4,796 research outputs found
The NALCN channel complex is voltage sensitive and directly modulated by extracellular calcium
Phenomenological Consequences of Right-handed Down Squark Mixings
The mixings of quarks, hidden from view in Standard Model (SM), are
naturally the largest if one has an Abelian flavor symmetry. With supersymmetry
(SUSY) their effects can surface via squark loops. Squark and
gluino masses are at TeV scale, but they can still induce effects comparable to
SM in (or ) mixings, while mixing could be close to recent
hints from data. In general, CP phases would be different from SM, as may be
indicated by recent B Factory data. Presence of non-standard soft SUSY
breakings with large could enhance (or )
transitions.Comment: Version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Direct CP-asymmetry in Inclusive Rare B-decays in 2HDM
The direct CP-asymmetry in the inclusive and decays is investigated in the two-Higgs doublet extension of the
Standard Model (2HDM). The investigation is performed in the lowest
non-vanishing order of the perturbation theory using the existing restrictions
on the 2HDM parameters space. It is shown that the direct CP-asymmetry in the
decay can deviate significantly from the Standard Model
predictions. In the presence of only one source of CP-violation (the CKM matrix
weak phase) can have the sign opposite to that in
the SM. The new source of CP-violation can make
arbitrary small (unlike the SM case) and hence unmeasurable. Quantitatively,
the obtained results suffer from the uncertainty of the choice of
renormalization scale. As for the rate asymmetry, its
renormalization scale dependence in the lowest non-vanishing order does not
allow to conclude if this quantity is efficient for testing New Physics beyond
the Standard Model.Comment: 16 pages including 2 figure
Evidence for Factorization in Three-body B --> D(*) K- K0 Decays
Motivated by recent experimental results, we use a factorization approach to
study the three-body B --> D(*) K- K0 decay modes. Two mechanisms are proposed
for kaon pair production: current-produced (from vacuum) and transition (from B
meson). The Bbar0 --> D(*)+ K- K0 decay is governed solely by the
current-produced mechanism. As the kaon pair can be produced only by the vector
current, the matrix element can be extracted from e+ e- --> K Kbar processes
via isospin relations. The decay rates obtained this way are in good agreement
with experiment. Both current-produced and transition processes contribute to
B- --> D(*)0 K- K0 decays. By using QCD counting rules and the measured B- -->
D(*)0 K- K0 decay rates, the measured decay spectra can be understood.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure
Charmless Three-Body Baryonic B Decays
Motivated by recent data on B-> p pbar K decay, we study various charmless
three-body baryonic B decay modes, including Lambda pbar pi, Sigma0 pbar pi, p
pbar pi, p pbar Kbar0, in a factorization approach. These modes have rates of
order 10^{-6}. There are two mechanisms for the baryon pair production,
current-produced and transition. The behavior of decay spectra from these
baryon production mechanisms can be understood by using QCD counting rules.
Predictions on rates and decay spectra can be checked in the near future.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures; version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Balanced Homodyne Detection of Optical Quantum States at Audio-Band Frequencies and Below
The advent of stable, highly squeezed states of light has generated great
interest in the gravitational wave community as a means for improving the
quantumnoise- limited performance of advanced interferometric detectors. To
confidently measure these squeezed states, it is first necessary to measure the
shot-noise across the frequency band of interest. Technical noise, such as
non-stationary events, beam pointing, and parasitic interference, can corrupt
shot-noise measurements at low Fourier frequencies, below tens of kilo-Hertz.
In this paper we present a qualitative investigation into all of the relevant
noise sources and the methods by which they can be identified and mitigated in
order to achieve quantum noise limited balanced homodyne detection. Using these
techniques, flat shot-noise down to Fourier frequencies below 0.5 Hz is
produced. This enables the direct observation of large magnitudes of squeezing
across the entire audio-band, of particular interest for ground-based
interferometric gravitational wave detectors. 11.6 dB of shot-noise suppression
is directly observed, with more than 10 dB down to 10 Hz.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure
Amiodarone disrupts cholesterol biosynthesis pathway and causes accumulation of circulating desmosterol by inhibiting 24-dehydrocholesterol reductase
Background We have earlier reported that amiodarone, a potent and commonly used antiarrhythmic drug increases serum desmosterol, the last precursor of cholesterol, in 20 cardiac patients by an unknown mechanism. Objective Here, we extended our study to a large number of cardiac patients of heterogeneous diagnoses, evaluated the effects of combining amiodarone and statins (inhibitors of cholesterol synthesis at the rate-limiting step of hydroxy-methyl-glutaryl CoA reductase) on desmosterol levels and investigated the mechanism(s) by which amiodarone interferes with the metabolism of desmosterol using in vitro studies. Methods and Results We report in a clinical case-control setting of 236 cardiac patients (126 with and 110 without amiodarone treatment) that amiodarone medication is accompanied by a robust increase in serum desmosterol levels independently of gender, age, body mass index, cardiac and other diseases, and the use of statins. Lipid analyses in patient samples taken before and after initiation of amiodarone therapy showed a systematic increase of desmosterol upon drug administration, strongly arguing for a direct causal link between amiodarone and desmosterol accumulation. Mechanistically, we found that amiodarone resulted in desmosterol accumulation in cultured human cells and that the compound directly inhibited the 24-dehydrocholesterol reductase (DHCR24) enzyme activity. Conclusion These novel findings demonstrate that amiodarone blocks the cholesterol synthesis pathway by inhibiting DHCR24, causing a robust accumulation of cellular desmosterol in cells and in the sera of amiodarone-treated patients. It is conceivable that the antiarrhythmic potential and side effects of amiodarone may in part result from inhibition of the cholesterol synthesis pathway.Peer reviewe
Spawning rings of exceptional points out of Dirac cones
The Dirac cone underlies many unique electronic properties of graphene and
topological insulators, and its band structure--two conical bands touching at a
single point--has also been realized for photons in waveguide arrays, atoms in
optical lattices, and through accidental degeneracy. Deformations of the Dirac
cone often reveal intriguing properties; an example is the quantum Hall effect,
where a constant magnetic field breaks the Dirac cone into isolated Landau
levels. A seemingly unrelated phenomenon is the exceptional point, also known
as the parity-time symmetry breaking point, where two resonances coincide in
both their positions and widths. Exceptional points lead to counter-intuitive
phenomena such as loss-induced transparency, unidirectional transmission or
reflection, and lasers with reversed pump dependence or single-mode operation.
These two fields of research are in fact connected: here we discover the
ability of a Dirac cone to evolve into a ring of exceptional points, which we
call an "exceptional ring." We experimentally demonstrate this concept in a
photonic crystal slab. Angle-resolved reflection measurements of the photonic
crystal slab reveal that the peaks of reflectivity follow the conical band
structure of a Dirac cone from accidental degeneracy, whereas the complex
eigenvalues of the system are deformed into a two-dimensional flat band
enclosed by an exceptional ring. This deformation arises from the dissimilar
radiation rates of dipole and quadrupole resonances, which play a role
analogous to the loss and gain in parity-time symmetric systems. Our results
indicate that the radiation that exists in any open system can fundamentally
alter its physical properties in ways previously expected only in the presence
of material loss and gain
Implications of Recent Measurements
The recent measurements of the color-suppressed modes imply non-vanishing relative final-state interaction (FSI)
phases among various decay amplitudes. Depending on whether or
not FSIs are implemented in the topological quark-diagram amplitudes, two
solutions for the parameters and are extracted from data using
various form-factor models. It is found that is not universal:
and with a relative phase
of order between and . If FSIs are not included in
quark-diagram amplitudes from the outset, and
will become smaller. The large value of compared to
or naive expectation implies the importance of
long-distance FSI contributions to color-suppressed internal -emission via
final-state rescatterings of the color-allowed tree amplitude.Comment: 17 pages. The Introduction is substantially revised and the order of
the presentation in Sec. 2 is rearranged. To appear in Phys. Re
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