Goldberger-Treiman relation and Wu-type experiment in the decuplet sector

The leading-order chiral Lagrangian for the baryon octet and decuplet states coupled to Goldstone bosons and external sources contains six low-energy constants. Five of them are fairly well known from phenomenology, but the sixth one is practically unknown. This coupling constant provides the strength of the (p-wave) coupling of Goldstone bosons to decuplet states. Its size and even sign are under debate. Quark model and QCD for a large number of colors provide predictions, but some recent phenomenological analyses suggest even an opposite sign for the Delta-pion coupling. The Goldberger-Treiman relation connects this coupling constant to the axial charge of the Delta baryon. This suggests a Wu-type experiment to determine the unknown low-energy constant. While this is not feasible in the Delta sector because of the large hadronic width of the Delta, there is a flavor symmetry related process that is accessible: the weak semileptonic decay of the Omega baryon to a spin 3/2 cascade baryon. A broad research program is suggested that can pin down at least the rough size and the sign of the last unknown low-energy constant of the leading-order Lagrangian. It encompasses experimental measurements, in particular the forward-backward asymmetry of the semileptonic decay, together with a determination of the quark-mass dependences using lattice QCD for the narrow decuplet states and chiral perturbation theory to extrapolate to the Delta sector. Besides discussing the strategy of the research program, the present work provides a feasibility check based on a simple leading-order calculation.Comment: 7 page

Prefermentation improves xylose utilization in simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation of pretreated spruce

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) is a promising process option for ethanol production from lignocellulosic materials. However, both the overall ethanol yield and the final ethanol concentration in the fermentation broth must be high. Hence, almost complete conversion of both hexoses and pentoses must be achieved in SSF at a high solid content. A principal difficulty is to obtain an efficient pentose uptake in the presence of high glucose and inhibitor concentrations. Initial glucose present in pretreated spruce decreases the xylose utilization by yeast, due to competitive inhibition of sugar transport. In the current work, prefermentation was studied as a possible means to overcome the problem of competitive inhibition. The free hexoses, initially present in the slurry, were in these experiments fermented before adding the enzymes, thereby lowering the glucose concentration.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This work shows that a high degree of xylose conversion and high ethanol yields can be achieved in SSF of pretreated spruce with a xylose fermenting strain of <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </it>(TMB3400) at 7% and 10% water insoluble solids (WIS). Prefermentation and fed-batch operation, both separately and in combination, improved xylose utilization. Up to 77% xylose utilization and 85% of theoretical ethanol yield (based on total sugars), giving a final ethanol concentration of 45 g L^-1, were obtained in fed-batch SSF at 10% WIS when prefermentation was applied.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Clearly, the mode of fermentation has a high impact on the xylose conversion by yeast in SSF. Prefermentation enhances xylose uptake most likely because of the reduced transport inhibition, in both batch and fed-batch operation. The process significance of this will be even greater for xylose-rich feedstocks.</p

A short review on SSF – an interesting process option for ethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstocks

Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) is one process option for production of ethanol from lignocellulose. The principal benefits of performing the enzymatic hydrolysis together with the fermentation, instead of in a separate step after the hydrolysis, are the reduced end-product inhibition of the enzymatic hydrolysis, and the reduced investment costs. The principal drawbacks, on the other hand, are the need to find favorable conditions (e.g. temperature and pH) for both the enzymatic hydrolysis and the fermentation and the difficulty to recycle the fermenting organism and the enzymes. To satisfy the first requirement, the temperature is normally kept below 37°C, whereas the difficulty to recycle the yeast makes it beneficial to operate with a low yeast concentration and at a high solid loading. In this review, we make a brief overview of recent experimental work and development of SSF using lignocellulosic feedstocks. Significant progress has been made with respect to increasing the substrate loading, decreasing the yeast concentration and co-fermentation of both hexoses and pentoses during SSF. Presently, an SSF process for e.g. wheat straw hydrolyzate can be expected to give final ethanol concentrations close to 40 g L-1 with a yield based on total hexoses and pentoses higher than 70%

Thiobacillus as a key player for biofilm formation in oligotrophic groundwaters of the Fennoscandian Shield

Biofilm formation is a common adaptation for microbes in energy-limited conditions such as those prevalent in the vast deep terrestrial biosphere. However, due to the low biomass and the inaccessible nature of subsurface groundwaters, the microbial populations and genes involved in its formation are understudied. Here, a flow-cell system was designed to investigate biofilm formation under in situ conditions in two groundwaters of contrasting age and geochemistry at the aspo Hard Rock Laboratory, Sweden. Metatranscriptomes showed Thiobacillus, Sideroxydans, and Desulforegula to be abundant and together accounted for 31% of the transcripts in the biofilm communities. Differential expression analysis highlighted Thiobacillus to have a principal role in biofilm formation in these oligotrophic groundwaters by being involved in relevant processes such as the formation of extracellular matrix, quorum sensing, and cell motility. The findings revealed an active biofilm community with sulfur cycling as a prominent mode of energy conservation in the deep biosphere

Continental scientific drilling and microbiology: (extremely) low biomass in bedrock of central Sweden

Scientific drilling expeditions offer a unique opportunity to characterize microbial communities in the subsurface that have long been isolated from the surface. With subsurface microbial biomass being low in general, biological contamination from the drilling fluid, sample processing, or molecular work is a major concern. To address this, characterization of the contaminant populations in the drilling fluid and negative extraction controls are essential for assessing and evaluating such sequencing data. Here, rock cores down to 2250m depth, groundwater-bearing fractures, and the drilling fluid were sampled for DNA to characterize the microbial communities using a broad genomic approach. However, even after removing potential contaminant populations present in the drilling fluid, notorious contaminants were abundant and mainly affiliated with the bacterial order Burkholderiales. These contaminant microorganisms likely originated from the reagents used for isolating DNA despite stringent quality standards during the molecular work. The detection of strictly anaerobic sulfate reducers such as Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator suggested the presence of autochthonous deep biosphere taxa in the sequenced libraries, yet these clades represented only a minor fraction of the sequence counts (<0.1 %), hindering further ecological interpretations. The described methods and findings emphasize the importance of sequencing extraction controls and can support experimental design for future microbiological studies in conjunction with continental drilling operations.The drilling was funded by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Project (ICDP; grant no. 4-2017) with co-funding for scientific operations provided by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet; grant nos. 2019-03688 and 2017-00642), the German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG, grant no. SPP 1006), and the National Science Centre of Poland (Narodowym Centrum Nauki, project no. 2018/29/B/ST10/02315). The scientific drilling operations were performed using the national research infrastructure for scientific drilling, Riksriggen, funded by the Swedish Research Council. The study was supported by the Swedish Research Council (contract nos. 2018-04311 and 2017-04422). High-throughput sequencing was carried out at the National Genomics Infrastructure hosted by the Science for Life Laboratory, Sweden. Whole genome amplification and PCR screening were done at the SciLifeLab Microbial Single Cell Genomics Facility at Uppsala University. Stefan Bertilsson acknowledges financial support from the Swedish Research Council and Science for Life Laboratory. Bioinformatics analyses were carried out utilizing the Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) at Uppsala University (grant nos. SNIC 2022/22-743 and SNIC 2022/6-242). The computations were enabled by resources provided by the National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden (NAISS) and the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at UPPMAX, Uppsala University, partially funded by the Swedish Research Council through grant agreement nos. 2022-06725 and 2018-05973

On the vector transition form factors in the Ω- → Ξ0 W- decay

To learn more about the structure of hadrons we study form factors. In the semi-leptonic decay Ω- → Ξ0W- two types of form factors arise namely the vector and axial-vector transition form factors. We focus on the vector transition form factors at next-to-next-to-leading order in the power counting of chiral perturbation theory and study their quark mass dependence. They are related to the scattering amplitude for the transition and therefore we have to calculate Feynman diagrams. Next-to-next-to-leading order Feynman diagrams translate to 1-loop diagrams and at this order there is a substantial amount of them. This study is a feasibility study and therefore we limit this study to diagrams containing the low-energy constants HA and hA from the leading order chiral Lagrangian. There are 5 such diagrams, three with two propagators in the loop (bubble diagrams) and two with three propagators in the loop (triangle diagrams). We derive explicit expressions for all 5 diagrams. To calculate these diagrams numerically we use Mathematica and FeynCalc. We provide numerical results for the three bubble diagrams but not the triangle diagrams due to the long computing time for these diagrams. Therefore, we show that performing form factor calculations at NNLO seems feasible but there needs to be more investment into figuring out the coding aspects regarding the triangle diagrams

Looking for mono-Z signatures in Z-boson and scalar dark matter interactions

Even though there is a multitude of observational evidence from cosmology and astrophysics, the standard model does not include a suitable dark matter candidate and therefore physics beyond the standard model is necessary. There are hypotheses of what the particle candidate could be coming from theories such as supersymmetry or extra dimensions. The processes producing these particles are understood very well from the theoretical perspective. The problem is that these processes have not been observed in any detectors. Therefore the nature of the dark matter remains unknown. However, it is clear that the dark matter-particle interacts with ordinary matter through gravity and in general, candidates may also interact through the weak force. These candidates are called Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. Therefore, by studying weak processes (weak in the sense that the processes are interactions mediated by a force weaker than the Electro-Magnetic and Quantum-Chromo dynamical-forces, not necessarily the weak force of the standard model) in the large hadron collider it may be possible to pose constraints on the dark matter signatures. One possible process which specifically involves the standard model electroweak interaction, which will be the model for the project, is the emission of scalar dark matter particles from the Z boson,which would result in a final state characterized by a Z boson and missing transverse energy. Simulations of the model and calculations of the cross section are done for different masses, ranging from 20−680 GeV, of the scalar dark matter particle and then compared to a standard model background process. Investigations are made whether or not it would be possible to detect darkmatter signals in the background. With the assumptions made, the results indicate that a signal from dark matter with a mass of around 40−150 GeV could not be rejected up to 5σ

On the vector transition form factors in the Ω- → Ξ0 W- decay

To learn more about the structure of hadrons we study form factors. In the semi-leptonic decay Ω- → Ξ0W- two types of form factors arise namely the vector and axial-vector transition form factors. We focus on the vector transition form factors at next-to-next-to-leading order in the power counting of chiral perturbation theory and study their quark mass dependence. They are related to the scattering amplitude for the transition and therefore we have to calculate Feynman diagrams. Next-to-next-to-leading order Feynman diagrams translate to 1-loop diagrams and at this order there is a substantial amount of them. This study is a feasibility study and therefore we limit this study to diagrams containing the low-energy constants HA and hA from the leading order chiral Lagrangian. There are 5 such diagrams, three with two propagators in the loop (bubble diagrams) and two with three propagators in the loop (triangle diagrams). We derive explicit expressions for all 5 diagrams. To calculate these diagrams numerically we use Mathematica and FeynCalc. We provide numerical results for the three bubble diagrams but not the triangle diagrams due to the long computing time for these diagrams. Therefore, we show that performing form factor calculations at NNLO seems feasible but there needs to be more investment into figuring out the coding aspects regarding the triangle diagrams