2,517 research outputs found
A Possible Case of Neurogenic Pulmonary Edema in a Sheep following Intracranial Surgery
A 3-year-old female crossbred sheep weighing 64 kg was anaesthetized for intracranial surgery as a part of a research project. Premedication and induction of anesthesia were uneventful as well as tracheal intubation. Anesthesia was maintained with isoflurane in a 50% mixture of oxygen and air, fentanyl (5-15 µg kg-1h-1) and lidocaine (1.8 mg kg-1h-1). During anesthesia, an increased alveolar-arterial oxygen gradient was calculated on the basis of arterial blood gas analysis: inspiratory fraction of oxygen was increased and a recruitment manoeuvre was performed. After 210 minutes of anesthesia, the sheep was let recover with oxygen supplementation under monitoring of pulse-oxymetry, capnography, inspired and expired oxygen, temperature and invasive blood pressure. At tracheal extubation no signs of regurgitation or aspiration were noticed. Twenty-five minutes later, the sheep showed deterioration of neurological status and clonic seizure responsive to diazepam. After transient tachycardia, blood pressure rose acutely and sinus bradycardia followed. Severe tachypnea started in few minutes accompanied by loud respiratory noises and harsh diffuse crackles on both sides of the thorax. Foamy blood nasal exudates discharged from the nostrils. Neurogenic pulmonary edema as a sequel of increased intracranial pressure was suspected and treated with intravenous mannitol (0.5 gkg-1) and furosemide (4 mgKg-1). Hypoxemia was successfully managed with oxygen supplementation. Motor and cognitive functions improved progressively and were deemed normal within 12 hours from the episode, when arterial partial pressure of oxygen was 11.7 kPa (88 mmHg) at room air
Characterization of high-dimensional entangled systems via mutually unbiased measurements
Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) play a key role in many protocols in quantum
science, such as quantum key distribution. However, defining MUBs for arbitrary
high-dimensional systems is theoretically difficult, and measurements in such
bases can be hard to implement. We show experimentally that efficient quantum
state reconstruction of a high-dimensional multi-partite quantum system can be
performed by considering only the MUBs of the individual parts. The state
spaces of the individual subsystems are always smaller than the state space of
the composite system. Thus, the benefit of this method is that MUBs need to be
defined for the small Hilbert spaces of the subsystems rather than for the
large space of the overall system. This becomes especially relevant where the
definition or measurement of MUBs for the overall system is challenging. We
illustrate this approach by implementing measurements for a high-dimensional
system consisting of two photons entangled in the orbital angular momentum
(OAM) degree of freedom, and we reconstruct the state of this system for
dimensions of the individual photons from d=2 to 5.Comment: 8 page
Fully Anisotropic String Cosmologies, Maxwell Fields and Primordial Shear
We present a class of exact cosmological solutions of the low energy string
effective action in the presence of a homogeneous magnetic fields. We discuss
the physical properties of the obtained (fully anisotropic) cosmologies paying
particular attention to their vacuum limit and to the possible isotropization
mechanisms. We argue that quadratic curvature corrections are able to
isotropize fully anisotropic solutions whose scale factors describe accelerated
expansion. Moreover, the degree of isotropization grows with the duration of
the string phase. We follow the fate of the shear parameter in a decelerated
phase where, dilaton, magnetic fields and radiation fluid are simultaneously
present. In the absence of any magnetic field a long string phase immediately
followed by radiation is able to erase large anisotropies. Conversely, if a
short string phase is followed by a long dilaton dominated phase the
anisotropies can be present, in principle, also at later times. The presence of
magnetic seeds after the end of the string phase can induce further
anisotropies which can be studied within the formalism reported in this paper.Comment: 19 pages in Revtex style, 14 Encapsulated figure
Primordial magnetic fields from inflation?
The hot plasma above the electroweak scale contains (hyper) charged scalar
particles which are coupled to Abelian gauge fields. Scalars may interact with
gravity in a non-conformally invariant way and thus their fluctuations can be
amplified during inflation. These fluctuations lead to creation of electric
currents and produce inhomogeneous distribution of charge density, resulting in
the generation of cosmological magnetic fields. We address the question whether
these fields can be coherent at large scales so that they may seed the galactic
magnetic fields. Depending upon the mass of the charged scalar and upon various
cosmological (critical fraction of energy density in matter, Hubble constant)
and particle physics parameters we found that the magnetic fields generated in
this way are much larger than vacuum fluctuations. However, their amplitude on
cosmological distances is found to be too small for seeding the galactic
magnetic fields.Comment: 32 pages in RevTex styl
Primordial Hypermagnetic Knots
Topologically non-trivial configurations of the hypermagnetic flux lines lead
to the formation of hypermagnetic knots (HK) whose decay might seed the Baryon
Asymmetry of the Universe (BAU).HK can be dynamically generated provided a
topologically trivial (i.e. stochastic) distribution of flux lines is already
present in the symmetric phase of the electroweak (EW) theory. In spite of the
mechanism generating the HK, their typical size must exceed the diffusivity
length scale. In the minimal standard model (MSM) (but not necessarily in its
supersymmetric extension) HK are washed out. A classical hypermagnetic
background in the symmetric phase of the EW theory can produce interesting
amounts of gravitational radiation.Comment: 4 pages in Revtex style, 2 figure
Inflation-Produced Magnetic Fields in R^n F^2 and I F^2 models
We re-analyze the production of seed magnetic fields during Inflation in
(R/m^2)^n F_{\mu \nu}F^{\mu \nu} and I F_{\mu \nu}F^{\mu \nu} models, where n
is a positive integer, R the Ricci scalar, m a mass parameter, and I \propto
\eta^\alpha a power-law function of the conformal time \eta, with \alpha a
positive real number. If m is the electron mass, the produced fields are
uninterestingly small for all n. Taking m as a free parameter we find that, for
n \geq 2, the produced magnetic fields can be sufficiently strong in order to
seed dynamo mechanism and then to explain galactic magnetism. For \alpha
\gtrsim 2, there is always a window in the parameters defining Inflation such
that the generated magnetic fields are astrophysically interesting. Moreover,
if Inflation is (almost) de Sitter and the produced fields almost
scale-invariant (\alpha \simeq 4), their intensity can be strong enough to
directly explain the presence of microgauss galactic magnetic fields.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Minor revisions. References added. Accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev.
Gradient expansion(s) and dark energy
Motivated by recent claims stating that the acceleration of the present
Universe is due to fluctuations with wavelength larger than the Hubble radius,
we present a general analysis of various perturbative solutions of fully
inhomogeneous Einstein equations supplemented by a perfect fluid. The
equivalence of formally different gradient expansions is demonstrated. If the
barotropic index vanishes, the deceleration parameter is always positive
semi-definite.Comment: 17 pages, no figure
Clan structure analysis and QCD parton showers in multiparticle dynamics. An intriguing dialog between theory and experiment
This paper contains a review of the main results of a search of regularities
in collective variables properties in multiparticle dynamics, regularities
which can be considered as manifestations of the original simplicity suggested
by QCD. The method is based on a continuous dialog between experiment and
theory. The paper follows the development of this research line, from its
beginnings in the seventies to the current state of the art, discussing how it
produced both sound interpretations of the most relevant experimental facts and
intriguing perspectives for new physics signals in the TeV energy domain.Comment: 118 pages, 48 figures; table of contents fixed for hyperre
Parameter dependence of magnetized CMB observables
Pre-decoupling magnetic fields affect the scalar modes of the geometry and
produce observable effects which can be constrained also through the use of
current (as opposed to forthcoming) data stemming from the Cosmic Microwave
Background observations. The dependence of the temperature and polarization
angular power spectra upon the parameters of an ambient magnetic field is
encoded in the scaling properties of a set of basic integrals whose derivation
is simplified in the limit of small angular scales. The magnetically-induced
distortions patterns of the relevant observables can be computed analytically
by employing scaling considerations which are corroborated by numerical
results.Comment: 48 pages, 11 figures; corrected minor typos; discussions added; to
appear in Physical Revie
The jet of Markarian 501 from millions of Schwarzschild radii down to a few hundreds
Aims: The TeV BL Lac object Markarian 501 is a complex, core dominated radio
source, with a one sided, twisting jet on parsec scales. In the present work,
we attempt to extend our understanding of the source physics to regions of the
radio jet which have not been accessed before.
Methods: We present new observations of Mrk 501 at 1.4 and 86 GHz. The 1.4
GHz data were obtained using the Very Large Array (VLA) and High Sensitivity
Array (HSA) in November 2004, in full polarization, with a final r.m.s. noise
of 25 microJy/beam in the HSA total intensity image; the 86 GHz observations
were performed in October 2005 with the Global Millimeter VLBI Array (GMVA),
providing an angular resolution as good as 110 x 40 microarcseconds.
Results: The sensitivity and resolution provided by the HSA make it possible
to detect the jet up to ~700 milliarcseconds (corresponding to a projected
linear size of ~500 pc) from its base, while the superior resolution of the 86
GHz GMVA observations probes the innermost regions of the jet down to ~200
Schwarzschild radii. The brightness temperature at the jet base is in excess of
6e10 K. We find evidence of limb brightening on physical scales from <1 pc to
~40 pc. Polarization images and fits to the trend of jet width and brightness
vs. distance from the core reveal a magnetic field parallel to the jet axis.Comment: 10 pages, accepted by A&
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