Ondansetron does not inhibit the analgesic effect of alfentanil

5-Hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) causes antinociception via presynaptic 5-HT3 (5-HT subtype 3) receptors on primary afferent nociceptive neurones in the spinal cord dorsal horn. Therefore, ondansetron (a 5-HT3 receptor antagonist) may increase the perception of a noxious stimulus or decrease the effects of concurrently administered antinociceptive drugs. Using a randomized, doubleblind, crossover study design, we have tested this hypothesis in eight healthy volunteers who, on three different days, received either ondansetron and placebo, ondansetron and alfentanil or placebo and alfentanil. Experimental pain was induced with heat, cold, mechanical pressure and electrical stimulation. Ondansetron alone did not change the response to any of the experimental tests, but alfentanil and the combination ondansetron- alfentanil significantly changed the response compared with ondansetron alone. There was no difference between alfentanil alone and the combination ondansetron-alfentanil. We conclude that ondansetron does not change the response to pressure, heat, cold or electrical nociceptive stimuli or antagonize the analgesic effect of alfentani

Tachyon Tube and Supertube

We search for tubular solutions in unstable D3-brane. With critical electric field E=1, solutions representing supertubes, which are supersymmetric bound states of fundamental strings, D0-branes, and a cylindrical D2-brane, are found and shown to exhibit BPS-like property. We also point out that boosting such a {\it tachyon tube} solution generates string flux winding around the tube, resulting in helical electric fluxes on the D2-brane. We also discuss issues related to fundamental string, absence of magnetic monopole, and finally more tachyon tubes with noncritical electric field.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure

Non-Abelian Chern-Simons Particles and their Quantization

A many--body Schr\"odinger equation for non--Abelian Chern--Simons particles is obtained from both point--particle and field--theoretic pictures. We present a particle Lagrangian and a field theoretic Lagrange density, and discuss their properties. Both are quantized by the symplectic method of Hamiltonian reduction. An $N$--body Schr\"odinger equation for the particles is obtained from both starting points. It is shown that the resulting interaction between particles can be replaced by non--trivial boundary conditions. Also, the equation is compared with the one given in the literature.Comment: 18 pages, MIT preprint CTP # 227

Critical behavior of certain antiferromagnets with complicated ordering: Four-loop \ve-expansion analysis

The critical behavior of a complex N-component order parameter Ginzburg-Landau model with isotropic and cubic interactions describing antiferromagnetic and structural phase transitions in certain crystals with complicated ordering is studied in the framework of the four-loop renormalization group (RG) approach in (4-\ve) dimensions. By using dimensional regularization and the minimal subtraction scheme, the perturbative expansions for RG functions are deduced and resummed by the Borel-Leroy transformation combined with a conformal mapping. Investigation of the global structure of RG flows for the physically significant cases N=2 and N=3 shows that the model has an anisotropic stable fixed point governing the continuous phase transitions with new critical exponents. This is supported by the estimate of the critical dimensionality $N_c=1.445(20)$ obtained from six loops via the exact relation $N_c={1/2} n_c$ established for the complex and real hypercubic models.Comment: LaTeX, 16 pages, no figures. Expands on cond-mat/0109338 and includes detailed formula

Entanglement Entropy from a Holographic Viewpoint

The entanglement entropy has been historically studied by many authors in order to obtain quantum mechanical interpretations of the gravitational entropy. The discovery of AdS/CFT correspondence leads to the idea of holographic entanglement entropy, which is a clear solution to this important problem in gravity. In this article, we would like to give a quick survey of recent progresses on the holographic entanglement entropy. We focus on its gravitational aspects, so that it is comprehensible to those who are familiar with general relativity and basics of quantum field theory.Comment: Latex, 30 pages, invited review for Classical and Quantum Gravity, minor correction

Dispersion measure variability for 36 millisecond pulsars at 150MHz with LOFAR

Context. Radio pulses from pulsars are affected by plasma dispersion, which results in a frequency-dependent propagation delay. Variations in the magnitude of this effect lead to an additional source of red noise in pulsar timing experiments, including pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) that aim to detect nanohertz gravitational waves. Aims. We aim to quantify the time-variable dispersion with much improved precision and characterise the spectrum of these variations. Methods. We use the pulsar timing technique to obtain highly precise dispersion measure (DM) time series. Our dataset consists of observations of 36 millisecond pulsars, which were observed for up to 7.1 yr with the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) telescope at a centre frequency of ~150 MHz. Seventeen of these sources were observed with a weekly cadence, while the rest were observed at monthly cadence. Results. We achieve a median DM precision of the order of 10−5 cm−3 pc for a significant fraction of our sources. We detect significant variations of the DM in all pulsars with a median DM uncertainty of less than 2 × 10−4 cm−3 pc. The noise contribution to pulsar timing experiments at higher frequencies is calculated to be at a level of 0.1–10 μs at 1.4 GHz over a timespan of a few years, which is in many cases larger than the typical timing precision of 1 μs or better that PTAs aim for. We found no evidence for a dependence of DM on radio frequency for any of the sources in our sample. Conclusions. The DM time series we obtained using LOFAR could in principle be used to correct higher-frequency data for the variations of the dispersive delay. However, there is currently the practical restriction that pulsars tend to provide either highly precise times of arrival (ToAs) at 1.4 GHz or a high DM precision at low frequencies, but not both, due to spectral properties. Combining the higher-frequency ToAs with those from LOFAR to measure the infinite-frequency ToA and DM would improve the result

The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey: Timing of 35 radio pulsars and an overview of the properties of the LOFAR pulsar discoveries

The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey (LOTAAS) is the most sensitive untargeted radio pulsar survey performed at low radio frequencies (119-151 MHz) to date and has discovered 76 new radio pulsars, including the 23.5-s pulsar J0250+5854, which up until recently was the slowest spinning radio pulsar known. In this paper, we report on the timing solutions of 35 pulsars discovered by LOTAAS, which include a nulling pulsar and a mildly recycled pulsar, and thereby complete the full timing analysis of the LOTAAS pulsar discoveries. We give an overview of the findings from the full LOTAAS sample of 76 pulsars, discussing their pulse profiles, radio spectra, and timing parameters. We found that the pulse profiles of some of the pulsars show profile variations in time or frequency, and while some pulsars show signs of scattering, a large majority display no pulse broadening. The LOTAAS discoveries have on average steeper radio spectra and longer spin periods (1.4 7), as well as lower spin-down rates (3.1 7) compared to the known pulsar population. We discuss the cause of these differences and attribute them to a combination of selection effects of the LOTAAS survey as well as previous pulsar surveys, though we cannot rule out that older pulsars tend to have steeper radio spectra