128 research outputs found
Spontaneous Magnetization of the O(3) Ferromagnet at Low Temperatures
We investigate the low-temperature behavior of ferromagnets with a
spontaneously broken symmetry O(3) O(2). The analysis is performed within
the perspective of nonrelativistic effective Lagrangians, where the dynamics of
the system is formulated in terms of Goldstone bosons. Unlike in a
Lorentz-invariant framework (chiral perturbation theory), where loop graphs are
suppressed by two powers of momentum, loops involving ferromagnetic spin waves
are suppressed by three momentum powers. The leading coefficients of the
low-temperature expansion for the partition function are calculated up to order
. In agreement with Dyson's pioneering microscopic analysis of the
cubic ferromagnet, we find that, in the spontaneous magnetization, the
magnon-magnon interaction starts manifesting itself only at order . The
striking difference with respect to the low-temperature properties of the O(3)
antiferromagnet is discussed from a unified point of view, relying on the
effective Lagrangian technique.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figure
A Planck-scale axion and SU(2) Yang-Mills dynamics: Present acceleration and the fate of the photon
From the time of CMB decoupling onwards we investigate cosmological evolution
subject to a strongly interacting SU(2) gauge theory of Yang-Mills scale
eV (masquerading as the factor of the SM at
present). The viability of this postulate is discussed in view of cosmological
and (astro)particle physics bounds. The gauge theory is coupled to a spatially
homogeneous and ultra-light (Planck-scale) axion field. As first pointed out by
Frieman et al., such an axion is a viable candidate for quintessence, i.e.
dynamical dark energy, being associated with today's cosmological acceleration.
A prediction of an upper limit for the duration of the
epoch stretching from the present to the point where the photon starts to be
Meissner massive is obtained: billion years.Comment: v3: consequences of an error in evolution equation for coupling
rectified, only a minimal change in physics results, two refs. adde
Path integral duality and Planck scale corrections to the primordial spectrum in exponential inflation
The enormous red-shifting of the modes during the inflationary epoch suggests
that physics at the Planck scale may modify the standard, nearly,
scale-invariant, primordial, density perturbation spectrum. Under the principle
of path-integral duality, the space-time behaves as though it has a minimal
length (which we shall assume to be of the order of the Planck
length), a feature that is expected to arise when the quantum gravitational
effects on the matter fields have been taken into account. Using the method of
path integral duality, in this work, we evaluate the Planck scale corrections
to the spectrum of density perturbations in the case of exponential inflation.
We find that the amplitude of the corrections is of the order of , where and denote the inflationary
and the Planck energy scales, respectively. We also find that the corrections
turn out to be completely independent of scale. We briefly discuss the
implications of our result, and also comment on how it compares with an earlier
result.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, RevTex4 forma
Supervised selective kernel fusion for membrane protein prediction
Membrane protein prediction is a significant classification problem, requiring the integration of data derived from different sources such as protein sequences, gene expression, protein interactions etc. A generalized probabilistic approach for combining different data sources via supervised selective kernel fusion was proposed in our previous papers. It includes, as particular cases, SVM, Lasso SVM, Elastic Net SVM and others. In this paper we apply a further instantiation of this approach, the Supervised Selective Support Kernel SVM and demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves the top-rank position among the selective kernel fusion variants on benchmark data for membrane protein prediction. The method differs from the previous approaches in that it naturally derives a subset of “support kernels” (analogous to support objects within SVMs), thereby allowing the memory-efficient exclusion of significant numbers of irrelevant kernel matrixes from a decision rule in a manner particularly suited to membrane protein prediction
Quantum self-consistency of brane models
Continuing on our previous work, we consider a class of higher dimensional
brane models with the topology of , where
is a one-parameter compact manifold and two branes of codimension 1 are located
at the orbifold fixed points. We consider a set-up where such a solution arises
from Einstein-Yang-Mills theory and evaluate the one-loop effective potential
induced by gauge fields and by a generic bulk scalar field. We show that this
type of brane models resolves the gauge hierarchy between the Planck and
electroweak scales through redshift effects due to the warp factor . The value of is then fixed by minimizing the effective potential. We
find that, as in the Randall Sundrum case, the gauge field contribution to the
effective potential stabilises the hierarchy without fine-tuning as long as the
laplacian on has a zero eigenvalue. Scalar fields can
stabilise the hierarchy depending on the mass and the non-minimal coupling. We
also address the quantum self-consistency of the solution, showing that the
classical brane solution is not spoiled by quantum effects.Comment: 10 page
The Free Energy of the Quantum Heisenberg Ferromagnet at Large Spin
We consider the spin-S ferromagnetic Heisenberg model in three dimensions, in
the absence of an external field. Spin wave theory suggests that in a suitable
temperature regime the system behaves effectively as a system of
non-interacting bosons (magnons). We prove this fact at the level of the
specific free energy: if and the inverse temperature in such a way that stays constant, we rigorously show that
the free energy per unit volume converges to the one suggested by spin wave
theory. The proof is based on the localization of the system in small boxes and
on upper and lower bounds on the local free energy, and it also provides
explicit error bounds on the remainder.Comment: 11 pages, pdfLate
Abnormal number of Nambu-Goldstone bosons in the color-asymmetric 2SC phase of an NJL-type model
We consider an extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model including both (q \bar q)-
and (qq)-interactions with two light-quark flavors in the presence of a single
(quark density) chemical potential. In the color superconducting phase of the
quark matter the color SU(3) symmetry is spontaneously broken down to SU(2). If
the usual counting of Goldstone bosons would apply, five Nambu-Goldstone (NG)
bosons corresponding to the five broken color generators should appear in the
mass spectrum. Unlike that expectation, we find only three gapless diquark
excitations of quark matter. One of them is an SU(2)-singlet, the remaining two
form an SU(2)-(anti)doublet and have a quadratic dispersion law in the small
momentum limit. These results are in agreement with the Nielsen-Chadha theorem,
according to which NG-bosons in Lorentz-noninvariant systems, having a
quadratic dispersion law, must be counted differently. The origin of the
abnormal number of NG-bosons is shown to be related to a nonvanishing
expectation value of the color charge operator Q_8 reflecting the lack of color
neutrality of the ground state. Finally, by requiring color neutrality, two
massive diquarks are argued to become massless, resulting in a normal number of
five NG-bosons with usual linear dispersion laws.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, revtex
Homocysteine, S-adenosylmethionine and S-adenosylhomocysteine are associated with retinal microvascular abnormalities: the Hoorn Study
The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between homocysteine and homocysteine metabolism components and retinal microvascular disorders in subjects with and without Type 2 diabetes. In this population-based study of 256 participants, aged 60-85 years, we determined total plasma homocysteine, SAM (S-adenosylmethionine) and SAH (S-adenosylhomocysteine) in plasma and erythrocytes, total folate in serum and erythrocytes, 5-MTHF (5-methyltetrahydrofolate), and vitamins B12 and B6. Participants were examined ophthalmologically by means of indirect funduscopy and two-field 45° fundus photography, and were graded for retinopathy and retinal sclerotic vessel abnormalities. A computer-assisted method was used to measure retinal vessel diameters. Total plasma homocysteine was inversely associated with retinal arteriolar diameters {standardized β, -0.20 [95% CI (confidence interval), -0.33 to - 0.07]} or a decrease of 3.78 μm CRAEs (central retinal arteriolar equivalents) per 1 S.D. increase in homocysteine level (= 4.6 μmol/l). In addition, the SAM/SAH ratio in plasma was inversely associated with retinal sclerotic vessel abnormalities and retinopathy [odds ratios, 0.61 (95% CI, 0.39-0.96) and 0.50 (95% CI, 0.30-0.83) per 1 S.D. respectively]. The associations were independent of age, sex, glucose tolerance status, other homocysteine metabolism components and cardiovascular risk factors. In conclusion, the results of the present study support the concept that total plasma homocysteine and a low SAM/SAH ratio in plasma, which may reflect reduced transmethylation reactions, may contribute to the pathogenesis of (retinal) microangiopathy. © The Authors
Mid-infrared sizes of circumstellar disks around Herbig Ae/Be stars measured with MIDI on the VLTI
We present the first long baseline mid-infrared interferometric observations of the circumstellar disks surrounding Herbig Ae/Be stars. The observations were obtained using the mid-infrared interferometric instrument MIDI at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope Interferometer VLTI on Cerro Paranal. The 102 m baseline given by the telescopes UT1 and UT3 was employed, which provides a maximum full spatial resolution of 20 milli-arcsec (mas) at a wavelength of 10 μm. The interferometric signal was spectrally dispersed at a resolution of 30, giving spectrally resolved visibility information from 8 μm to 13.5 μm. We observed seven nearby Herbig Ae/Be stars and resolved all objects. The warm dust disk of HD 100546 could even be resolved in single-telescope imaging. Characteristic dimensions of the emitting regions at 10 μm are found to be from 1 AU to 10 AU. The 10 μm sizes of our sample stars correlate with the slope of the 10–25 μm infrared spectrum in the sense that the reddest objects are the largest ones. Such a correlation would be consistent with a different geometry in terms of flaring or flat (self-shadowed) disks for sources with strong or moderate mid-infrared excess, respectively. We compare the observed spectrally resolved visibilities with predictions based on existing models of passive centrally irradiated hydrostatic disks made to fit the SEDs of the observed stars. We find broad qualitative agreement of the spectral shape of visibilities corresponding to these models with our observations. Quantitatively, there are discrepancies that show the need for a next step in modelling of circumstellar disks, satisfying both the spatial constraints such as are now available from the MIDI observations and the flux constraints from the SEDs in a consistent way
Mid-infrared sizes of circumstellar disks around Herbig Ae/Be stars measured with MIDI on the VLTI
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