c−ac-a from the N=1N=1 superconformal index

We present a prescription for obtaining the difference of the central charges, c-a, of a four dimensional superconformal quantum field theory from its single-trace index. The formula is derived from a one-loop holographic computation, but is expected to be valid independent of holography. We demonstrate the prescription with several holographic and non-holographic examples. As an application of our formula, we show the AdS/CFT matching of c-a for arbitrary toric quiver CFTs without adjoint matter that are dual to smooth Sasaki-Einstein 5-manifolds.Comment: 19 pages. v2: minor changes, reference added. v3: minor clarifications, published version. v4: a typo in Table 2 fixe

Living with Hepatitis C: A Vermont Needs Assessment

Background: Hepatitis C (HCV) Viral infection of the liver spread primarily via blood-to-blood contact (e.g., intravenous drug use (IVDU)) United States: 3.2 million chronic HCV infections (2010) Vermont: 1.63 cases per 1000 people (2012-2013) Barriers to Care Exclusion of current IV drug users from HCV treatment programs despite their high rates of infection Lack of support, causing decreased treatment adherence Poor access to treatment: cost, transportation, competing priorities of housing, addiction management, and food HIV and HCV Research has shown that the multidisciplinary and integrated HIV model is appropriate for HCV Vermont CARES Non-profit organization that provides comprehensive services to clients with HIV in Vermonthttps://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1219/thumbnail.jp

Quark masses in QCD: a progress report

Recent progress on QCD sum rule determinations of the light and heavy quark masses is reported. In the light quark sector a major breakthrough has been made recently in connection with the historical systematic uncertainties due to a lack of experimental information on the pseudoscalar resonance spectral functions. It is now possible to suppress this contribution to the 1% level by using suitable integration kernels in Finite Energy QCD sum rules. This allows to determine the up-, down-, and strange-quark masses with an unprecedented precision of some 8-10%. Further reduction of this uncertainty will be possible with improved accuracy in the strong coupling, now the main source of error. In the heavy quark sector, the availability of experimental data in the vector channel, and the use of suitable multipurpose integration kernels allows to increase the accuracy of the charm- and bottom-quarks masses to the 1% level.Comment: Invited review paper to be published in Modern Physics Letters

Pauli blocking and medium effects in nucleon knockout reactions

We study medium modifications of the nucleon-nucleon (NN) cross sections and their influence on the nucleon knockout reactions. Using the eikonal approximation, we compare the results obtained with free NN cross sections with those obtained with a purely geometrical treatment of Pauli-blocking and with NN obtained with more elaborated Dirac-Bruecker methods. The medium effects are parametrized in terms of the baryon density. We focus on symmetric nuclear matter, although the geometrical Pauli-blocking allows for the treatment of asymmetric nuclear matter. It is shown that medium effects can change the nucleon knockout cross sections and momentum distributions up to 10% in the energy range E=50-300 MeV/nucleon. The effect is more evident in reactions involving halo nuclei.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Physics Review

d+Au Collisions at STAR

STAR has measured forward pi^0 production in p+p and d+Au collisions at sqrt{s_{NN}}=200 GeV. The p+p yield generally agrees with NLO pQCD calculations. The d+Au yield is strongly suppressed at =4.0, well below shadowing expectations. Exploratory measurements of azimuthal correlations between forward pi^0 and mid-rapidity charged hadrons show a recoil peak in p+p that is suppressed in d+Au at low pion energy. These observations are qualitatively consistent with a saturation picture of the low-x gluon structure of heavy nuclei. Future measurements to elucidate the dynamics underlying these observations are also described.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. To appear in proceedings of DIS200

Pressurized cell micrometeoroid detector Patent

Pressurized cell micrometeoroid detecto