A Modified "Bottom-up" Thermalization in Heavy Ion Collisions

In the initial stage of the bottom-up picture of thermalization in heavy ion collisions, the gluon distribution is highly anisotropic which can give rise to plasma instability. This has not been taken account in the original paper. It is shown that in the presence of instability there are scaling solutions, which depend on one parameter, that match smoothly onto the late stage of bottom-up when thermalization takes place.Comment: 8 pages and 1 embedded figure, talk presented at the Workshop on "Quark-Gluon Plasma Thermalization", Vienna, Austria, 10-12 August 200

Elliptic Flow from a Transversally Thermalized Fireball

The agreement of elliptic flow data at RHIC at central rapidity with the hydrodynamic model has led to the conclusion of very rapid thermalization. This conclusion is based on the intuitive argument that hydrodynamics, which assumes instantaneous local thermalization, produces the largest possible elliptic flow values and that the data seem to saturate this limit. We here investigate the question whether incompletely thermalized viscous systems may actually produce more elliptic flow than ideal hydrodynamics. Motivated by the extremely fast primordial longitudinal expansion of the reaction zone, we investigate a toy model which exhibits thermalization only in the transverse directions but undergoes collisionless free-streaming expansion in the longitudinal direction. For collisions at RHIC energies, elliptic flow results from the model are compared with those from hydrodynamics. With the final particle yield and \kt-distribution fixed, the transversally thermalized model is shown not to be able to produce the measured amount of elliptic flow. This investigation provides further support for very rapid local kinetic equilibration at RHIC. It also yields interesting novel results for the elliptic flow of massless particles such as direct photons.Comment: revtex4, 15 pages + 10 embedded EPS figure

In situ real-time analysis of alloy film composition and segregation dynamics with parallel detection reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy

Real-time measurements of GexSi1 – x/Si(001) composition and segregation dynamics in Sn/Si(001) in molecular beam epitaxy are demonstrated using parallel detection reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy. Parallel detection enables quantitative acquisition of low-loss spectra in a time of < 500 µs and surface composition determination in GexSi1 – x/Si(001) via Ge L2,3 core loss analysis to a precision of approximately 2% in time of order 1 s. Segregation and trapping kinetics of monolayer thickness Sn films during Si epitaxy on Sn-covered Si(100) has also been studied using the Sn M4.5 core loss

Patterns of antihypertensive prescribing, discontinuation and switching among a Hong Kong Chinese population from over one million prescriptions

Hypertension is an alarming public health problem among Chinese. The present study evaluated the prescribing patterns, discontinuation and switching profiles of antihypertensive agents and their associated factors in one Hong Kong Chinese population. Data were retrieved from computerized records for patients prescribed anti-hypertensive agents in government primary care clinics of Hong Kong from January, 2004 to June, 2007. A total of 1,069,836 antihypertensive drug visits, representing 67,028 patients, were analyzed. The most commonly prescribed drugs were Calcium Channel Blockers (CCBs) (49%), b-Blockers (BBs) (46%) and Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors (ACEIs) (19%). Thiazide diuretic prescribing was low (13%) and on the decline (14% in 2004 to 12% in 2007). Prescribing of ACEIs was rising (16% in 2004 to 23% in 2007). Patients’ age, gender, and socio-economic status were independent predictors of class of anti-hypertensive prescribed but explained less than 3.5% of the variation observed. Drug discontinuation was highest for BBs (21%) and lowest for CCBs (12%). The high rates of discontinuation in BBs remained apparent after controlling for confounding variables. Switching was less common than discontinuation and was most likely with thiazide diuretics. To summarize, prescribing of CCBs and BBs were high and that of thiazide diuretics particularly low in this Chinese population when compared with international trends. CCBs may be a particularly favorable antihypertensive treatment in Chinese, given the high discontinuation rates of BBs and international guidelines advising against the use of BBs as first-line therapy. The low use of thiazide diuretics warrants further clinical and cost effectiveness studies among Chinese

An integrated capacitance bridge for high-resolution, wide temperature range quantum capacitance measurements

We have developed a highly-sensitive integrated capacitance bridge for quantum capacitance measurements. Our bridge, based on a GaAs HEMT amplifier, delivers attofarad (aF) resolution using a small AC excitation at or below kT over a broad temperature range (4K-300K). We have achieved a resolution at room temperature of 10aF per root Hz for a 10mV AC excitation at 17.5 kHz, with improved resolution at cryogenic temperatures, for the same excitation amplitude. We demonstrate the performance of our capacitance bridge by measuring the quantum capacitance of top-gated graphene devices and comparing against results obtained with the highest resolution commercially-available capacitance measurement bridge. Under identical test conditions, our bridge exceeds the resolution of the commercial tool by up to several orders of magnitude.Comment: (1)AH and JAS contributed equally to this work. 6 pages, 5 figure

Relativistic Modification of the Gamow Factor

In processes involving Coulomb-type initial- and final-state interactions, the Gamow factor has been traditionally used to take into account these additional interactions. The Gamow factor needs to be modified when the magnitude of the effective coupling constant increases or when the velocity increases. For the production of a pair of particles under their mutual Coulomb-type interaction, we obtain the modification of the Gamow factor in terms of the overlap of the Feynman amplitude with the relativistic wave function of the two particles. As a first example, we study the modification of the Gamow factor for the production of two bosons. The modification is substantial when the coupling constant is large.Comment: 13 pages, in LaTe

Spatial adiabatic passage in a realistic triple well structure

We investigate the evolution of an electron undergoing coherent tunneling via adiabatic passage (CTAP) using the solution of the one-dimensional Schroedinger equation in both space and time for a triple well potential. We find the eigenspectrum and complete time evolution for a range of different pulsing schemes. This also provides an example of a system that can be described with the tools from both quantum optics and condensed matter. We find that while the quantum optics description of the process captures most of the key physics, there are important effects that can only be correctly described by a more complete representation. This is an important point for applications such as quantum information processing or quantum control where it is common practice to use a reduced state space formulation of the quantum system in question.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures (color online) - Published Versio