The baryon octet magnetic moments to all orders in flavor breaking; an application to the problem of the strangeness in the nucleon

Using the general QCD parametrization (GP) we display the magnetic moments of the octet baryons including all flavor breaking terms to any order. The hierarchy of the GP parameters allows to estimate a parameter $g_{0}$ related to the quark loops contribution of the proton magnetic moment; its order of magnitude is predicted to be inside a comparatively small interval including the value given recently by Leinweber et al. by a lattice QCD calculationComment: (13 pages- version accepted for publication Phys.Rev.D. Note added in last section, 2 references adde

Controlled Fabrication of Metallic Electrodes with Atomic Separation

We report a new technique for fabricating metallic electrodes on insulating substrates with separations on the 1 nm scale. The fabrication technique, which combines lithographic and electrochemical methods, provides atomic resolution without requiring sophisticated instrumentation. The process is simple, controllable, reversible, and robust, allowing rapid fabrication of electrode pairs with high yield. We expect the method to prove useful in interfacing molecular-scale structures to macroscopic probes and electronic devices

Marginal topological properties of graphene: a comparison with topological insulators

The electronic structures of graphene systems and topological insulators have closely-related features, such as quantized Berry phase and zero-energy edge states. The reason for these analogies is that in both systems there are two relevant orbital bands, which generate the pseudo-spin degree of freedom, and, less obviously, there is a correspondence between the valley degree of freedom in graphene and electron spin in topological insulators. Despite the similarities, there are also several important distinctions, both for the bulk topological properties and for their implications for the edge states -- primarily due to the fundamental difference between valley and spin. In view of their peculiar band structure features, gapped graphene systems should be properly characterized as marginal topological insulators, distinct from either the trivial insulators or the true topological insulators.Comment: This manuscript will be published on the Proceedings of the 2010 Nobel Symposium on Graphene and Quantum Matte

Real-Time Monitoring of Beam-Beam Modes at LEP

By slightly exciting one of two colliding bunches in LEP, it is possible to enhance the eigenfrequencies of the resonant system of the two bunches coupled by the space charge force. The LEP Qmeter has been adapted to detect, among these excited frequencies, the so called s- and p- modes, whose distance is proportional to the luminosity. A real time display of these quantities provides the Operators with an effective way of finely optimizing the luminosity

The Q-Loop: a Function Driven Feedback System for the Betatron Tunes During the LEP Energy Ramp

In normal operation LEP is ramped from injection energy, typically 22 GeV, to energies of over 90 GeV where physics taking takes place. Effective control of the betatron during the ramp is essential t o ensure good transmission of stored current. The LEP Q-loop is a feedback system used to control the tunes during the energy ramp. By following a pre-programmed tune function it provides a means of avoiding dangerous resonances and thus beam loss. The basic components the Q-loop will be described, and operational results presented. Emphasis will be given to the problems encountered and the solut ions found

Controlling the topological sector of magnetic solitons in exfoliated Cr1/3_{1/3}NbS2_2 crystals

We investigate manifestations of topological order in monoaxial helimagnet Cr$_{1/3}$NbS$_2$ by performing transport measurements on ultra-thin crystals. Upon sweeping the magnetic field perpendicularly to the helical axis, crystals thicker than one helix pitch (48 nm) but much thinner than the magnetic domain size ($\sim$1 $\mu$m) are found to exhibit sharp and hysteretic resistance jumps. We show that these phenomena originate from transitions between topological sectors with different number of magnetic solitons. This is confirmed by measurements on crystals thinner than 48 nm --in which the topological sector cannot change-- that do not exhibit any jump or hysteresis. Our results show the ability to deterministically control the topological sector of finite-size Cr$_{1/3}$NbS$_2$ and to detect inter-sector transitions by transport measurements.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Statistical significance of fine structure in the frequency spectrum of Aharonov-Bohm conductance oscillations

We discuss a statistical analysis of Aharonov-Bohm conductance oscillations measured in a two-dimensional ring, in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction. Measurements performed at different values of gate voltage are used to calculate the ensemble-averaged modulus of the Fourier spectrum and, at each frequency, the standard deviation associated to the average. This allows us to prove the statistical significance of a splitting that we observe in the h/e peak of the averaged spectrum. Our work illustrates in detail the role of sample specific effects on the frequency spectrum of Aharonov-Bohm conductance oscillations and it demonstrates how fine structures of a different physical origin can be discriminated from sample specific features.Comment: accepted for publication in PR

Inferring biochemical reaction pathways: the case of the gemcitabine pharmacokinetics.

Background The representation of a biochemical system as a network is the precursor of any mathematical model of the processes driving the dynamics of that system. Pharmacokinetics uses mathematical models to describe the interactions between drug, and drug metabolites and targets and through the simulation of these models predicts drug levels and/or dynamic behaviors of drug entities in the body. Therefore, the development of computational techniques for inferring the interaction network of the drug entities and its kinetic parameters from observational data is raising great interest in the scientic community of pharmacologists. In fact, the network inference is a set of mathematical procedures deducing the structure of a model from the experimental data associated to the nodes of the network of interactions. In this paper, we deal with the inference of a pharmacokinetic network from the concentrations of the drug and its metabolites observed at discrete time points. Results The method of network inference presented in this paper is inspired by the theory of time-lagged correlation inference with regard to the deduction of the interaction network, and on a maximum likelihood approach with regard to the estimation of the kinetic parameters of the network. Both network inference and parameter estimation have been designed specically to identify systems of biotransformations, at the biochemical level, from noisy time-resolved experimental data. We use our inference method to deduce the metabolic pathway of the gemcitabine. The inputs to our inference algorithm are the experimental time series of the concentration of gemcitabine and its metabolites. The output is the set of reactions of the metabolic network of the gemcitabine. Conclusions Time-lagged correlation based inference pairs up to a probabilistic model of parameter inference from metabolites time series allows the identication of the microscopic pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of a drug with a minimal a priori knowledge. In fact, the inference model presented in this paper is completely unsupervised. It takes as input the time series of the concetrations of the parent drug and its metabolites. The method, applied to the case study of the gemcitabine pharmacokinetics, shows good accuracy and sensitivit

Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in p-type GaAs quantum rings

We have explored phase coherent transport of holes in two p-type GaAs quantum rings with orbital radii 420 nm and 160 nm fabricated with AFM oxidation lithography. Highly visible Aharonov-Bohm (AB) oscillations are measured in both rings, with an amplitude of the oscillations exceeding 10% of the total resistance in the case of the ring with a radius of 160 nm. Beside the h/e oscillations, we resolve the contributions from higher harmonics of the AB oscillations. The observation of a local resistance minimum at B=0 T in both rings is a signature of the destructive interference of the holes' spins. We show that this minimum is related to the minimum in the h/2e oscillations.Comment: Proceedings of EP2DS-17, Genova 2007; Accepted for Physica E; 3 pages, 3 figure

Conditions for Adiabatic Spin Transport in Disordered Systems

We address the controversy concerning the necessary conditions for the observation of Berry phases in disordered mesoscopic conductors. For this purpose we calculate the spin-dependent conductance of disordered two-dimensional structures in the presence of inhomogeneous magnetic fields. Our numerical results show that for both, the overall conductance and quantum corrections, the relevant parameter defining adiabatic spin transport scales with the square root of the number of scattering events, in generalization of Stern's original proposal [Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 1022 (1992)]. This could hinder a clear-cut experimental observation of Berry phase effects in diffusive metallic rings.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. B (Rapid Communications