1,912 research outputs found
Magnetic fields from inflation: the transition to the radiation era
We compute the contribution to the scalar metric perturbations from
large-scale magnetic fields which are generated during inflation. We show that
apart from the usual passive and compensated modes, the magnetic fields also
contribute to the constant mode from inflation. This is different from the
causal (post inflationary) generation of magnetic fields where such a mode is
absent and it might lead to significant, non-Gaussian CMB anisotropies.Comment: 19 pages, no figures. v2: Substantially revised version with
different conclusions. v3: one reference added, matches version accepted for
publication in PR
Dynamic expression of homeostatic ion channels in differentiated cortical astrocytes in vitro
The capacity of astrocytes to adapt their biochemical and functional features upon physiological and pathological stimuli is a
fundamental property at the basis of their ability to regulate the homeostasis of the central nervous system (CNS). It is well
known that in primary cultured astrocytes, the expression of plasma membrane ion channels and transporters involved in
homeostatic tasks does not closely reflect the pattern observed in vivo. The individuation of culture conditions that promote
the expression of the ion channel array found in vivo is crucial when aiming at investigating the mechanisms underlying their
dynamics upon various physiological and pathological stimuli. A chemically defined medium containing growth factors and
hormones (G5) was previously shown to induce the growth, differentiation, and maturation of primary cultured astrocytes.
Here we report that under these culture conditions, rat cortical astrocytes undergo robust morphological changes acquir-
ing a multi-branched phenotype, which develops gradually during the 2-week period of culturing. The shape changes were
paralleled by variations in passive membrane properties and background conductance owing to the differential temporal
development of inwardly rectifying chloride (Cl−) and potassium (K+) currents. Confocal and immunoblot analyses showed
that morphologically differentiated astrocytes displayed a large increase in the expression of the inward rectifier Cl− and K+
channels ClC-2 and Kir4.1, respectively, which are relevant ion channels in vivo. Finally, they exhibited a large diminution
of the intermediate filaments glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and vimentin which are upregulated in reactive astrocytes
in vivo. Taken together the data indicate that long-term culturing of cortical astrocytes in this chemical-defined medium
promotes a quiescent functional phenotype. This culture model could aid to address the regulation of ion channel expression
involved in CNS homeostasis in response to physiological and pathological challenge
Improvements to the Method of Dispersion Relations for B Nonleptonic Decays
We bring some clarifications and improvements to the method of dispersion
relations in the external masses variables, that we proposed recently for
investigating the final state interactions in the B nonleptonic decays. We
first present arguments for the existence of an additional term in the
dispersion representation, which arises from an equal-time commutator in the
LSZ formalism and can be approximated by the conventional factorized amplitude.
The reality properties of the spectral function and the Goldberger-Treiman
procedure to perform the hadronic unitarity sum are analyzed in more detail. We
also improve the treatment of the strong interaction part by including the
contributions of both t and u-channel trajectories in the Regge amplitudes.
Applications to the and decays are
presented.Comment: 16 pages, 4 new figures. modifications of the dispersion
representatio
Can slow roll inflation induce relevant helical magnetic fields?
We study the generation of helical magnetic fields during single field
inflation induced by an axial coupling of the electromagnetic field to the
inflaton. During slow roll inflation, we find that such a coupling always leads
to a blue spectrum with , as long as the theory is treated
perturbatively. The magnetic energy density at the end of inflation is found to
be typically too small to backreact on the background dynamics of the inflaton.
We also show that a short deviation from slow roll does not result in strong
modifications to the shape of the spectrum. We calculate the evolution of the
correlation length and the field amplitude during the inverse cascade and
viscous damping of the helical magnetic field in the radiation era after
inflation. We conclude that except for low scale inflation with very strong
coupling, the magnetic fields generated by such an axial coupling in single
field slow roll inflation with perturbative coupling to the inflaton are too
weak to provide the seeds for the observed fields in galaxies and clusters.Comment: 33 pages 6 figures; v4 to match the accepted version to appear in
JCA
Study of gravitational radiation from cosmic domain walls
In this paper, following the previous study, we evaluate the spectrum of
gravitational wave background generated by domain walls which are produced if
some discrete symmetry is spontaneously broken in the early universe. We apply
two different methods to calculate the gravitational wave spectrum: One is to
calculate the gravitational wave spectrum directly from numerical simulations,
and another is to calculate it indirectly by estimating the unequal time
anisotropic stress power spectrum of the scalar field. Both analysises indicate
that the slope of the spectrum changes at two characteristic frequencies
corresponding to the Hubble radius at the decay of domain walls and the width
of domain walls, and that the spectrum between these two characteristic
frequencies becomes flat or slightly red tilted. The second method enables us
to evaluate the GW spectrum semi-analytically for the frequencies which can not
be resolved in the finite box lattice simulations, but relies on the
assumptions for the unequal time correlations of the source.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures; revised version of the manuscript, accepted for
publication in JCA
A Study of Gaussianity in CMB band maps
The detection of non-Gaussianity in the CMB data would rule out a number of
inflationary models. A null detection of non-Gaussianity, instead, would
exclude alternative models for the early universe. Thus, a detection or
non-detection of primordial non-Gaussianity in the CMB data is crucial to
discriminate among inflationary models, and to test alternative scenarios.
However, there are various non-cosmological sources of non-Gaussianity. This
makes important to employ different indicators in order to detect distinct
forms of non-Gaussianity in CMB data. Recently, we proposed two new indicators
to measure deviation from Gaussianity on large angular scales, and used them to
study the Gaussianity of the raw band WMAP maps with and without the KQ75 mask.
Here we extend this work by using these indicators to perform similar analyses
of deviation from Gaussianity of the foreground-reduced Q, V, and W band maps.
We show that there is a significant deviation from Gaussianity in the
considered full-sky maps, which is reduced to a level consistent with
Gaussianity when the KQ75 mask is employed.Comment: 5 pages, 2 PS figures, uses ws-ijmpd.cls ; to be published in the
International Journal of Modern Physics
Constraints on the Electrical Charge Asymmetry of the Universe
We use the isotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background to place stringent
constraints on a possible electrical charge asymmetry of the universe. We find
the excess charge per baryon to be in the case of a uniform
distribution of charge, where is the charge of the electron. If the charge
asymmetry is inhomogeneous, the constraints will depend on the spectral index,
, of the induced magnetic field and range from
() to (). If one could further
assume that the charge asymmetries of individual particle species are not
anti-correlated so as to cancel, this would imply, for photons, ; for neutrinos, ; and for heavy (light) dark
matter particles ().Comment: New version to appear in JCA
Model independent bounds on the modulus of the pion form factor on the unitarity cut below the threshold
We calculate upper and lower bounds on the modulus of the pion electro
magnetic form factor on the unitarity cut below the inelastic
threshold, using as input the phase in the elastic region known via the
Fermi-Watson theorem from the -wave phase shift, and a suitably
weighted integral of the modulus squared above the inelastic threshold. The
normalization at , the pion charge radius and experimental values at
spacelike momenta are used as additional input information. The bounds are
model independent, in the sense that they do not rely on specific
parametrizations and do not require assumptions on the phase of the form factor
above the inelastic threshold. The results provide nontrivial consistencychecks
on the recent experimental data on the modulus available below the
threshold from annihilation and -decay experiments. In
particular, at low energies the calculated bounds offer a more precise
description of the modulus than the experimental data.Comment: 12 pages, 23 figures, prepared using EPJ style files; v2 corresponds
to proofs version to appear in European Physical Journal C; extended
discussion compared to v
Dispersion Relations and Rescattering Effects in B Nonleptonic Decays
Recently, the final state strong interactions in nonleptonic B decays were
investigated in a formalism based on hadronic unitarity and dispersion
relations in terms of the off-shell mass squared of the meson. We consider
an heuristic derivation of the dispersion relations in the mass variables using
the reduction LSZ formalism and find a discrepancy between the spectral
function and the dispersive variable used in the recent works. The part of the
unitarity sum which describes final state interactions is shown to appear as
spectral function in a dispersion relation based on the analytic continuation
in the mass squared of one final particles. As an application, by combining
this formalism with Regge theory and SU(3) flavour symmetry we obtain
constraints on the tree and the penguin amplitudes of the decay .Comment: 17 pages, Latex, 2 figure
On the precision of chiral-dispersive calculations of scattering
We calculate the combination (the Olsson sum rule)
and the scattering lengths and effective ranges , and ,
dispersively (with the Froissart--Gribov representation) using, at
low energy, the phase shifts for scattering obtained by Colangelo,
Gasser and Leutwyler (CGL) from the Roy equations and chiral perturbation
theory, plus experiment and Regge behaviour at high energy, or directly, using
the CGL parameters for s and s. We find mismatch, both among the CGL
phases themselves and with the results obtained from the pion form factor. This
reaches the level of several (2 to 5) standard deviations, and is essentially
independent of the details of the intermediate energy region ( GeV) and, in some cases, of the high energy behaviour assumed. We discuss
possible reasons for this mismatch, in particular in connection with an
alternate set of phase shifts.Comment: Version to appear in Phys. Rev. D. Graphs and sum rule added. Plain
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