2,015 research outputs found
Crystal sedimentation and stone formation
Mechanisms of crystal collision being the first step of aggregation (AGN) were analyzed for calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) directly produced in urine. COM was produced by oxalate titration in urine of seven healthy men, in solutions of urinary macromolecules and in buffered distilled water (control). Crystal formation and sedimentation were followed by a spectrophotometer and analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. Viscosity of urine was measured at 37°C. From results, sedimentation rate (vS), particle diffusion (D) and incidences of collision of particles in suspension by sedimentation (IS) and by diffusion (ID) were calculated. Calculations were related to average volume and urinary transit time of renal collecting ducts (CD) and of renal pelvis. vS was in urine 0.026 ± 0.012, in UMS 0.022 ± 0.01 and in control 0.091 ± 0.02 cm min−1 (mean ± SD). For urine, a D of 9.53 ± 0.97 μm within 1 min can be calculated. At maximal crystal concentration, IS was only 0.12 and ID was 0.48 min−1 cm−3 which, even at an unrealistic permanent and maximal crystalluria, would only correspond to less than one crystal collision/week/CD, whereas to the same tubular wall being in horizontal position 1.3 crystals/min and to a renal stone 624 crystals/cm2 min could drop by sedimentation. Sedimentation to renal tubular or pelvic wall, where crystals can accumulate and meet with a tissue calcification or a stone, is probably essential for stone formation. Since vS mainly depends on particle size, reducing urinary supersaturation and crystal growth by dietary oxalate restriction seems to be an important measure to prevent aggregation
D3-brane Potentials from Fluxes in AdS/CFT
We give a comprehensive treatment of the scalar potential for a D3-brane in a
warped conifold region of a compactification with stabilized moduli. By
studying general ultraviolet perturbations in supergravity, we systematically
incorporate `compactification effects' sourced by supersymmetry breaking in the
compact space. Significant contributions to the D3-brane potential, including
the leading term in the infrared, arise from imaginary anti-self-dual (IASD)
fluxes. For an arbitrary Calabi-Yau cone, we determine the most general IASD
fluxes in terms of scalar harmonics, then compute the resulting D3-brane
potential. Specializing to the conifold, we identify the operator dual to each
mode of flux, and for chiral operators we confirm that the potential computed
in the gauge theory matches the gravity result. The effects of four-dimensional
curvature, including the leading D3-brane mass term, arise directly from the
ten-dimensional equations of motion. Furthermore, we show that gaugino
condensation on D7-branes provides a local source for IASD flux. This flux
precisely encodes the nonperturbative contributions to the D3-brane potential,
yielding a promising ten-dimensional representation of four-dimensional
nonperturbative effects. Our result encompasses all significant contributions
to the D3-brane potential discussed in the literature, and does so in the
single coherent framework of ten-dimensional supergravity. Moreover, we
identify new terms with irrational scaling dimensions that were inaccessible in
prior works. By decoupling gravity in a noncompact configuration, then
systematically reincorporating compactification effects as ultraviolet
perturbations, we have provided an approach in which Planck-suppressed
contributions to the D3-brane effective action can be computed.Comment: 70 page
Is there a no-go theorem for superradiant quantum phase transitions in cavity and circuit QED ?
In cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), the interaction between an atomic
transition and the cavity field is measured by the vacuum Rabi frequency
. The analogous term "circuit QED" has been introduced for Josephson
junctions, because superconducting circuits behave as artificial atoms coupled
to the bosonic field of a resonator. In the regime with comparable
to the two-level transition frequency, "superradiant" quantum phase transitions
for the cavity vacuum have been predicted, e.g. within the Dicke model. Here,
we prove that if the time-independent light-matter Hamiltonian is considered, a
superradiant quantum critical point is forbidden for electric dipole atomic
transitions due to the oscillator strength sum rule. In circuit QED, the
capacitive coupling is analogous to the electric dipole one: yet, such no-go
property can be circumvented by Cooper pair boxes capacitively coupled to a
resonator, due to their peculiar Hilbert space topology and a violation of the
corresponding sum rule
Anomalous Dimensions and Non-Gaussianity
We analyze the signatures of inflationary models that are coupled to strongly
interacting field theories, a basic class of multifield models also motivated
by their role in providing dynamically small scales. Near the squeezed limit of
the bispectrum, we find a simple scaling behavior determined by operator
dimensions, which are constrained by the appropriate unitarity bounds.
Specifically, we analyze two simple and calculable classes of examples:
conformal field theories (CFTs), and large-N CFTs deformed by relevant
time-dependent double-trace operators. Together these two classes of examples
exhibit a wide range of scalings and shapes of the bispectrum, including nearly
equilateral, orthogonal and local non-Gaussianity in different regimes. Along
the way, we compare and contrast the shape and amplitude with previous results
on weakly coupled fields coupled to inflation. This signature provides a
precision test for strongly coupled sectors coupled to inflation via irrelevant
operators suppressed by a high mass scale up to 1000 times the inflationary
Hubble scale.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figure
A simplified structure for the second order cosmological perturbation equations
Increasingly accurate observations of the cosmic microwave background and the
large scale distribution of galaxies necessitate the study of nonlinear
perturbations of Friedmann-Lemaitre cosmologies, whose equations are
notoriously complicated. In this paper we present a new derivation of the
governing equations for second order perturbations within the framework of the
metric-based approach that is minimal, as regards amount of calculation and
length of expressions, and flexible, as regards choice of gauge and
stress-energy tensor. Because of their generality and the simplicity of their
structure our equations provide a convenient starting point for determining the
behaviour of nonlinear perturbations of FL cosmologies with any given
stress-energy content, using either the Poisson gauge or the uniform curvature
gauge.Comment: 30 pages, no figures. Changed title to the one in published version
and some minor changes and addition
On Loops in Inflation III: Time Independence of zeta in Single Clock Inflation
Studying loop corrections to inflationary perturbations, with particular
emphasis on infrared factors, is important to understand the consistency of the
inflationary theory, its predictivity and to establish the existence of the
slow-roll eternal inflation phenomena and its recently found volume bound. In
this paper we prove that the zeta correlation function is time-independent at
one-loop level in single clock inflation. While many of the one-loop diagrams
lead to a time-dependence when considered individually, the time-dependence
beautifully cancels out in the overall sum. We identify two subsets of diagrams
that cancel separately due to different physical reasons. The first
cancellation is related to the change of the background cosmology due to the
renormalization of the stress tensor. It results in a cancellation between the
non-1PI diagrams and some of the diagrams made with quartic vertices. The
second subset of diagrams that cancel is made up of cubic operators, plus the
remaining quartic ones. We are able to write the sum of these diagrams as the
integral over a specific three-point function between two very short
wavelengths and one very long one. We then apply the consistency condition for
this three-point function in the squeezed limit to show that the sum of these
diagrams cannot give rise to a time dependence. This second cancellation is
thus a consequence of the fact that in single clock inflation the attractor
nature of the solution implies that a long wavelength zeta perturbation is
indistinguishable from a trivial rescaling of the background, and so results in
no physical effect on short wavelength modes.Comment: 47 pages, 7 figures; v2: JHEP published version, typos and minor
correction
Effects of attention and perceptual uncertainty on cerebellar activity during visual motion perception
Recent clinical and neuroimaging studies have revealed that the human cerebellum plays a role in visual motion perception, but the nature of its contribution to this function is not understood. Some reports suggest that the cerebellum might facilitate motion perception by aiding attentive tracking of visual objects. Others have identified a particular role for the cerebellum in discriminating motion signals in perceptually uncertain conditions. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine the degree to which cerebellar involvement in visual motion perception can be explained by a role in sustained attentive tracking of moving stimuli in contrast to a role in visual motion discrimination. While holding the visual displays constant, we manipulated attention by having participants attend covertly to a field of random-dot motion or a colored spot at fixation. Perceptual uncertainty was manipulated by varying the percentage of signal dots contained within the random-dot arrays. We found that attention to motion under high perceptual uncertainty was associated with strong activity in left cerebellar lobules VI and VII. By contrast, attending to motion under low perceptual uncertainty did not cause differential activation in the cerebellum. We found no evidence to support the suggestion that the cerebellum is involved in simple attentive tracking of salient moving objects. Instead, our results indicate that specific subregions of the cerebellum are involved in facilitating the detection and discrimination of task-relevant moving objects under conditions of high perceptual uncertainty. We conclude that the cerebellum aids motion perception under conditions of high perceptual demand
Towards multi-scale dynamics on the baryonic branch of Klebanov-Strassler
We construct explicitly a new class of backgrounds in type-IIB supergravity
which generalize the baryonic branch of Klebanov-Strassler. We apply a
solution-generating technique that, starting from a large class of solutions of
the wrapped-D5 system, yields the new solutions, and then proceed to study in
detail their properties, both in the IR and in the UV. We propose a simple
intuitive field theory interpretation of the rotation procedure and of the
meaning of our new solutions within the Papadopoulos-Tseytlin ansatz, in
particular in relation to the duality cascade in the Klebanov-Strassler
solution. The presence in the field theory of different VEVs for operators of
dimensions 2, 3 and 6 suggests that this is an important step towards the
construction of the string dual of a genuinely multi-scale (strongly coupled)
dynamical model.Comment: 37 pages, 7 figures. References added, version to appear in JHE
Parathyroid autotransplantation in extensive head and neck resections: case series report
Permanent or temporary hypoparathyroidism may be a debilitating result of radical cervical surgery, as noted most commonly following thyroid or parathyroid surgery. However, it can also be the outcome of any surgical procedure involving bilateral extensive manipulation of the anterior neck triangle, especially in order to ensure oncologically adequate surgical margins
Scalar and vector mesons of flavor chiral symmetry breaking in the Klebanov-Strassler background
Recently, Dymarsky, Kuperstein and Sonnenschein constructed an embedding of
flavor D7- and anti-D7-branes in the Klebanov-Strassler geometry that breaks
the supersymmetry of the background, yet is stable. In this article, we study
in detail the spectrum of vector mesons in this new model of flavor chiral
symmetry breaking and commence an analytical analysis of the scalar mesons in
this setup.Comment: v1: 35 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables, includes self-contained review of
DKS construction; v2: corrected signs in eqs. (2.22) and (2.23), improved
discussion of scalar mesons in section 3.2; v3: major revision of the results
on scalar mesons, version submitted to JHEP; v4: version accepted by JHE
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