Intertwining Relations for the Deformed D1D5 CFT

The Higgs branch of the D1D5 system flows in the infrared to a two-dimensional N=(4,4) SCFT. This system is believed to have an "orbifold point" in its moduli space where the SCFT is a free sigma model with target space the symmetric product of copies of four-tori; however, at the orbifold point gravity is strongly coupled and to reach the supergravity point one needs to turn on the four exactly marginal deformations corresponding to the blow-up modes of the orbifold SCFT. Recently, technology has been developed for studying these deformations and perturbing the D1D5 CFT off its orbifold point. We present a new method for computing the general effect of a single application of the deformation operators. The method takes the form of intertwining relations that map operators in the untwisted sector before application of the deformation operator to operators in the 2-twisted sector after the application of the deformation operator. This method is computationally more direct, and may be of theoretical interest. This line of inquiry should ultimately have relevance for black hole physics.Comment: latex, 23 pages, 3 figure

New D1-D5-P geometries from string amplitudes

We derive the long range supergravity fields sourced by a D1-D5-P bound state from disk amplitudes for massless closed string emission. We suggest that since the parameter controlling the string perturbation expansion for this calculation decreases with distance from the bound state, the resulting asymptotic fields are valid even in the regime of parameters in which there is a classical black hole solution with the same charges. The supergravity fields differ from the black hole solution by multipole moments and are more general than those contained within known classes of solutions in the literature, whilst still preserving four supersymmetries. Our results support the conjecture that the black hole solution should be interpreted as a coarse-grained description rather than an exact description of the gravitational field sourced by D1-D5-P bound states in this regime of parameters.Comment: 48 pages, 2 figures, v2: typos correcte

Emission from the D1D5 CFT: Higher Twists

We study a certain class of nonextremal D1D5 geometries and their ergoregion emission. Using a detailed CFT computation and the formalism developed in arXiv:0906.2015 [hep-th], we compute the full spectrum and rate of emission from the geometries and find exact agreement with the gravity answer. Previously, only part of the spectrum had been reproduced using a CFT description. We close with a discussion of the context and significance of the calculation.Comment: 39 pages, 6 figures, late

Arginase attenuates inhibitory nonadrenergic noncholinergic nerve-induced nitric oxide generation and airway smooth muscle relaxation

BACKGROUND: Recent evidence suggests that endogenous arginase activity potentiates airway responsiveness to methacholine by attenuation of agonist-induced nitric oxide (NO) production, presumably by competition with epithelial constitutive NO synthase for the common substrate, L-arginine. Using guinea pig tracheal open-ring preparations, we now investigated the involvement of arginase in the modulation of neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS)-mediated relaxation induced by inhibitory nonadrenergic noncholinergic (iNANC) nerve stimulation. METHODS: Electrical field stimulation (EFS; 150 mA, 4 ms, 4 s, 0.5 – 16 Hz)-induced relaxation was measured in tracheal preparations precontracted to 30% with histamine, in the presence of 1 μM atropine and 3 μM indomethacin. The contribution of NO to the EFS-induced relaxation was assessed by the nonselective NOS inhibitor L-NNA (0.1 mM), while the involvement of arginase activity in the regulation of EFS-induced NO production and relaxation was investigated by the effect of the specific arginase inhibitor nor-NOHA (10 μM). Furthermore, the role of substrate availability to nNOS in EFS-induced relaxation was measured in the presence of various concentrations of exogenous L-arginine. RESULTS: EFS induced a frequency-dependent relaxation, ranging from 6.6 ± 0.8% at 0.5 Hz to 74.6 ± 1.2% at 16 Hz, which was inhibited with the NOS inhibitor L-NNA by 78.0 ± 10.5% at 0.5 Hz to 26.7 ± 7.7% at 8 Hz (P < 0.01 all). In contrast, the arginase inhibitor nor-NOHA increased EFS-induced relaxation by 3.3 ± 1.2-fold at 0.5 Hz to 1.2 ± 0.1-fold at 4 Hz (P < 0.05 all), which was reversed by L-NNA to the level of control airways in the presence of L-NNA (P < 0.01 all). Similar to nor-NOHA, exogenous L-arginine increased EFS-induced airway relaxation (P < 0.05 all). CONCLUSION: The results indicate that endogenous arginase activity attenuates iNANC nerve-mediated airway relaxation by inhibition of NO generation, presumably by limiting L-arginine availability to nNOS

Proteomics of Human Dendritic Cell Subsets Reveals Subset-Specific Surface Markers and Differential Inflammasome Function.

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a key role in orchestrating adaptive immune responses. In human blood, three distinct subsets exist: plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) and BDCA3+ and CD1c+ myeloid DCs. In addition, a DC-like CD16+ monocyte has been reported. Although RNA-expression profiles have been previously compared, protein expression data may provide a different picture. Here, we exploited label-free quantitative mass spectrometry to compare and identify differences in primary human DC subset proteins. Moreover, we integrated these proteomic data with existing mRNA data to derive robust cell-specific expression signatures with more than 400 differentially expressed proteins between subsets, forming a solid basis for investigation of subset-specific functions. We illustrated this by extracting subset identification markers and by demonstrating that pDCs lack caspase-1 and only express low levels of other inflammasome-related proteins. In accordance, pDCs were incapable of interleukin (IL)-1β secretion in response to ATP

Positivity, entanglement entropy, and minimal surfaces

The path integral representation for the Renyi entanglement entropies of integer index n implies these information measures define operator correlation functions in QFT. We analyze whether the limit $n\rightarrow 1$, corresponding to the entanglement entropy, can also be represented in terms of a path integral with insertions on the region's boundary, at first order in $n-1$. This conjecture has been used in the literature in several occasions, and specially in an attempt to prove the Ryu-Takayanagi holographic entanglement entropy formula. We show it leads to conditional positivity of the entropy correlation matrices, which is equivalent to an infinite series of polynomial inequalities for the entropies in QFT or the areas of minimal surfaces representing the entanglement entropy in the AdS-CFT context. We check these inequalities in several examples. No counterexample is found in the few known exact results for the entanglement entropy in QFT. The inequalities are also remarkable satisfied for several classes of minimal surfaces but we find counterexamples corresponding to more complicated geometries. We develop some analytic tools to test the inequalities, and as a byproduct, we show that positivity for the correlation functions is a local property when supplemented with analyticity. We also review general aspects of positivity for large N theories and Wilson loops in AdS-CFT.Comment: 36 pages, 10 figures. Changes in presentation and discussion of Wilson loops. Conclusions regarding entanglement entropy unchange

Social interaction, noise and antibiotic-mediated switches in the intestinal microbiota

The intestinal microbiota plays important roles in digestion and resistance against entero-pathogens. As with other ecosystems, its species composition is resilient against small disturbances but strong perturbations such as antibiotics can affect the consortium dramatically. Antibiotic cessation does not necessarily restore pre-treatment conditions and disturbed microbiota are often susceptible to pathogen invasion. Here we propose a mathematical model to explain how antibiotic-mediated switches in the microbiota composition can result from simple social interactions between antibiotic-tolerant and antibiotic-sensitive bacterial groups. We build a two-species (e.g. two functional-groups) model and identify regions of domination by antibiotic-sensitive or antibiotic-tolerant bacteria, as well as a region of multistability where domination by either group is possible. Using a new framework that we derived from statistical physics, we calculate the duration of each microbiota composition state. This is shown to depend on the balance between random fluctuations in the bacterial densities and the strength of microbial interactions. The singular value decomposition of recent metagenomic data confirms our assumption of grouping microbes as antibiotic-tolerant or antibiotic-sensitive in response to a single antibiotic. Our methodology can be extended to multiple bacterial groups and thus it provides an ecological formalism to help interpret the present surge in microbiome data.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures accepted for publication in Plos Comp Bio. Supplementary video and information availabl

Comments on black holes I: The possibility of complementarity

We comment on a recent paper of Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski and Sully who argue against black hole complementarity based on the claim that an infalling observer 'burns' as he approaches the horizon. We show that in fact measurements made by an infalling observer outside the horizon are statistically identical for the cases of vacuum at the horizon and radiation emerging from a stretched horizon. This forces us to follow the dynamics all the way to the horizon, where we need to know the details of Planck scale physics. We note that in string theory the fuzzball structure of microstates does not give any place to 'continue through' this Planck regime. AMPS argue that interactions near the horizon preclude traditional complementarity. But the conjecture of 'fuzzball complementarity' works in the opposite way: the infalling quantum is absorbed by the fuzzball surface, and it is the resulting dynamics that is conjectured to admit a complementary description.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures, v3: clarifications & references adde