Hot Nuclear Matter : A Variational Approach

We develop a nonperturbative technique in field theory to study properties of infinite nuclear matter at zero temperature as well as at finite temperatures. Here we dress the nuclear matter with off-mass shell pions. The techniques of thermofield dynamics are used for finite temperature calculations. Equation of state is derived from the dynamics of the interacting system in a self consistent manner. The transition temperature for nuclear matter appears to be around 15 MeV.Comment: 16 pages, IP/BBSR/91-3

Neutron matter - Quark matter phase transition and Quark star

We consider the neutron matter quark matter phase transition along with possible existence of hybrid quark stars. The equation of state for neutron matter is obtained using a nonperturbative method with pion dressing of the neutron matter and an analysis similar to that of symmetric nuclear matter. The quark matter sector is treated perturbatively in the small distance domain. For bag constant $B^{1/4}$=148 MeV, a first order phase transition is seen. In the context of neutron quark hybrid stars, Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations are solved using the equations of state for quark matter and for neutron matter with a phase transition as noted earlier. Stable solutions for such stars are obtained with the Chandrasekhar limit as 1.58 $M_\odot$ and radius around 10 km. The bulk of the star is quark matter with a thin crust of neutron matter of less than a kilometer.Comment: 28 pages including 9 figures, Revtex, IP/BBSR/92-8

Gravitational uncertainties from dimension-six operators on supersymmetric GUT predictions

We consider the gravity induced dimension six terms in addition to the dimension five terms in the SUSY GUT Lagrangian and find that the prediction for $\alpha_s$ may be washed out completely in supersymmetric grand unified theories unless the triplet higgs mass is smaller than $7\times 10^{16}$ GeV.Comment: 7 pages,latex.Title of original version changed,text added and a figure has been added.Figure is available on request.To appear as a brief Report in Phys.Rev.

A minimal descriptor of an ancestral recombinations graph

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ancestral Recombinations Graph (ARG) is a phylogenetic structure that encodes both duplication events, such as mutations, as well as genetic exchange events, such as recombinations: this captures the (genetic) dynamics of a population evolving over generations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper, we identify structure-preserving and samples-preserving core of an ARG <it>G</it> and call it the minimal descriptor ARG of <it>G</it>. Its structure-preserving characteristic ensures that all the branch lengths of the marginal trees of the minimal descriptor ARG are identical to that of <it>G</it> and the samples-preserving property asserts that the patterns of genetic variation in the samples of the minimal descriptor ARG are exactly the same as that of <it>G</it>. We also prove that even an unbounded <it>G</it> has a finite minimal descriptor, that continues to preserve certain (graph-theoretic) properties of <it>G</it> and for an appropriate class of ARGs, our estimate (Eqn 8) as well as empirical observation is that the expected reduction in the number of vertices is exponential.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based on the definition of this lossless and bounded structure, we derive local properties of the vertices of a minimal descriptor ARG, which lend itself very naturally to the design of efficient sampling algorithms. We further show that a class of minimal descriptors, that of binary ARGs, models the standard coalescent exactly (Thm 6).</p

IMPLEMENTASI PROGRAM KAWASAN RUMAH PANGAN LESTARI MELALUI SISTEM HIDROPONIK TANAMAN HORTIKULTURA DI DESA MANGKUNG

ABSTRAKDesa Mangkung memiliki lahan pekarangan yang cukup luas, namun belum dikelola dengan baik oleh masyarakat. Padahal, lahan pekarangan bisa dijadikan sebagai Kawasan Rumah Pangan Lestari yang dapat menunjang kebutuhan pangan dan meingkatkan pendapatan masyarakat. Kegiatan ini bertujuan untuk memberikan wawasan, pemahaman, serta informasi kepada masyarakat Desa Mangkung tentang pengelolaan lahan pekarangan melalui budidaya tanaman hortikultura dengan sistem hidroponik. Kegiatan ini dilaksanakan dalam tiga tahapan yaitu observasi, sosialisasi, dan pelaksanaan kegiatan. Jenis tanaman yang dibudidaya yaitu selada (Lactuca sativa), pakcoy (Brassica rapa), dan kangkung (Ipomea aquatic Forsk) dengan media tanam berupa rockwool dan pupuk kompos organik yang dibuat dengan memanfaatkan limbah kotoran ternak sapi masyarakat setempat. Kegiatan ini mendapatkan respon yang baik serta dukungan dari masyarakat setempat. Kegiatan ini diharapkan menjadi alternatif yang baik bagi masyarakat dalam memanfaatkan lahan pekarangan yang tidak dimaksimalkan dengan optimal. Selain itu, kedepannya masyarakat dapat secara mandiri memenuhi kebutuhan pangan berupa sayur-sayuran serta mampu meningkatkan pendapatan rumah tangga menuju masyarakat yang sehat, mandiri, dan sejahtera. Kata kunci: hortikultura; rumah pangan lestari; sistem hidroponik ABSTRACTMangkung Village has a very large parkland but has not been optimized very well by the local community. Instead, the land can be used as a home for food, which can support food needs and increase the community’s income. This activity aimed to give the community knowledge and understanding about how to utilize parkland land by cultivating horticultural plants with hydroponic sistems. This activity was done in three steps: observation, socialization, and implementation. The hydroponic sistem used uses three types of crops cultivated namely selada (Lactuca sativa), pakcoy (Brassica rapa), and kangkung (Ipomea aquatic Forsk) with the medium of rockwool and organic composite fertilizer made using local cattle livestock waste. This activity has received a good response and support from the local community. It would be a good alternative for the community in exploiting the land that is not maximized optimally. In addition, the community can supply food (vegetables) independently and can increase household income toward a self-sufficient, healthy, and prosperous society. Keywords: horticulture; sustainable food house; hydroponic siste

An SO(10) Grand Unified Theory of Flavor

We present a supersymmetric SO(10) grand unified theory (GUT) of flavor based on an $S_4$ family symmetry. It makes use of our recent proposal to use SO(10) with type II seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses combined with a simple ansatz that the dominant Yukawa matrix (the {\bf 10}-Higgs coupling to matter) has rank one. In this paper, we show how the rank one model can arise within some plausible assumptions as an effective field theory from vectorlike {\bf 16} dimensional matter fields with masses above the GUT scale. In order to obtain the desired fermion flavor texture we use $S_4$ flavon multiplets which acquire vevs in the ground state of the theory. By supplementing the $S_4$ theory with an additional discrete symmetry, we find that the flavon vacuum field alignments take a discrete set of values provided some of the higher dimensional couplings are small. Choosing a particular set of these vacuum alignments appears to lead to an unified understanding of observed quark-lepton flavor: (i) the lepton mixing matrix that is dominantly tri-bi-maximal with small corrections related to quark mixings; (ii) quark lepton mass relations at GUT scale: $m_b\simeq m_{\tau}$ and $m_\mu\simeq 3 m_s$ and (iii) the solar to atmospheric neutrino mass ratio $m_\odot/m_{\rm atm}\simeq \theta_{\rm Cabibbo}$ in agreement with observations. The model predicts the neutrino mixing parameter, $U_{e3} \simeq \theta_{\rm Cabibbo}/(3\sqrt2) \sim 0.05$, which should be observable in planned long baseline experiments.Comment: Final version of the paper as it will appear in JHEP

Working Group Report: Neutrino and Astroparticle Physics

This is the report of neutrino and astroparticle physics working group at WHEPP-8. We present the discussions carried out during the workshop on selected topics in the above fields and also indicate progress made subsequently. The neutrino physics subgroup studied the possibilites of constraining neutrino masses, mixing and CPT violation in lepton sector from future experiments. Neutrino mass models in the context of abelian horizontal symmetries, warped extra dimensions and in presence of triplet Higgs were studied. Effect of threshold corrections on radiative magnification of mixing angles was investigated. The astroparticle physics subgroup focused on how various particle physics inputs affect the CMBR fluctuation spectrum, and on brane cosmology. This report also contains an introduction on how to use the publicly available code CMBFAST to calculate the CMBR fluctuations.Comment: Prepared for the 8th Workshop on High-Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP-8), IIT Mumbai, India, 5-16 Jan 200

Sequence-based prediction for vaccine strain selection and identification of antigenic variability in foot-and-mouth disease virus

Identifying when past exposure to an infectious disease will protect against newly emerging strains is central to understanding the spread and the severity of epidemics, but the prediction of viral cross-protection remains an important unsolved problem. For foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) research in particular, improved methods for predicting this cross-protection are critical for predicting the severity of outbreaks within endemic settings where multiple serotypes and subtypes commonly co-circulate, as well as for deciding whether appropriate vaccine(s) exist and how much they could mitigate the effects of any outbreak. To identify antigenic relationships and their predictors, we used linear mixed effects models to account for variation in pairwise cross-neutralization titres using only viral sequences and structural data. We identified those substitutions in surface-exposed structural proteins that are correlates of loss of cross-reactivity. These allowed prediction of both the best vaccine match for any single virus and the breadth of coverage of new vaccine candidates from their capsid sequences as effectively as or better than serology. Sub-sequences chosen by the model-building process all contained sites that are known epitopes on other serotypes. Furthermore, for the SAT1 serotype, for which epitopes have never previously been identified, we provide strong evidence - by controlling for phylogenetic structure - for the presence of three epitopes across a panel of viruses and quantify the relative significance of some individual residues in determining cross-neutralization. Identifying and quantifying the importance of sites that predict viral strain cross-reactivity not just for single viruses but across entire serotypes can help in the design of vaccines with better targeting and broader coverage. These techniques can be generalized to any infectious agents where cross-reactivity assays have been carried out. As the parameterization uses pre-existing datasets, this approach quickly and cheaply increases both our understanding of antigenic relationships and our power to control disease

Large Neutrino Mixing from Renormalization Group Evolution

The renormalization group evolution equation for two neutrino mixing is known to exhibit nontrivial fixed point structure corresponding to maximal mixing at the weak scale. The presence of the fixed point provides a natural explanation of the observed maximal mixing of $\nu_{\mu}-\nu_{\tau}$ if the $\nu_{\mu}$ and $\nu_{\tau}$ are assumed to be quasi-degenerate at the seesaw scale without constraining on the mixing angles at that scale. In particular, it allows them to be similar to the quark mixings as in generic grand unified theories. We discuss implementation of this program in the case of MSSM and find that the predicted mixing remains stable and close to its maximal value, for all energies below the $O$(TeV) SUSY scale. We also discuss how a particular realization of this idea can be tested in neutrinoless double beta decay experiments.Comment: Latex file, 21 pages and 4 ps figures include