Dynamics of the DBI Spike Soliton

We compare oscillations of a fundamental string ending on a D3-brane in two different settings: (1) a test-string radially threading the horizon of an extremal black D3-brane and (2) the spike soliton of the DBI effective action for a D3-brane. Previous work has shown that overall transverse modes of the test-string appear as l=0 modes of the transverse scalar fields of the DBI system. We identify DBI world-volume degrees of freedom that have dynamics matching those of the test-string relative transverse modes. We show that there is a map, resembling T-duality, between relative and overall transverse modes for the test-string that interchanges Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions and implies equality of the absorption coefficients for both modes. We give general solutions to the overall and relative transverse parts of the DBI coupled gauge and scalar system and calculate absorption coefficients for the higher angular momentum modes in the low frequency limit. We find that there is a nonzero amplitude for l>0 modes to travel out to infinity along the spike, demonstrating that the spike remains effectively 3+1-dimensional.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

A (1,2) Heterotic String with Gauge Symmetry

We construct a (1,2) heterotic string with gauge symmetry and determine its particle spectrum. This theory has a local N=1 worldsheet supersymmetry for left movers and a local N=2 worldsheet supersymmetry for right movers and describes particles in either two or three space-time dimensions. We show that fermionizing the bosons of the compactified N=1 space leads to a particle spectrum which has nonabelian gauge symmetry. The fermionic formulation of the theory corresponds to a dimensional reduction of self dual Yang Mills. We also give a worldsheet action for the theory and calculate the one-loop path integral.Comment: 17 pages, added reference

Testing for double inflation with WMAP

With the WMAP data we can now begin to test realistic models of inflation involving multiple scalar fields. These naturally lead to correlated adiabatic and isocurvature (entropy) perturbations with a running spectral index. We present the first full (9 parameter) likelihood analysis of double inflation with WMAP data and find that despite the extra freedom, supersymmetric hybrid potentials are strongly constrained with less than 7% correlated isocurvature component allowed when standard priors are imposed on the cosomological parameters. As a result we also find that Akaike & Bayesian model selection criteria rather strongly prefer single-field inflation, just as equivalent analysis prefers a cosmological constant over dynamical dark energy in the late universe. It appears that simplicity is the best guide to our universe.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

A library of infectious hepatitis C viruses with engineered mutations in the E2 gene reveals growth-adaptive mutations that modulate interactions with scavenger receptor class B type I

While natural hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection results in highly diverse quasispecies of related viruses over time, mutations accumulate more slowly in tissue culture, in part because of the inefficiency of replication in cells. To create a highly diverse population of HCV particles in cell culture and identify novel growth-enhancing mutations, we engineered a library of infectious HCV with all codons represented at most positions in the ectodomain of the E2 gene. We identified many putative growth-adaptive mutations and selected nine highly represented E2 mutants for further study: Q412R, T416R, S449P, T563V, A579R, L619T, V626S, K632T, and L644I. We evaluated these mutants for changes in particle-to-infectious-unit ratio, sensitivity to neutralizing antibody or CD81 large extracellular loop (CD81-LEL) inhibition, entry factor usage, and buoyant density profiles. Q412R, T416R, S449P, T563V, and L619T were neutralized more efficiently by anti-E2 antibodies and T416R, T563V, and L619T by CD81-LEL. Remarkably, all nine variants showed reduced dependence on scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI) for infection. This shift from SR-BI usage did not correlate with a change in the buoyant density profiles of the variants, suggesting an altered E2-SR-BI interaction rather than changes in the virus-associated lipoprotein-E2 interaction. Our results demonstrate that residues influencing SR-BI usage are distributed across E2 and support the development of large-scale mutagenesis studies to identify viral variants with unique functional properties. IMPORTANCE Characterizing variant viruses can reveal new information about the life cycle of HCV and the roles played by different viral genes. However, it is difficult to recapitulate high levels of diversity in the laboratory because of limitations in the HCV culture system. To overcome this limitation, we engineered a library of mutations into the E2 gene in the context of an infectious clone of the virus. We used this library of viruses to identify nine mutations that enhance the growth rate of HCV. These growth-enhancing mutations reduced the dependence on a key entry receptor, SR-BI. By generating a highly diverse library of infectious HCV, we mapped regions of the E2 protein that influence a key virus-host interaction and provide proof of principle for the generation of large-scale mutant libraries for the study of pathogens with great sequence variability

A geometric discretisation scheme applied to the Abelian Chern-Simons theory

We give a detailed general description of a recent geometrical discretisation scheme and illustrate, by explicit numerical calculation, the scheme's ability to capture topological features. The scheme is applied to the Abelian Chern-Simons theory and leads, after a necessary field doubling, to an expression for the discrete partition function in terms of untwisted Reidemeister torsion and of various triangulation dependent factors. The discrete partition function is evaluated computationally for various triangulations of $S^3$ and of lens spaces. The results confirm that the discretisation scheme is triangulation independent and coincides with the continuum partition functionComment: 27 pages, 5 figures, 6 tables. in late

A doubled discretisation of abelian Chern-Simons theory

A new discretisation of a doubled, i.e. BF, version of the pure abelian Chern-Simons theory is presented. It reproduces the continuum expressions for the topological quantities of interest in the theory, namely the partition function and correlation function of Wilson loops. Similarities with free spinor field theory are discussed which are of interest in connection with lattice fermion doubling.Comment: 5 pages, revtex, 2 ps figures (epsf required). To appear in Phys.Rev.Let

Class Discovery in Galaxy Classification

In recent years, automated, supervised classification techniques have been fruitfully applied to labeling and organizing large astronomical databases. These methods require off-line classifier training, based on labeled examples from each of the (known) object classes. In practice, only a small batch of labeled examples, hand-labeled by a human expert, may be available for training. Moreover, there may be no labeled examples for some classes present in the data, i.e. the database may contain several unknown classes. Unknown classes may be present due to 1) uncertainty in or lack of knowledge of the measurement process, 2) an inability to adequately ``survey'' a massive database to assess its content (classes), and/or 3) an incomplete scientific hypothesis. In recent work, new class discovery in mixed labeled/unlabeled data was formally posed, with a proposed solution based on mixture models. In this work we investigate this approach, propose a competing technique suitable for class discovery in neural networks, and evaluate both methods for classification and class discovery on several astronomical data sets. Our results demonstrate up to a 57% reduction in classification error compared to a standard neural network classifier that uses only labeled data

Duality Symmetric Strings, Dilatons and O(d,d) Effective Actions

We calculate the background field equations for the T-duality symmetric string building on previous work by including the effect of the Dilaton up to two-loops. Inclusion of the Dilaton allows us to obtain the full beta functionals of the duality symmetric sigma model. We are able to interpret the result in terms of a dimensionally reduced O(d,d) invariant target space effective action.Comment: 15 pages, latex; v2 reference added, typos fixe