Anomalous Quasiparticle Lifetime in Graphite: Band Structure Effects

We report ab initio calculation of quasiparticle lifetimes in graphite, as determined from the imaginary part of the self-energy operator within the GW aproximation. The inverse lifetime in the energy range from 0.5 to 3.5 eV above the Fermi level presents significant deviations from the quadratic behavior naively expected from Fermi liquid theory. The deviations are explained in terms of the unique features of the band structure of this material. We also discuss the experimental results from different groups and make some predictions for future experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted PR

Hole dynamics in noble metals

We present a detailed analysis of hole dynamics in noble metals (Cu and Au), by means of first-principles many-body calculations. While holes in a free-electron gas are known to live shorter than electrons with the same excitation energy, our results indicate that d-holes in noble metals exhibit longer inelastic lifetimes than excited sp-electrons, in agreement with experiment. The density of states available for d-hole decay is larger than that for the decay of excited electrons; however, the small overlap between d- and sp-states below the Fermi level increases the d-hole lifetime. The impact of d-hole dynamics on electron-hole correlation effects, which are of relevance in the analysis of time-resolved two-photon photoemission experiments, is also addressed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Motivations and intended outcomes in local governments' declarations of climate emergency

Near 1,500 governments worldwide, including over 1,000 local governments, have declared a climate emergency. Such declarations constitute a response to the growing visibility of social movements in international politics as well as the growing role of cities in climate governance. Framing climate change as an emergency, however, can bring difficulties in both the identification of the most appropriate measures to adopt and the effectiveness of those measures in the long run. We use textual analysis to examine the motivations and intended outcomes of 300 declarations endorsed by local governments. The analysis demonstrates that political positioning, previous experience of environmental action within local government, and pressure from civil society are the most common motivations for declaring a climate emergency at the local level. The declarations constitute symbolic gestures highlighting the urgency of the climate challenge, but they do not translate into radically different responses to the climate change challenge. The most commonly intended impacts are increasing citizens’ awareness of climate change and establishing mechanisms to influence future planning and infrastructure decisions. However, the declarations are adopted to emphasize the increasing role cities are taking on, situating local governments as crucial agents bridging global and local action agendas

Mapping the genetic architecture of gene expression in human liver

Genetic variants that are associated with common human diseases do not lead directly to disease, but instead act on intermediate, molecular phenotypes that in turn induce changes in higher-order disease traits. Therefore, identifying the molecular phenotypes that vary in response to changes in DNA and that also associate with changes in disease traits has the potential to provide the functional information required to not only identify and validate the susceptibility genes that are directly affected by changes in DNA, but also to understand the molecular networks in which such genes operate and how changes in these networks lead to changes in disease traits. Toward that end, we profiled more than 39,000 transcripts and we genotyped 782,476 unique single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in more than 400 human liver samples to characterize the genetic architecture of gene expression in the human liver, a metabolically active tissue that is important in a number of common human diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and atherosclerosis. This genome-wide association study of gene expression resulted in the detection of more than 6,000 associations between SNP genotypes and liver gene expression traits, where many of the corresponding genes identified have already been implicated in a number of human diseases. The utility of these data for elucidating the causes of common human diseases is demonstrated by integrating them with genotypic and expression data from other human and mouse populations. This provides much-needed functional support for the candidate susceptibility genes being identified at a growing number of genetic loci that have been identified as key drivers of disease from genome-wide association studies of disease. By using an integrative genomics approach, we highlight how the gene RPS26 and not ERBB3 is supported by our data as the most likely susceptibility gene for a novel type 1 diabetes locus recently identified in a large-scale, genome-wide association study. We also identify SORT1 and CELSR2 as candidate susceptibility genes for a locus recently associated with coronary artery disease and plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in the process. © 2008 Schadt et al