Treatment of staphylococcal infections with cyclic lipopeptides

AbstractDaptomycin is the first of a new class of antibiotics, the cyclic lipopeptides, for which a novel mechanism of action is hypothesised. Owing to its mode of action, daptomycin is rapidly bactericidal without being bacteriolytic, is active against static- and growing-phase bacteria, and has a low resistance rate in vitro. Phase III clinical trials have demonstrated that daptomycin is as effective as standard therapy for the treatment of complicated skin and soft-tissue infections associated with Gram-positive infections, and daptomycin-treated patients benefited from a reduced time to clinical resolution. Daptomycin has also been shown to be as effective as standard therapy in the treatment of bacteraemia associated with Staphylococcus aureus, with or without endocarditis. These results indicate that daptomycin is a useful therapeutic option for treating Gram-positive infections, particularly those caused by S. aureus

Behaviour of the energy gap near a commensurate-incommensurate transition in double layer quantum Hall systems at nu=1

The charged excitations in the system of the title are vortex-antivortex pairs in the spin-texture described in the theory by Yang et al which, in the commensurate phase, are bound together by a ``string''. It is shown that their excitation energy drops as the string lengthens as the parallel magnetic field approaches the critical value, then goes up again in the incommensurate phase. This produces a sharp downward cusp at the critical point. An alternative description based on the role of disorder in the tunnelling and which appears not to produce a minimum in the excitation energy is also discussed. It is suggested that a similar transition could also occur in compressible Fermi-liquid-like states.Comment: latex file, 17 page

Hund's Rule for Composite Fermions

We consider the ``fractional quantum Hall atom" in the vanishing Zeeman energy limit, and investigate the validity of Hund's maximum-spin rule for interacting electrons in various Landau levels. While it is not valid for {\em electrons} in the lowest Landau level, there are regions of filling factors where it predicts the ground state spin correctly {\em provided it is applied to composite fermions}. The composite fermion theory also reveals a ``self-similar" structure in the filling factor range $4/3>\nu>2/3$.Comment: 10 pages, revte

Fractional Quantum Hall States in Low-Zeeman-Energy Limit

We investigate the spectrum of interacting electrons at arbitrary filling factors in the limit of vanishing Zeeman splitting. The composite fermion theory successfully explains the low-energy spectrum {\em provided the composite fermions are treated as hard-core}.Comment: 12 pages, revte

Measurements of the Composite Fermion masses from the spin polarization of 2-D electrons in the region 1<ν<21<\nu<2

Measurements of the reflectivity of a 2-D electron gas are used to deduce the polarization of the Composite Fermion hole system formed for Landau level occupancies in the regime 1<\nu<2. The measurements are consistent with the formation of a mixed spin CF system and allow the density of states or `polarization' effective mass of the CF holes to be determined. The mass values at \nu=3/2 are found to be ~1.9m_{e} for electron densities of 4.4 x 10^{11} cm^{-2}, which is significantly larger than those found from measurements of the energy gaps at finite values of effective magnetic field.Comment: 4 pages, 3 fig

Nonlinear screening and percolative transition in a two-dimensional electron liquid

A novel variational method is proposed for calculating the percolation threshold, the real-space structure, and the thermodynamical compressibility of a disordered two-dimensional electron liquid. Its high accuracy is verified against prior numerical results and newly derived exact asymptotics. The inverse compressibility is shown to have a strongly asymmetric minimum at a density that is approximately the triple of the percolation threshold. This implies that the experimentally observed metal-insulator transition takes place well before the percolation point is reached.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. (v2) minor changes (v3) reference added (v4) few more references adde

Tunneling from a correlated 2D electron system transverse to a magnetic field

We show that, in a magnetic field parallel to the 2D electron layer, strong electron correlations change the rate of tunneling from the layer exponentially. It results in a specific density dependence of the escape rate. The mechanism is a dynamical Mossbauer-type recoil, in which the Hall momentum of the tunneling electron is partly transferred to the whole electron system, depending on the interrelation between the rate of interelectron momentum exchange and the tunneling duration. We also show that, in a certain temperature range, magnetic field can enhance rather than suppress the tunneling rate. The effect is due to the magnetic field induced energy exchange between the in-plane and out-of-plane motion. Magnetic field can also induce switching between intra-well states from which the system tunnels, and a transition from tunneling to thermal activation. Explicit results are obtained for a Wigner crystal. They are in qualitative and quantitative agreement with the relevant experimental data, with no adjustable parameters.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figure

Energy, interaction, and photoluminescence of spin-reversed quasielectrons in fractional quantum Hall systems

The energy and photoluminescence spectra of a two-dimensional electron gas in the fractional quantum Hall regime are studied. The single-particle properties of reversed-spin quasielectrons (QE$_{\rm R}$'s) as well as the pseudopotentials of their interaction with one another and with Laughlin quasielectrons (QE's) and quasiholes (QH's) are calculated. Based on the short-range character of the QE$_{\rm R}$--QE$_{\rm R}$ and QE$_{\rm R}$--QE repulsion, the partially unpolarized incompressible states at the filling factors $\nu={4\over11}$ and ${5\over13}$ are postulated within Haldane's hierarchy scheme. To describe photoluminescence, the family of bound $h($QE$_{\rm R})_n$ states of a valence hole $h$ and $n$ QE$_{\rm R}$'s are predicted in analogy to the found earlier fractionally charged excitons $h$QE$_n$. The binding energy and optical selection rules for both families are compared. The $h$QE$_{\rm R}$ is found radiative in contrast to the dark $h$QE, and the $h($QE$_{\rm R})_2$ is found non-radiative in contrast to the bright $h$QE$_2$.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Edge Dynamics in Quantum Hall Bilayers II: Exact Results with Disorder and Parallel Fields

We study edge dynamics in the presence of interlayer tunneling, parallel magnetic field, and various types of disorder for two infinite sequences of quantum Hall states in symmetric bilayers. These sequences begin with the 110 and 331 Halperin states and include their fractional descendants at lower filling factors; the former is easily realized experimentally while the latter is a candidate for the experimentally observed quantum Hall state at a total filling factor of 1/2 in bilayers. We discuss the experimentally interesting observables that involve just one chiral edge of the sample and the correlation functions needed for computing them. We present several methods for obtaining exact results in the presence of interactions and disorder which rely on the chiral character of the system. Of particular interest are our results on the 331 state which suggest that a time-resolved measurement at the edge can be used to discriminate between the 331 and Pfaffian scenarios for the observed quantum Hall state at filling factor 1/2 in realistic double-layer systems.Comment: revtex+epsf; two-up postscript at http://www.sns.ias.edu/~leonid/ntwoup.p

Electromagnetic characteristics of bilayer quantum Hall systems in the presence of interlayer coherence and tunneling

The electromagnetic characteristics of bilayer quantum Hall systems in the presence of interlayer coherence and tunneling are studied by means of a pseudospin-texture effective theory and an algebraic framework of the single-mode approximation, with emphasis on clarifying the nature of the low-lying neutral collective mode responsible for interlayer tunneling phenomena. A long-wavelength effective theory, consisting of the collective mode as well as the cyclotron modes, is constructed. It is seen explicitly from the electromagnetic response that gauge invariance is kept exact, this implying, in particular, the absence of the Meissner effect in bilayer systems. Special emphasis is placed on exploring the advantage of looking into quantum Hall systems through their response; in particular, subtleties inherent to the standard Chern-Simons theories are critically examined.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, to appear in Phys. Rev.