Planar Gravitational Corrections For Supersymmetric Gauge Theories

In this paper we discuss the contribution of planar diagrams to gravitational F-terms for N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories admitting a large N description. We show how the planar diagrams lead to a universal contribution at the extremum of the glueball superpotential, leaving only the genus one contributions, as was previously conjectured. We also discuss the physical meaning of gravitational F-terms.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure

Copper Oxide Nanoparticles Impact Several Toxicological Endpoints and Cause Neurodegeneration in \u3cem\u3eCaenorhabditis elegans\u3c/em\u3e

Engineered nanoparticles are becoming increasingly incorporated into technology and consumer products. In 2014, over 300 tons of copper oxide nanoparticles were manufactured in the United States. The increased production of nanoparticles raises concerns regarding the potential introduction into the environment or human exposure. Copper oxide nanoparticles commonly release copper ions into solutions, which contribute to their toxicity. We quantified the inhibitory effects of both copper oxide nanoparticles and copper sulfate on C. elegans toxicological endpoints to elucidate their biological effects. Several toxicological endpoints were analyzed in C. elegans, including nematode reproduction, feeding behavior, and average body length. We examined three wild C. elegans isolates together with the Bristol N2 laboratory strain to explore the influence of different genotypic backgrounds on the physiological response to copper challenge. All strains exhibited greater sensitivity to copper oxide nanoparticles compared to copper sulfate, as indicated by reduction of average body length and feeding behavior. Reproduction was significantly reduced only at the highest copper dose, though still more pronounced with copper oxide nanoparticles compared to copper sulfate treatment. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of copper oxide nanoparticles and copper sulfate on neurons, cells with known vulnerability to heavy metal toxicity. Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons was observed in up to 10% of the population after copper oxide nanoparticle exposure. Additionally, mutants in the divalent-metal transporters, smf-1 or smf-2, showed increased tolerance to copper exposure, implicating both transporters in copper-induced neurodegeneration. These results highlight the complex nature of CuO nanoparticle toxicity, in which a nanoparticle-specific effect was observed in some traits (average body length, feeding behavior) and a copper ion specific effect was observed for other traits (neurodegeneration, response to stress)

Quantum engineering of atomic phase-shifts in optical clocks

Quantum engineering of time-separated Raman laser pulses in three-level systems is presented to produce an ultra-narrow optical transition in bosonic alkali-earth clocks free from light shifts and with a significantly reduced sensitivity to laser parameter fluctuations. Based on a quantum artificial complex-wave-function analytical model, and supported by a full density matrix simulation including a possible residual effect of spontaneous emission from the intermediate state, atomic phase-shifts associated to Ramsey and Hyper-Ramsey two-photon spectroscopy in optical clocks are derived. Various common-mode Raman frequency detunings are found where the frequency shifts from off-resonant states are canceled, while strongly reducing their uncertainties at the 10$^{-18}$ level of accuracy.Comment: accepted for publication in PR

Supergravity dressing of beta-functions in N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric models

We discuss the dressing of one-loop sigma-model beta-functions by induced supergravity, for both N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric theories. We obtain exact results by a superconformal gauge argument, and verify them in the semi-classical limit by explicit perturbative calculations in the light-cone gauge. We find that for N=2 theories there is no dressing of the one-loop beta-functions.Comment: 10 pages, latex, macros included, 2 figures in figures.u

Noncommutative Einstein-AdS Gravity in three Dimensions

We present a Lorentzian version of three-dimensional noncommutative Einstein-AdS gravity by making use of the Chern-Simons formulation of pure gravity in 2+1 dimensions. The deformed action contains a real, symmetric metric and a real, antisymmetric tensor that vanishes in the commutative limit. These fields are coupled to two abelian gauge fields. We find that this theory of gravity is invariant under a class of transformations that reduce to standard diffeomorphisms once the noncommutativity parameter is set to zero.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, minor errors corrected, references adde