Correlated Emission of Hadrons from Recombination of Correlated Partons

We discuss different sources of hadron correlations in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We show that correlations among partons in a quasi-thermal medium can lead to the correlated emission of hadrons by quark recombination and argue that this mechanism offers a plausible explanation for the dihadron correlations in the few GeV/c momentum range observed in Au+Au collisions at RHIC.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; v2: typo on p.4 correcte

Cronin Effect in Hadron Production off Nuclei

Recent data from RHIC for high-$p_T$ hadrons in gold-gold collisions raised again the long standing problem of quantitatively understanding the Cronin effect, i.e. nuclear enhancement of high-$p_T$ hadrons due to multiple interactions in nuclear matter. In nucleus-nucleus collisions this effect has to be reliably calculated as baseline for a signal of new physics in high-$p_T$ hadron production. The only possibility to test models is to compare with available data for $pA$ collisions, however, all existing models for the Cronin effect rely on a fit to the data to be explained. We develop a phenomenological description based on the light-cone QCD-dipole approach which allows to explain available data without fitting to them and to provide predictions for $pA$ collisions at RHIC and LHC. We point out that the mechanism causing Cronin effect drastically changes between the energies of fixed target experiments and RHIC-LHC. High-$p_T$ hadrons are produced incoherently on different nucleons at low energies, whereas the production amplitudes interfere if the energy is sufficiently high.Comment: the final version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

A model of semimetallic behavior in strongly correlated electron systems

Metals with values of the resistivity and the Hall coefficient much larger than typical ones, e.g., of sodium, are called semimetals. We suggest a model for semimetals which takes into account the strong Coulomb repulsion of the charge carriers, especially important in transition-metal and rare-earth compounds. For that purpose we extend the Hubbard model by coupling one additional orbital per site via hybridization to the Hubbard orbitals. We calculate the spectral function, resistivity and Hall coefficient of the model using dynamical mean-field theory. Starting from the Mott-insulating state, we find a transition to a metal with increasing hybridization strength (``self-doping''). In the metallic regime near the transition line to the insulator the model shows semimetallic behavior. We compare the calculated temperature dependence of the resistivity and the Hall coefficient with the one found experimentally for $\rm Yb_4As_3$. The comparison demonstrates that the anomalies in the transport properties of $\rm Yb_4As_3$ possibly can be assigned to Coulomb interaction effects of the charge carriers not captured by standard band structure calculations.Comment: 9 pages RevTeX with 7 ps figures, accepted by PR

Stability of the compressible quantum Hall state around the half-filled Landau level

We study the compressible states in the quantum Hall system using a mean field theory on the von Neumann lattice. In the lowest Landau level, a kinetic energy is generated dynamically from Coulomb interaction. The compressibility of the state is calculated as a function of the filling factor $\nu$ and the width $d$ of the spacer between the charge carrier layer and dopants. The compressibility becomes negative below a critical value of $d$ and the state becomes unstable at $\nu=1/2$. Within a finite range around $\nu=1/2$, the stable compressible state exists above the critical value of $d$.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Postscript figures, RevTe

High pT hadron spectra at RHIC: an overview

Recent results on high transverse momentum (pT) hadron production in p+p, d+Au and Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are reviewed. Comparison of the nuclear modification factors, $R_{dAu}(pT)$ and $R_{AA}(pT)$, demonstrates that the large suppression in central Au+Au collisions is due to strong final-state effects. Theoretical models which incorporate jet quenching via gluon Bremsstrahlung in the dense partonic medium that is expected in central Au+Au collisions at ultra-relativistic energies are shown to reproduce the shape and magnitude of the observed suppression over the range of collision energies so far studied at RHIC.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, Talk given at Hot Quarks 2004: Workshop for Young Scientists on the Physics of Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (HQ'04), Taos Valley, New Mexico, 18-24 Jul 2004, to be published in J. Phys.

Theory of Current-Induced Breakdown of the Quantum Hall Effect

By studying the quantum Hall effect of stationary states with high values of injected current using a von Neumann lattice representation, we found that broadening of extended state bands due to a Hall electric field occurs and causes the breakdown of the quantum Hall effect. The Hall conductance agrees with a topological invariant that is quantized exactly below a critical field and is not quantized above a critical field. The critical field is proportional to $B^{3/2}$ and is enhanced substantially if the extended states occupy a small fraction of the system.Comment: 5 pages, RevTeX, final version to appear in PR

Nature of Phase Transitions of Superconducting Wire Networks in a Magnetic Field

We study $I$-$V$ characteristics of periodic square Nb wire networks as a function of temperature in a transverse magnetic field, with a focus on three fillings 2/5, 1/2, and 0.618 that represent very different levels of incommensurability. For all three fillings, a scaling behavior of $I$-$V$ characteristics is found, suggesting a finite temperature continuous superconducting phase transition. The low-temperature $I$-$V$ characteristics are found to have an exponential form, indicative of the domain-wall excitations.Comment: 5 pages, also available at http://www.neci.nj.nec.com/homepages/tang.htm

Phenomenology of a light scalar: the dilaton

We make use of the language of non-linear realizations to analyze electro-weak symmetry breaking scenarios in which a light dilaton emerges from the breaking of a nearly conformal strong dynamics, and compare the phenomenology of the dilaton to that of the well motivated light composite Higgs scenario. We argue that -- in addition to departures in the decay/production rates into massless gauge bosons mediated by the conformal anomaly -- characterizing features of the light dilaton scenario (as well as other scenarios admitting a light CP-even scalar not directly related to the breaking of the electro-weak symmetry) are off-shell events at high invariant mass involving two longitudinally polarized vector bosons and a dilaton, and tree-level flavor violating processes. Accommodating both electro-weak precision measurements and flavor constraints appears especially challenging in the ambiguous scenario in which the Higgs and the dilaton fields strongly mix. We show that warped higgsless models of electro-weak symmetry breaking are explicit and tractable realizations of this limiting case. The relation between the naive radion profile often adopted in the study of holographic realizations of the light dilaton scenario and the actual dynamical dilaton field is clarified in the Appendix.Comment: 21 page

Primordial fluctuations in bulk inflaton model

An inflationary brane model driven by a bulk inflaton with exponential potential is proposed. We find a family of exact solutions that describe power-law inflation on the brane. These solutions enable us to derive exact solutions for metric perturbations analytically. By calculating scalar and tensor perturbations, we obtain a spectrum of primordial fluctuations at the end of the inflation. The amplitudes of scalar and tensor perturbations are enhanced in the same way if the energy scale of the inflation is sufficiently higher than the tension of the brane. Then the relative amplitude of scalar and tensor perturbations is not suppressed even for high-energy inflation. This is a distinguishable feature from the inflation model driven by inflaton on the brane where tensor perturbations are suppressed for high-energy inflation. We also point out that massive Kaluza-Klein modes are not negligible at high-frequencies on 3-space of our brane.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, reference adde

An initial event in insect innate immune response: structural and biological studies of interactions between β-1,3-glucan and the N-terminal domain of β-1,3-glucan recognition protein

In response to invading microorganisms, insect β-1,3-glucan recognition protein (βGRP), a soluble receptor in the hemolymph, binds to the surfaces of bacteria and fungi and activates serine protease cascades that promote destruction of pathogens by means of melanization or expression of antimicrobial peptides. Here we report on the NMR solution structure of the N-terminal domain of βGRP (N-βGRP) from Indian meal moth (Plodia interpunctella), which is sufficient to activate the prophenoloxidase (proPO) pathway resulting in melanin formation. NMR and isothermal calorimetric titrations of N-βGRP with laminarihexaose, a glucose hexamer containing β-1,3 links, suggest a weak binding of the ligand. However, addition of laminarin, a glucose polysaccharide (~ 6 kDa) containing β-1,3 and β-1,6 links that activates the proPO pathway, to N-βGRP results in the loss of NMR cross-peaks from the backbone 15N-1H groups of the protein, suggesting the formation of a large complex. Analytical ultra centrifugation (AUC) studies of formation of N-βGRP:laminarin complex show that ligand-binding induces sel-fassociation of the protein:carbohydrate complex into a macro structure, likely containing six protein and three laminarin molecules (~ 102 kDa). The macro complex is quite stable, as it does not undergo dissociation upon dilution to sub-micromolar concentrations. The structural model thus derived from the present studies for N-βGRP:laminarin complex in solution differs from the one in which a single N-βGRP molecule has been proposed to bind to a triple helical form of laminarin on the basis of an X-ray crystallographic structure of N-βGRP:laminarihexaose complex [Kanagawa, M., Satoh, T., Ikeda, A., Adachi, Y., Ohno, N., and Yamaguchi, Y. (2011) J. Biol. Chem. 286, 29158-29165]. AUC studies and phenoloxidase activation measurements carried out with the designed mutants of N-βGRP indicate that electrostatic interactions involving Asp45, Arg54, and Asp68 between the ligand-bound protein molecules contribute in part to the stability of N-βGRP:laminarin macro complex and that a decreased stability is accompanied by a reduced activation of the proPO pathway. Increased β-1,6 branching in laminarin also results in destabilization of the macro complex. These novel findings suggest that ligand-induced self-association of βGRP:β-1,3-glucan complex may form a platform on a microbial surface for recruitment of downstream proteases, as a means of amplification of the initial signal of pathogen recognition for the activation of the proPO pathway