379 research outputs found
2015 researcher's mini-symposium
Postgraduate researchers from the Faculties of Science, Engineering, Medicine & Surgery and Health Sciences gathered for a forum to present their research interests. The symposium was held in the afternoon of 30
January 2015 in the Engineering Lecture Theatre.
The symposium promoted multi-disciplinary networking between various university faculties. Participants
were invited based on research topic diversity and
gender balance.peer-reviewe
Boost-Invariant Running Couplings in Effective Hamiltonians
We apply a boost-invariant similarity renormalization group procedure to a
light-front Hamiltonian of a scalar field phi of bare mass mu and interaction
term g phi^3 in 6 dimensions using 3rd order perturbative expansion in powers
of the coupling constant g. The initial Hamiltonian is regulated using momentum
dependent factors that approach 1 when a cutoff parameter Delta tends to
infinity. The similarity flow of corresponding effective Hamiltonians is
integrated analytically and two counterterms depending on Delta are obtained in
the initial Hamiltonian: a change in mu and a change of g. In addition, the
interaction vertex requires a Delta-independent counterterm that contains a
boost invariant function of momenta of particles participating in the
interaction. The resulting effective Hamiltonians contain a running coupling
constant that exhibits asymptotic freedom. The evolution of the coupling with
changing width of effective Hamiltonians agrees with results obtained using
Feynman diagrams and dimensional regularization when one identifies the
renormalization scale with the width. The effective light-front Schroedinger
equation is equally valid in a whole class of moving frames of reference
including the infinite momentum frame. Therefore, the calculation described
here provides an interesting pattern one can attempt to follow in the case of
Hamiltonians applicable in particle physics.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX, included discussion of finite x-dependent
counterterm
Long-term microcarrier suspension cultures of human embryonic stem cells
AbstractThe conventional method of culturing human embryonic stem cells (hESC) is on two-dimensional (2D) surfaces, which is not amenable for scale up to therapeutic quantities in bioreactors. We have developed a facile and robust method for maintaining undifferentiated hESC in three-dimensional (3D) suspension cultures on matrigel-coated microcarriers achieving 2- to 4-fold higher cell densities than those in 2D colony cultures. Stable, continuous propagation of two hESC lines on microcarriers has been demonstrated in conditioned media for 6 months. Microcarrier cultures (MC) were also demonstrated in two serum-free defined media (StemPro and mTeSR1). MC achieved even higher cell concentrations in suspension spinner flasks, thus opening the prospect of propagation in controlled bioreactors
Renormalized Poincar\'e algebra for effective particles in quantum field theory
Using an expansion in powers of an infinitesimally small coupling constant
, all generators of the Poincar\'e group in local scalar quantum field
theory with interaction term are expressed in terms of annihilation
and creation operators and that result from a
boost-invariant renormalization group procedure for effective particles. The
group parameter is equal to the momentum-space width of form factors
that appear in vertices of the effective-particle Hamiltonians, . It
is verified for terms order 1, , and , that the calculated generators
satisfy required commutation relations for arbitrary values of .
One-particle eigenstates of are shown to properly transform under
all Poincar\'e transformations. The transformations are obtained by
exponentiating the calculated algebra. From a phenomenological point of view,
this study is a prerequisite to construction of observables such as spin and
angular momentum of hadrons in quantum chromodynamics.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure
Anthropogenic Space Weather
Anthropogenic effects on the space environment started in the late 19th
century and reached their peak in the 1960s when high-altitude nuclear
explosions were carried out by the USA and the Soviet Union. These explosions
created artificial radiation belts near Earth that resulted in major damages to
several satellites. Another, unexpected impact of the high-altitude nuclear
tests was the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can have devastating effects
over a large geographic area (as large as the continental United States). Other
anthropogenic impacts on the space environment include chemical release ex-
periments, high-frequency wave heating of the ionosphere and the interaction of
VLF waves with the radiation belts. This paper reviews the fundamental physical
process behind these phenomena and discusses the observations of their impacts.Comment: 71 pages, 35 figure
Special relativity constraints on the effective constituent theory of hybrids
We consider a simplified constituent model for relativistic
strong-interaction decays of hybrid mesons. The model is constructed using
rules of renormalization group procedure for effective particles in light-front
quantum field theory, which enables us to introduce low-energy phenomenological
parameters. Boost covariance is kinematical and special relativity constraints
are reduced to the requirements of rotational symmetry. For a hybrid meson
decaying into two mesons through dissociation of a constituent gluon into a
quark-anti-quark pair, the simplified constituent model leads to a rotationally
symmetric decay amplitude if the hybrid meson state is made of a constituent
gluon and a quark-anti-quark pair of size several times smaller than the
distance between the gluon and the pair, as if the pair originated from one
gluon in a gluonium state in the same effective theory.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
Effective interaction between helical bio-molecules
The effective interaction between two parallel strands of helical
bio-molecules, such as deoxyribose nucleic acids (DNA), is calculated using
computer simulations of the "primitive" model of electrolytes. In particular we
study a simple model for B-DNA incorporating explicitly its charge pattern as a
double-helix structure. The effective force and the effective torque exerted
onto the molecules depend on the central distance and on the relative
orientation. The contributions of nonlinear screening by monovalent counterions
to these forces and torques are analyzed and calculated for different salt
concentrations. As a result, we find that the sign of the force depends
sensitively on the relative orientation. For intermolecular distances smaller
than it can be both attractive and repulsive. Furthermore we report a
nonmonotonic behaviour of the effective force for increasing salt
concentration. Both features cannot be described within linear screening
theories. For large distances, on the other hand, the results agree with linear
screening theories provided the charge of the bio-molecules is suitably
renormalized.Comment: 18 pages, 18 figures included in text, 100 bibliog
Organic nitrate aerosol formation via NO³ + biogenic volatile organic compounds in the southeastern United States
Gas- and aerosol-phase measurements of oxidants, biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) and organic nitrates made during the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Study (SOAS campaign, Summer 2013) in central Alabama show that a nitrate radical (NO₃) reaction with monoterpenes leads to significant secondary aerosol formation. Cumulative losses of NO₃ to terpenes are correlated with increase in gasand aerosol-organic nitrate concentrations made during the campaign. Correlation of NO₃ radical consumption to organic nitrate aerosol formation as measured by aerosol mass spectrometry and thermal dissociation laser-induced fluorescence suggests a molar yield of aerosol-phase monoterpene nitrates of 23–44 %. Compounds observed via chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CIMS) are correlated to predicted nitrate loss to BVOCs and show C₁₀H₁₇NO₅, likely a hydroperoxy nitrate, is a major nitrate-oxidized terpene product being incorporated into aerosols. The comparable isoprene product C₅H₉NO₅ was observed to contribute less than 1% of the total organic nitrate in the aerosol phase and correlations show that it is principally a gas-phase product from nitrate oxidation of isoprene. Organic nitrates comprise between 30 and 45% of the NOy budget during SOAS. Inorganic nitrates were also monitored and showed that during incidents of increased coarse-mode mineral dust, HNO₃ uptake produced nitrate aerosol mass loading at a rate comparable to that of organic nitrate produced via NO₃ CBVOCs
Does accelerating universe indicates Brans-Dicke theory
The evolution of universe in Brans-Dicke (BD) theory is discussed in this
paper.
Considering a parameterized scenario for BD scalar field
which plays the role of gravitational "constant" ,
we apply the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to investigate a global
constraints on BD theory with a self-interacting potential according to the
current observational data: Union2 dataset of type supernovae Ia (SNIa),
high-redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) data, observational Hubble data (OHD),
the cluster X-ray gas mass fraction, the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), and
the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. It is shown that an expanded
universe from deceleration to acceleration is given in this theory, and the
constraint results of dimensionless matter density and parameter
are, and
which is consistent with the
result of current experiment exploration, . In
addition, we use the geometrical diagnostic method, jerk parameter , to
distinguish the BD theory and cosmological constant model in Einstein's theory
of general relativity.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure
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