44 research outputs found

    A note on spin-s duality

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    Duality is investigated for higher spin (s≄2s \geq 2), free, massless, bosonic gauge fields. We show how the dual formulations can be derived from a common "parent", first-order action. This goes beyond most of the previous treatments where higher-spin duality was investigated at the level of the equations of motion only. In D=4 spacetime dimensions, the dual theories turn out to be described by the same Pauli-Fierz (s=2) or Fronsdal (s≄3s \geq 3) action (as it is the case for spin 1). In the particular s=2 D=5 case, the Pauli-Fierz action and the Curtright action are shown to be related through duality. A crucial ingredient of the analysis is given by the first-order, gauge-like, reformulation of higher spin theories due to Vasiliev.Comment: Minor corrections, reference adde

    Consistent interactions of dual linearized gravity in D=5: couplings with a topological BF model

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    Under some plausible assumptions, we find that the dual formulation of linearized gravity in D=5 can be nontrivially coupled to the topological BF model in such a way that the interacting theory exhibits a deformed gauge algebra and some deformed, on-shell reducibility relations. Moreover, the tensor field with the mixed symmetry (2,1) gains some shift gauge transformations with parameters from the BF sector.Comment: 63 pages, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.

    Dynamics of Higher Spin Fields and Tensorial Space

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    The structure and the dynamics of massless higher spin fields in various dimensions are reviewed with an emphasis on conformally invariant higher spin fields. We show that in D=3,4,6 and 10 dimensional space-time the conformal higher spin fields constitute the quantum spectrum of a twistor-like particle propagating in tensorial spaces of corresponding dimensions. We give a detailed analysis of the field equations of the model and establish their relation with known formulations of free higher spin field theory.Comment: JHEP3 style, 40 pages; v2 typos corrected, comments and references added; v3 published versio

    BRST approach to Lagrangian formulation for mixed-symmetry fermionic higher-spin fields

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    We construct a Lagrangian description of irreducible half-integer higher-spin representations of the Poincare group with the corresponding Young tableaux having two rows, on a basis of the BRST approach. Starting with a description of fermionic higher-spin fields in a flat space of any dimension in terms of an auxiliary Fock space, we realize a conversion of the initial operator constraint system (constructed with respect to the relations extracting irreducible Poincare-group representations) into a first-class constraint system. For this purpose, we find auxiliary representations of the constraint subsuperalgebra containing the subsystem of second-class constraints in terms of Verma modules. We propose a universal procedure of constructing gauge-invariant Lagrangians with reducible gauge symmetries describing the dynamics of both massless and massive fermionic fields of any spin. No off-shell constraints for the fields and gauge parameters are used from the very beginning. It is shown that the space of BRST cohomologies with a vanishing ghost number is determined only by the constraints corresponding to an irreducible Poincare-group representation. To illustrate the general construction, we obtain a Lagrangian description of fermionic fields with generalized spin (3/2,1/2) and (3/2,3/2) on a flat background containing the complete set of auxiliary fields and gauge symmetries.Comment: 41 pages, no figures, corrected typos, updated introduction, sections 5, 7.1, 7.2 with examples, conclusion with all basic results unchanged, corrected formulae (3.27), (7.138), (7.140), added dimensional reduction part with formulae (5.34)-(5.48), (7.8)-(7.10), (7.131)-(7.136), (7.143)-(7.164), added Refs. 52, 53, 54, examples for massive fields developed by 2 way

    Enabling global clinical collaborations on identifiable patient data: The Minerva Initiative

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    The clinical utility of computational phenotyping for both genetic and rare diseases is increasingly appreciated; however, its true potential is yet to be fully realized. Alongside the growing clinical and research availability of sequencing technologies, precise deep and scalable phenotyping is required to serve unmet need in genetic and rare diseases. To improve the lives of individuals affected with rare diseases through deep phenotyping, global big data interrogation is necessary to aid our understanding of disease biology, assist diagnosis, and develop targeted treatment strategies. This includes the application of cutting-edge machine learning methods to image data. As with most digital tools employed in health care, there are ethical and data governance challenges associated with using identifiable personal image data. There are also risks with failing to deliver on the patient benefits of these new technologies, the biggest of which is posed by data siloing. The Minerva Initiative has been designed to enable the public good of deep phenotyping while mitigating these ethical risks. Its open structure, enabling collaboration and data sharing between individuals, clinicians, researchers and private enterprise, is key for delivering precision public health

    Planck early results XXIII : The first all-sky survey of Galactic cold clumps

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    Planck early results. XXII. The submillimetre properties of a sample of Galactic cold clumps

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    We perform a detailed investigation of sources from the Cold Cores Catalogue of Planck Objects (C3PO). Our goal is to probe the reliability of the detections, validate the separation between warm and cold dust emission components, provide the first glimpse at the nature, internal morphology and physical characterictics of the Planck-detected sources. We focus on a sub-sample of ten sources from the C3PO list, selected to sample different environments, from high latitude cirrus to nearby (150 pc) and remote (2 kpc) molecular complexes. We present Planck surface brightness maps and derive the dust temperature, emissivity spectral index, and column densities of the fields. With the help of higher resolution Herschel and AKARI continuum observations and molecular line data, we investigate the morphology of the sources and the properties of the substructures at scales below the Planck beam size. The cold clumps detected by Planck are found to be located on large-scale filamentary (or cometary) structures that extend up to 20 pc in the remote sources. The thickness of these filaments ranges between 0.3 and 3 pc, for column densities NH2 ∌ 0.1 to 1.6 × 1022 cm−2, and with linear mass density covering a broad range, between 15 and 400 M pc−1. The dust temperatures are low (between 10 and 15K) and the Planck cold clumps correspond to local minima of the line-of-sight averaged dust temperature in these fields. These low temperatures are confirmed when AKARI and Herschel data are added to the spectral energy distributions. Herschel data reveal a wealth of substructure within the Planck cold clumps. In all cases (except two sources harbouring young stellar objects), the substructures are found to be colder, with temperatures as low as 7 K. Molecular line observations provide gas column densities which are consistent with those inferred from the dust. The linewidths are all supra-thermal, providing large virial linear mass densities in the range 10 to 300 M pc−1, comparable within factors of a few, to the gas linear mass densities. The analysis of this small set of cold clumps already probes a broad variety of structures in the C3PO sample, probably associated with different evolutionary stages, from cold and starless clumps, to young protostellar objects still embedded in their cold surrounding cloud. Because of the all-sky coverage and its sensitivity, Planck is able to detect and locate the coldest spots in massive elongated structures that may be the long-searched for progenitors of stellar clusters

    Planck early results XXIV : Dust in the diffuse interstellar medium and the Galactic halo

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    Rilmenidine activates postjunctianal alpha1- and alpha2-adrenoceptors in the canine saphenous vein

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    Experiments were performed to determine the subtypes of alpha-adrenoceptors involved in the contraction induced by rilmenidine in isolated canine cutaneous veins. Rings of saphenous vein (without endothelium) were suspended for the recording of isometric force in physiological salt solution. All experiments were performed in the presence of propranolol (to antagonize beta-adrenoceptors), cocaine (to inhibit neuronal uptake) and hydrocortisone (to inhibit extraneuronal uptake). In the presence of rauwolscina (an alpha2-adrenegic blocker), rilmenidine caused concentration-dependent contractions which were inhibited by prazosin (nonselective alpha1-antagonist) and by (+)niguldipine (selective alpha(1A)-adrenergic antagonist), but not by (-)nigurdipine. After treatment with phenoxybenzamine (to alkylate alpha1-adrenoceptors), rilmenidine evoked contractions of the canine saphenous vein which were antagonized competitively by rauwolscine. The combination of rauwolscine and prazosin did not abolish contractions evoked by the highest concentrations of rilmenidine. Although binding experiments using 3H-idazoxan suggested the existence of a nonadrenergic binding site (around 20% of the total binding), contractile studies failed to demonstrate their involvement in the increases in tension evoked by rilmenidine. These experiments suggest that the contractions evoked by rilmenidine in isolated canine veins are mediated by both alpha(1A)- and alpha2-adrenoceptors
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