlates with a 4D Geometrical Measure of the Catalytic Triad Region
• A validation of a simple model for the calculation of the ionization energies in X-ray laser-cluster interactions
• Comparative Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Hepatitis C Virus NS3/4A Protease (Genotypes 1b, 3a and 4a) Predicts Conformational Instability of the Catalytic Triad in Drug Resistant Strains
• A 3D structural model and dynamics of hepatitis C virus NS3/4A protease (genotype 4a, strain ED43) suggest conformational instability of the catalytic triad: implications in catalysis and drug resistivity
• Recombination effects in soft-x-ray cluster interactions at the xenon giant resonance
• Explosion of Non-spherical Clusters Due to Irradiation with Intense Femtosecond X-rays (movie)
• Nonlinear grid mapping applied to an FDTD-based, multi-center 3D Schrödinger equation solver
• Augmented collisional ionization via excited states in XUV cluster interactions  
• Clusters in intense XUV pulses: Effects of cluster size on expansion dynamics and ionization