Prior expectation mediates neural adaptation to repeated sounds in the auditory cortex: An MEG study

Contains fulltext : 99626.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Repetition suppression, the phenomenon that the second presentation of a stimulus attenuates neural activity, is typically viewed as an automatic consequence of repeated stimulus presentation. However, a recent neuroimaging study has suggested that repetition suppression may be driven by top-down expectations. Here we examined whether and when repetition suppression can be modulated by top-down expectation. Participants listened to auditory stimuli in blocks where tone repetitions were either expected or unexpected, while we recorded ongoing neural activity using magnetoencephalography. We found robust repetition suppression in the auditory cortex for repeated tones. Interestingly, this reduction was significantly larger for expected than unexpected repetitions, both in terms of evoked activity and gamma-band synchrony. These findings indicate a role of top-down expectation in generating repetition suppression and are in line with predictive coding models of perception, in which the difference between expected and actual input is propagated from lower to higher cortical areas.6 p

The form factor of the pion in "point-form" of relativistic dynamics revisited

The electromagnetic form factor of the pion is calculated in the "point-form" of relativistic quantum mechanics using simple, phenomenological wave functions. It is found that the squared charge radius of the pion is predicted one order of magnitude larger than the experimental value and the asymptotic behavior expected from QCD cannot be reproduced. The origin of these discrepancies is analyzed. The present results confirm previous ones obtained from a theoretical model and call for major improvements in the implementation of the "point-form" approach.Comment: 8 pages, 3 eps figure

Hamiltonian light-front field theory within an AdS/QCD basis

Non-perturbative Hamiltonian light-front quantum field theory presents opportunities and challenges that bridge particle physics and nuclear physics. Fundamental theories, such as Quantum Chromodynmamics (QCD) and Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) offer the promise of great predictive power spanning phenomena on all scales from the microscopic to cosmic scales, but new tools that do not rely exclusively on perturbation theory are required to make connection from one scale to the next. We outline recent theoretical and computational progress to build these bridges and provide illustrative results for nuclear structure and quantum field theory. As our framework we choose light-front gauge and a basis function representation with two-dimensional harmonic oscillator basis for transverse modes that corresponds with eigensolutions of the soft-wall AdS/QCD model obtained from light-front holography.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of Light-Cone 2009: Relativistic Hadronic and Particle Physics, July 8-13, 2009, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazi

The sign of the day-night asymmetry for solar neutrinos

A qualitative understanding of the day-night asymmetry for solar neutrinos is provided. The greater night flux in nu_e is seen to be a consequence of the fact that the matter effect in the sun and that in the earth have the same sign. It is shown in the adiabatic approximation for the sun that for all values of the mixing angle theta_V between 0 and pi/2, the night flux of neutrinos is greater than the day flux. Only for small values of theta_V where the adiabatic approximation badly fails does the sign of the day-night asymmetry reverse.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, typos corrected and references adde

Chiral Symmetry Breaking with Scalar Confinement

Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking is accepted to occur in low energy hadronic physics, resulting in the several successful theorems of PCAC. On the other hand scalar confinement is suggested both by the spectroscopy of hadrons and by the string picture of confinement. However these two evidences are apparently conflicting, because chiral symmetry breaking requires a chiral invariant coupling to the quarks, say a vector coupling like in QCD. Here we reformulate the coupling of the quarks to the string, and we are able to comply with chiral symmetry breaking, using scalar confinement. The results are quite encouraging.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, contribution to the XXXVIIIth Rencontres de Moriond QCD and High Energy Hadronic Interaction

Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the linked cluster expansion

We investigate dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in the Coulomb gauge Hamiltonian QCD. Within the framework of the linked cluster expansion we extend the BCS ansatz for the vacuum and include correlation beyond the quark-antiquark paring. In particular we study the effects of the three-body correlations involving quark-antiquark and transverse gluons. The high momentum behavior of the resulting gap equation is discussed and numerical computation of the chiral symmetry breaking is presented.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure

Travelling waves for the Gross-Pitaevskii equation II

The purpose of this paper is to provide a rigorous mathematical proof of the existence of travelling wave solutions to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in dimensions two and three. Our arguments, based on minimization under constraints, yield a full branch of solutions, and extend earlier results, where only a part of the branch was built. In dimension three, we also show that there are no travelling wave solutions of small energy.Comment: Final version accepted for publication in Communications in Mathematical Physics with a few minor corrections and added remark

Electromagnetic form factors of light vector mesons

The electromagnetic form factors G_E(q^2), G_M(q^2), and G_Q(q^2), charge radii, magnetic and quadrupole moments, and decay widths of the light vector mesons rho^+, K^{*+} and K^{*0} are calculated in a Lorentz-covariant, Dyson-Schwinger equation based model using algebraic quark propagators that incorporate confinement, asymptotic freedom, and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, and vector meson Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes closely related to the pseudoscalar amplitudes obtained from phenomenological studies of pi and K mesons. Calculated static properties of vector mesons include the charge radii and magnetic moments: r_{rho+} = 0.61 fm, r_{K*+} = 0.54 fm, and r^2_{K*0} = -0.048 fm^2; mu_{rho+} = 2.69, mu_{K*+} = 2.37, and mu_{K*0} = -0.40. The calculated static limits of the rho-meson form factors are similar to those obtained from light-front quantum mechanical calculations, but begin to differ above q^2 = 1 GeV^2 due to the dynamical evolution of the quark propagators in our approach.Comment: 8 pages of RevTeX, 5 eps figure

Imaging the first light: experimental challenges and future perspectives in the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy

Measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) allow high precision observation of the Last Scattering Surface at redshift $z\sim$1100. After the success of the NASA satellite COBE, that in 1992 provided the first detection of the CMB anisotropy, results from many ground-based and balloon-borne experiments have showed a remarkable consistency between different results and provided quantitative estimates of fundamental cosmological properties. During 2003 the team of the NASA WMAP satellite has released the first improved full-sky maps of the CMB since COBE, leading to a deeper insight into the origin and evolution of the Universe. The ESA satellite Planck, scheduled for launch in 2007, is designed to provide the ultimate measurement of the CMB temperature anisotropy over the full sky, with an accuracy that will be limited only by astrophysical foregrounds, and robust detection of polarisation anisotropy. In this paper we review the experimental challenges in high precision CMB experiments and discuss the future perspectives opened by second and third generation space missions like WMAP and Planck.Comment: To be published in "Recent Research Developments in Astronomy & Astrophysics Astrophysiscs" - Vol I