Can the quintessence be a complex scalar field?

In light of the recent observations of type Ia supernovae suggesting an accelerating expansion of the Universe, we wish in this paper to point out the possibility of using a complex scalar field as the quintessence to account for the acceleration. In particular, we extend the idea of Huterer and Turner in deriving the reconstruction equations for the complex quintessence, showing the feasibility of making use of a complex scalar field (instead of a real scalar field) while maintaining the uniqueness feature of the reconstruction for two possible situations, respectively. We discuss very briefly how future observations may help to distinguish the different quintessence scenarios, including the scenario with a positive cosmological constant.Comment: 9 pages, LaTeX, final versio

Vanishing Minors in the Neutrino Mass Matrix from Abelian Gauge Symmetries

Augmenting the Standard Model by three right-handed neutrinos allows for an anomaly-free gauge group extension G_max = U(1)_(B-L) x U(1)_(L_e-L_mu) x U(1)_(L_mu-L_tau). While simple U(1) subgroups of G_max have already been discussed in the context of approximate flavor symmetries, we show how two-zero textures in the right-handed neutrino Majorana mass matrix can be enforced by the flavor symmetry, which is spontaneously broken very economically by singlet scalars. These zeros lead to two vanishing minors in the low-energy neutrino mass matrix after the seesaw mechanism. This study may provide a new testing ground for a zero-texture approach: the different classes of two-zero textures with almost identical neutrino oscillation phenomenology can in principle be distinguished by their different Z' interactions at colliders.Comment: 12 pages; Extended and clarified discussion; comments on finetuning in the textures; matches published versio

Diffuse supernova neutrinos at underground laboratories

I review the physics of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino flux (or Background, DSNB), in the context of future searches at the next generation of neutrino observatories. The theory of the DSNB is discussed in its fundamental elements, namely the cosmological rate of supernovae, neutrino production inside a core collapse supernova, redshift, and flavor oscillation effects. The current upper limits are also reviewed, and results are shown for the rates and energy distributions of the events expected at future liquid argon and liquid scintillator detectors of O(10) kt mass, and water Cherenkov detectors up to a 0.5 Mt mass. Perspectives are given on the significance of future observations of the DSNB, both at the discovery and precision phases, for the investigation of the physics of supernovae and of the properties of the neutrino.Comment: latex, 94 pages. 35 figures and 13 tables. Version extensively updated. Accepted in Astroparticle Physic

The Cosmological Constant

This is a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant. Focusing on recent developments, I present a pedagogical overview of cosmology in the presence of a cosmological constant, observational constraints on its magnitude, and the physics of a small (and potentially nonzero) vacuum energy.Comment: 50 pages. Submitted to Living Reviews in Relativity (http://www.livingreviews.org/), December 199

Distinct Actin and Lipid Binding Sites in Ysc84 Are Required during Early Stages of Yeast Endocytosis

During endocytosis in S. cerevisiae, actin polymerization is proposed to provide the driving force for invagination against the effects of turgor pressure. In previous studies, Ysc84 was demonstrated to bind actin through a conserved N-terminal domain. However, full length Ysc84 could only bind actin when its C-terminal SH3 domain also bound to the yeast WASP homologue Las17. Live cell-imaging has revealed that Ysc84 localizes to endocytic sites after Las17/WASP but before other known actin binding proteins, suggesting it is likely to function at an early stage of membrane invagination. While there are homologues of Ysc84 in other organisms, including its human homologue SH3yl-1, little is known of its mode of interaction with actin or how this interaction affects actin filament dynamics. Here we identify key residues involved both in Ysc84 actin and lipid binding, and demonstrate that its actin binding activity is negatively regulated by PI(4,5)P2. Ysc84 mutants defective in their lipid or actin-binding interaction were characterized in vivo. The abilities of Ysc84 to bind Las17 through its C-terminal SH3 domain, or to actin and lipid through the N-terminal domain were all shown to be essential in order to rescue temperature sensitive growth in a strain requiring YSC84 expression. Live cell imaging in strains with fluorescently tagged endocytic reporter proteins revealed distinct phenotypes for the mutants indicating the importance of these interactions for regulating key stages of endocytosis

Characterization and functional analysis of a slow cycling stem cell-like subpopulation in pancreas adenocarcinoma

Evidence suggests that multiple tumors, including pancreatic adenocarcinoma, display heterogeneity in parameters that are critical for tumor formation, progression and metastasis. Understanding heterogeneity in solid tumors is increasingly providing a plethora of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. In this study, a particular focus was put on identifying a subpopulation of stem cell-like, slow cycling tumor cells in a pancreas adenocarcinoma cell lines. Using a label retention technique a subpopulation of slow cycling cells (DiI+/SCC) was identified and further evaluated in the BxPC-3 and Panc03.27 cell lines. These slowly cycling cells managed to retain the lipophilic labeling dye DiI, while the bulk of the cells (>94%) did not. The DiI+/SCC population, showed only a partial overlap with the CSC markers CD24+/CD44+, CD133+ and ALDH but they survived chemotherapeutic treatment, and were able to recreate the initial heterogeneous tumor cell population. DiI+/SCCs exhibited an increased invasive potential as compared with their non-label retaining, faster cycling cells (DiI−/FCC). They also had increased tumorigenic potential and morphological changes resembling cells that have undergone an epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT). Analysis of DiI+/SCC cells by real time PCR revealed a selective up-regulation of tell tale components of the Hedgehog/TGFβ pathways, as well as a down-regulation of EGFR, combined with a shift in crucial components implied in EMT. The presented findings offer an expanded mechanistic understanding that associates tumor initiating potential with cycling speed and EMT in pancreatic cancer cell lines

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for direct stau production in events with two hadronic tau-leptons in root s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of the supersymmetric partners ofτ-leptons (staus) in final stateswith two hadronically decayingτ-leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of139fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LargeHadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the expected StandardModel background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of direct production of stau pairs with eachstau decaying into the stable lightest neutralino and oneτ-lepton in simplified models where the two staumass eigenstates are degenerate. Stau masses from 120 GeV to 390 GeV are excluded at 95% confidencelevel for a massless lightest neutralino