4d-Flat Compactifications With Brane Vorticities

We present solutions in six-dimensional gravity coupled to a sigma model, in the presence of three-brane sources. The space transverse to the branes is a compact non-singular manifold. The example of O(3) sigma model in the presence of two three-branes is worked out in detail. We show that the four-dimensional flatness is obtained with a single condition involving the brane tensions, which are in general different and may be both positive, and another characteristic of the branes, vorticity. We speculate that the adjustment of the effective four-dimensional cosmological constant may occur through the exchange of vorticity between the branes. We then give exact instanton type solutions for sigma models targeted on a general K\"ahler manifold, and elaborate in this framework on multi-instantons of the O(3) sigma model. The latter have branes, possibly with vorticities, at the instanton positions, thus generalizing our two-brane solution.Comment: 8 pages. New references added and minor typos are correcte

Higher dimensional cosmological model with a phantom field

We consider a higher dimensional gravity theory with a negative kinetic energy scalar field and a cosmological constant. We find that the theory admits an exact cosmological solution for the scale factor of our universe. It has the feature that the universe undergoes a continuous transition from deceleration to acceleration at some finite time. This transition time can be interpreted as that of recent acceleration of our universe.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; References adde

Spheroidal galactic halos and mirror dark matter

Mirror matter has been proposed as a dark matter candidate. It has several very attractive features, including automatic stability and darkness, the ability to mimic the broad features of cold dark matter while in the linear density perturbation regime, and consistency with all direct dark matter search experiments, both negative (e.g. CDMS II) and positive (DAMA). In this paper we consider an important unsolved problem: Are there plausible reasons to explain why most of the mirror matter in spiral galaxies exists in the form of gaseous {\it spheroidal} galactic halos around ordinary matter {\it disks}? We compute an order-of-magnitude estimate that the mirror photon luminosity of a typical spiral galaxy today is around $10^{44}$ erg/s. Interestingly, this rate of energy loss is similar to the power supplied by ordinary supernova explosions. We discuss circumstances under which supernova power can be used to heat the gaseous part of the mirror matter halo and hence prevent its collapse to a disk. The {\it macro}scopic ordinary-mirror asymmetry plays a fundamental role in our analysis.Comment: about 6 page

Dynamic Dysfunction in Dihydrofolate Reductase Results from Antifolate Drug Binding: Modulation of Dynamics within a Structural State

The arduous task of rationally designing small molecule enzyme inhibitors is complicated by the inherent flexibility of the protein scaffold. To gain insight into the changes in dynamics associated with small molecule based inhibition, we have characterized, using NMR spectroscopy, E. coli dihydrofolate reductase in complex with two drugs: methotrexate and trimethoprim. The complexes allowed the intrinsic dynamic effects of drug binding to be revealed within the context of the “closed” structural ensemble. Binding of both drugs results in an identical decoupling of global motion on the micro- to millisecond timescale. Consistent with a change in overall dynamic character, the drugs’ perturbations to pico- to nanosecond backbone and side-chain methyl dynamics are also highly similar. These data show that the inhibitors simultaneously modulate slow concerted switching and fast motions at distal regions of DHFR, providing a dynamic link between the substrate binding site and distal loop residues known to affect catalysis

Exact Results for the BTZ Black Hole

In this review, we summarize exact results for the three-dimensional BTZ black hole. We use rigorous mathematical results to clarify the general structure and properties of this black hole spacetime and its microscopic description. In particular, we study the formation of the black hole by point particle collisions, leading to an exact analytic determination of the Choptuik scaling parameter. We also show that a `No Hair Theorem' follows immediately from a mathematical theorem of hyperbolic geometry, due to Sullivan. A microscopic understanding of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, and decay rate for massless scalars, is shown to follow from standard results of conformal field theory.Comment: 24 pages, Latex, Review article to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys. D, v2 additional reference

Characterization of Gastrin-Releasing Peptide and Its Receptor Aberrantly Expressed by Human Colon Cancer Cell Lines

ABSTRACT Gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) is a mitogen and morphogen important in the development of human colon cancers. Although epithelial cells lining the colon do not normally express GRP or its receptor (GRP-R), most human tumors express GRP-R mRNA. Yet functional protein has only been detected in 24 to 40% of colon cancers. To elucidate the reason for the difference between the expression of GRP/GRP-R mRNA and protein, we studied nine human colon cancer cell lines. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction revealed that all colon cancer cell lines expressed similar amounts of mRNA for both GRP as well as GRP-R. Yet binding studies using 125 I-Tyr 4 -bombesin detected functional receptors on only five of the nine cell lines studied. Conformational fragment-length polymorphism analysis indicated that although mRNA for the ligand GRP was never mutated, mRNA for the GRP-R was always mutated. Sequencing revealed that the message for GRP-R contained between two and seven separate mutations at the nucleotide level. This resulted in 14 separate coding mutations, 2 of which were observed in more than one cell line. Each mutation was individually recreated by site-directed mutagenesis and studied in transiently transfected Chinese hamster ovary-K1 cells. Alteration of Pro 145 into a tyrosine, of Val 317 into a glutamic acid, and insertion of a 32-nucleotide segment resulting in a frameshift distal to Asp 137 all resulted in GRP receptors incapable of binding ligand. Thus, these data indicate that human colon cancers commonly express GRP and GRP-R mRNA but that receptor mutations account for the failure of functional protein to be generated

Cosmological Evolution of a Purely Conical Codimension-2 Brane World

We study the cosmological evolution of isotropic matter on an infinitely thin conical codimension-two brane-world. Our analysis is based on the boundary dynamics of a six-dimensional model in the presence of an induced gravity term on the brane and a Gauss-Bonnet term in the bulk. With the assumption that the bulk contains only a cosmological constant Lambda_B, we find that the isotropic evolution of the brane-universe imposes a tuned relation between the energy density and the brane equation of state. The evolution of the system has fixed points (attractors), which correspond to a final state of radiation for Lambda_B=0 and to de Sitter state for Lambda_B>0. Furthermore, considering anisotropic matter on the brane, the tuning of the parameters is lifted, and new regions of the parametric space are available for the cosmological evolution of the brane-universe. The analysis of the dynamics of the system shows that, the isotropic fixed points remain attractors of the system, and for values of Lambda_B which give acceptable cosmological evolution of the equation of state, the line of isotropic tuning is a very weak attractor. The initial conditions, in this case, need to be fine tuned to have an evolution with acceptably small anisotropy.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, typo correcte

Chiral Transparency

Color transparency is the vanishing of initial and final state interactions, predicted by QCD to occur in high momentum transfer quasielastic nuclear reactions. For specific reactions involving nucleons, the initial and final state interactions are expected to be dominated by exchanges of pions. We argue that these interactions are also suppressed in high momentum transfer nuclear quasielastic reactions; this is ``chiral transparency". We show that studies of the $e ^3He \to e'\Delta^{++} nn$ reaction could reveal the influence of chiral transparency.Comment: 20 pages, three figures available by fax from [email protected]; submitted to Phys. Rev.

Signals for CPT and Lorentz Violation in Neutral-Meson Oscillations

Experimental signals for indirect CPT violation in the neutral-meson systems are studied in the context of a general CPT- and Lorentz-violating standard-model extension. In this explicit theory, some CPT observables depend on the meson momentum and exhibit diurnal variations. The consequences for CPT tests vary significantly with the specific experimental scenario. The wide range of possible effects is illustrated for two types of CPT experiment presently underway, one involving boosted uncorrelated kaons and the other involving unboosted correlated kaon pairs.Comment: Accepted in Physical Review D, scheduled for December 1999 issu

Evidence for dynamics in proteins as a mechanism for ligand dissociation

Signal transduction, regulatory processes, and pharmaceutical responses are highly dependent upon ligand residence times. Gaining insight into how physical factors influence residence times, or koff, should enhance our ability to manipulate biological interactions. We report experiments that yield structural insight into koff for a series of eight 2,4-diaminopyrimidine inhibitors of dihydrofolate reductase that vary by six orders of magnitude in binding affinity. NMR relaxation dispersion experiments revealed a common set of residues near the binding site that undergo a concerted, millisecond-timescale switching event to a previously unidentified conformation. The rate of switching from ground to excited conformations correlates exponentially with Ki and koff, suggesting that protein dynamics serves as a mechanical initiator of ligand dissociation within this series and potentially for other macromolecule-ligand systems. Although kconf,forward is faster than koff, use of the ligand series allowed for connections to be drawn between kinetic events on different timescales