Systematics of heavy-ion fusion hindrance at extreme sub-barrier energies

The recent discovery of hindrance in heavy-ion induced fusion reactions at extreme sub-barrier energies represents a challenge for theoretical models. Previously, it has been shown that in medium-heavy systems, the onset of fusion hindrance depends strongly on the "stiffness" of the nuclei in the entrance channel. In this work, we explore its dependence on the total mass and the $Q$-value of the fusing systems and find that the fusion hindrance depends in a systematic way on the entrance channel properties over a wide range of systems.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett., 5 pages, 3 figure

Age and size at maturity: sex, environmental variability and developmental thresholds

In most organisms, transitions between different life-history stages occur later and at smaller sizes as growth conditions deteriorate. Day and Rowe recently proposed that this pattern could be explained by the existence of developmental thresholds (minimum sizes or levels of condition below which transitions are unable to proceed). The developmental-threshold model predicts that the reaction norm of age and size at maturity will rotate in an anticlockwise manner from positive to a shallow negative slope if: (i) initial body size or condition is reduced; and/or (ii) some individuals encounter poor growth conditions at increasingly early developmental stages. We tested these predictions by rearing replicated populations of soil mites Sancassania berlesei (Michael) under different growth conditions. High-food environments produced a vertical relationship between age and size at maturity. The slope became increasingly shallow as food was reduced. By contrast, high food in the maternal environment reduced the slope of the reaction norm of age and size at maturity, whereas low food increased it. Overall, the reaction norm of age and size at maturity in S. berlesei was significantly nonlinear and differed for males and females. We describe how growth conditions, mother's environment and sex determine age and size at maturity in S. berlesei

Mutant p53 establishes targetable tumor dependency by promoting unscheduled replication

Gain-of-function (GOF) p53 mutations are observed frequently in most intractable human cancers and establish dependency for tumor maintenance and progression. While some of the genes induced by GOF p53 have been implicated in more rapid cell proliferation compared with p53-null cancer cells, the mechanism for dependency of tumor growth on mutant p53 is unknown. This report reveals a therapeutically targetable mechanism for GOF p53 dependency. We have shown that GOF p53 increases DNA replication origin firing, stabilizes replication forks, and promotes micronuclei formation, thus facilitating the proliferation of cells with genomic abnormalities. In contrast, absence or depletion of GOF p53 leads to decreased origin firing and a higher frequency of fork collapse in isogenic cells, explaining their poorer proliferation rate. Following genome-wide analyses utilizing ChIP-Seq and RNA-Seq, GOF p53–induced origin firing, micronuclei formation, and fork protection were traced to the ability of GOF p53 to transactivate cyclin A and CHK1. Highlighting the therapeutic potential of CHK1’s role in GOF p53 dependency, experiments in cell culture and mouse xenografts demonstrated that inhibition of CHK1 selectively blocked proliferation of cells and tumors expressing GOF p53. Our data suggest the possibility that checkpoint inhibitors could efficiently and selectively target cancers expressing GOF p53 alleles

Probing anharmonic properties of nuclear surface vibration by heavy-ion fusion reactions

Describing fusion reactions between ^{16}O and ^{154}Dy and, between ^{16}O and ^{144}Sm by the $sd-$ and $sdf-$ interacting boson model, we show that heavy-ion fusion reactions are strongly affected by anharmonic properties of nuclear surface vibrations and nuclear shape, and thus provide a powerful method to study details of nuclear structure and dynamics.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, To be published in the Proceedings of the FUSION 97 Conference, South Durras, Australia, March 1997 (J. Phys. G

Description of Nuclear Structure Effects in Subbarrier Fusion by the Interacting Boson Model

Recent theoretical developments in using the Interacting Boson Model to describe nuclear structure effects in fusion reactions below the Coulomb barrier are reviewed. Methods dealing with linear and all orders coupling between the nuclear excitations and the translational motion are discussed, and the latter is found to lead to a better description of the barrier distribution data. A systematic study of the available data (cross sections, barrier and spin distributions) in rare-earth nuclei is presented.Comment: 9 pages + 2 Figures (in eps form). To be published in the Proceedings of the FUSION97 Conference, South Durras, Australia, March 1997 (J. Phys. G). Full text and figures are also available at http://nucth.physics.wisc.edu/preprints/mad-nt-97-01.abs.htm

Complete Fusion Enhancement and Suppression of Weakly Bound Nuclei at Near Barrier Energies

We consider the influence of breakup channels on the complete fusion of weakly bound systems in terms of dynamic polarization potentials. It is argued that the enhancement of the cross section at sub-barrier energies may be consistent with recent experimental observations that nucleon transfer, often leading to breakup, is dominant compared to direct breakup. The main trends of the experimental complete fusion cross section for $^{6,7}$Li + $^{209}$Bi are analyzed in the framework of the DPP approach.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Radio Continuum Emission at 1.4 GHz from KISS Emission-Line Galaxies

We have searched the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters (FIRST) and the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) 1.4 GHz radio surveys for sources that are coincident with emission-line galaxy (ELG) candidates from the KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey (KISS). A total of 207 of the 2157 KISS ELGs (~10%) in the first two H-alpha-selected survey lists were found to possess radio detections in FIRST and/or NVSS. Follow-up spectra exist for all of the radio detections, allowing us to determine the activity type (star-forming vs. AGN) for the entire sample. We explore the properties of the radio-detected KISS galaxies in order to gain a better insight into the nature of radio-emitting galaxies in the local universe (z < 0.1). No dwarf galaxies were detected, despite the large numbers of low-luminosity galaxies present in KISS, suggesting that lower mass, lower luminosity objects do not possess strong galaxian-scale magnetic fields. Due to the selection technique used for KISS, our radio ELGs represent a quasi-volume-limited sample, which allows us to develop a clearer picture of the radio galaxy population at low redshift. Nearly 2/3rds of the KISS radio galaxies are starburst/star-forming galaxies, which is in stark contrast to the results of flux-limited radio surveys that are dominated by AGNs and elliptical galaxies (i.e., classic radio galaxies). While there are many AGNs among the KISS radio galaxies, there are no objects with large radio powers in our local volume. We derive a radio luminosity function (RLF) for the KISS ELGs that agrees very well with previous RLFs that adequately sample the lower-luminosity radio population.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal (April 2004); 23 pages, 16 figure

Path integral approach to no-Coriolis approximation in heavy-ion collisions

We use the two time influence functional method of the path integral approach in order to reduce the dimension of the coupled-channels equations for heavy-ion reactions based on the no-Coriolis approximation. Our method is superior to other methods in that it easily enables us to study the cases where the initial spin of the colliding particle is not zero. It can also be easily applied to the cases where the internal degrees of freedom are not necessarily collective coordinates. We also clarify the underlying assumptions in our approach.Comment: 11 pages, Latex, Phys. Rev. C in pres