1,776 research outputs found
Coherent motion of stereocilia assures the concerted gating of hair-cell transduction channels
The hair cell's mechanoreceptive organelle, the hair bundle, is highly
sensitive because its transduction channels open over a very narrow range of
displacements. The synchronous gating of transduction channels also underlies
the active hair-bundle motility that amplifies and tunes responsiveness. The
extent to which the gating of independent transduction channels is coordinated
depends on how tightly individual stereocilia are constrained to move as a
unit. Using dual-beam interferometry in the bullfrog's sacculus, we found that
thermal movements of stereocilia located as far apart as a bundle's opposite
edges display high coherence and negligible phase lag. Because the mechanical
degrees of freedom of stereocilia are strongly constrained, a force applied
anywhere in the hair bundle deflects the structure as a unit. This feature
assures the concerted gating of transduction channels that maximizes the
sensitivity of mechanoelectrical transduction and enhances the hair bundle's
capacity to amplify its inputs.Comment: 24 pages, including 6 figures, published in 200
Full oxide heterostructure combining a high-Tc diluted ferromagnet with a high-mobility conductor
We report on the growth of heterostructures composed of layers of the
high-Curie temperature ferromagnet Co-doped (La,Sr)TiO3 (Co-LSTO) with
high-mobility SrTiO3 (STO) substrates processed at low oxygen pressure. While
perpendicular spin-dependent transport measurements in STO//Co-LSTO/LAO/Co
tunnel junctions demonstrate the existence of a large spin polarization in
Co-LSTO, planar magnetotransport experiments on STO//Co-LSTO samples evidence
electronic mobilities as high as 10000 cm2/Vs at T = 10 K. At high enough
applied fields and low enough temperatures (H < 60 kOe, T < 4 K) Shubnikov-de
Haas oscillations are also observed. We present an extensive analysis of these
quantum oscillations and relate them with the electronic properties of STO, for
which we find large scattering rates up to ~ 10 ps. Thus, this work opens up
the possibility to inject a spin-polarized current from a high-Curie
temperature diluted oxide into an isostructural system with high-mobility and a
large spin diffusion length.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev.
Characterization of Turing diffusion-driven instability on evolving domains
In this paper we establish a general theoretical framework for Turing diffusion-driven instability for reaction-diffusion systems on time-dependent evolving domains. The main result is that Turing diffusion-driven instability for reaction-diffusion systems on evolving domains is characterised by Lyapunov exponents of the evolution family associated with the linearised system (obtained by linearising the original system along a spatially independent solution). This framework allows for the inclusion of the analysis of the long-time behavior of the solutions of reaction-diffusion systems. Applications to two special types of evolving domains are considered: (i) time-dependent domains which evolve to a final limiting fixed domain and (ii) time-dependent domains which are eventually time periodic. Reaction-diffusion systems have been widely proposed as plausible mechanisms for pattern formation in morphogenesis
Nano-displacement measurements using spatially multimode squeezed light
We demonstrate the possibility of surpassing the quantum noise limit for
simultaneous multi-axis spatial displacement measurements that have zero mean
values. The requisite resources for these measurements are squeezed light beams
with exotic transverse mode profiles. We show that, in principle, lossless
combination of these modes can be achieved using the non-degenerate Gouy phase
shift of optical resonators. When the combined squeezed beams are measured with
quadrant detectors, we experimentally demonstrate a simultaneous reduction in
the transverse x- and y- displacement fluctuations of 2.2 dB and 3.1 dB below
the quantum noise limit.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, submitted to "Special Issue on Fluctuations &
Noise in Photonics & Quantum Optics" of J. Opt.
Optimum Small Optical Beam Displacement Measurement
We derive the quantum noise limit for the optical beam displacement of a
TEM00 mode. Using a multimodal analysis, we show that the conventional split
detection scheme for measuring beam displacement is non-optimal with 80%
efficiency. We propose a new displacement measurement scheme that is optimal
for small beam displacement. This scheme utilises a homodyne detection setup
that has a TEM10 mode local oscillator. We show that although the quantum noise
limit to displacement measurement can be surpassed using squeezed light in
appropriate spatial modes for both schemes, the TEM10 homodyning scheme
out-performs split detection for all values of squeezing.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure
DFR Perturbative Quantum Field theory on Quantum Space Time, and Wick Reduction
We discuss the perturbative approach a` la Dyson to a quantum field theory
with nonlocal self-interaction :phi*...*phi:, according to Doplicher,
Fredenhagen and Roberts (DFR). In particular, we show that the Wick reduction
of non locally time--ordered products of Wick monomials can be performed as
usual, and we discuss a very simple Dyson diagram.Comment: 15 pages, pdf has active hyperlinks. To appear in the proceedings of
the conference on "Rigorous quantum Field Theory", held at Saclay on July
19-21, 2004, on the occasion of Jacques Bros' 70th birthda
Labeling the human skeleton with 41Ca to assess changes in bone calcium metabolism
Bone research is limited by the methods available for detecting changes in bone metabolism. While dual X-ray absorptiometry is rather insensitive, biochemical markers are subject to significant intra-individual variation. In the study presented here, we evaluated the isotopic labeling of bone using 41Ca, a long-lived radiotracer, as an alternative approach. After successful labeling of the skeleton, changes in the systematics of urinary 41Ca excretion are expected to directly reflect changes in bone Ca metabolism. A minute amount of 41Ca (100nCi) was administered orally to 22 postmenopausal women. Kinetics of tracer excretion were assessed by monitoring changes in urinary 41Ca/40Ca isotope ratios up to 700days post-dosing using accelerator mass spectrometry and resonance ionization mass spectrometry. Isotopic labeling of the skeleton was evaluated by two different approaches: (i) urinary 41Ca data were fitted to an established function consisting of an exponential term and a power law term for each individual; (ii) 41Ca data were analyzed by population pharmacokinetic (NONMEM) analysis to identify a compartmental model that describes urinary 41Ca tracer kinetics. A linear three-compartment model with a central compartment and two sequential peripheral compartments was found to best fit the 41Ca data. Fits based on the use of the combined exponential/power law function describing urinary tracer excretion showed substantially higher deviations between predicted and measured values than fits based on the compartmental modeling approach. By establishing the urinary 41Ca excretion pattern using data points up to day 500 and extrapolating these curves up to day 700, it was found that the calculated 41Ca/40Ca isotope ratios in urine were significantly lower than the observed 41Ca/40Ca isotope ratios for both techniques. Compartmental analysis can overcome this limitation. By identifying relative changes in transfer rates between compartments in response to an intervention, inaccuracies in the underlying model cancel out. Changes in tracer distribution between compartments were modeled based on identified kinetic parameters. While changes in bone formation and resorption can, in principle, be assessed by monitoring urinary 41Ca excretion over the first few weeks post-dosing, assessment of an intervention effect is more reliable ∼150days post-dosing when excreted tracer originates mainly from bon
Numerical Schemes for Rough Parabolic Equations
This paper is devoted to the study of numerical approximation schemes for a
class of parabolic equations on (0, 1) perturbed by a non-linear rough signal.
It is the continuation of [8, 7], where the existence and uniqueness of a
solution has been established. The approach combines rough paths methods with
standard considerations on discretizing stochastic PDEs. The results apply to a
geometric 2-rough path, which covers the case of the multidimensional
fractional Brownian motion with Hurst index H \textgreater{} 1/3.Comment: Applied Mathematics and Optimization, 201
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