Mechanisms of Spontaneous Current Generation in an Inhomogeneous d-Wave Superconductor

A boundary between two d-wave superconductors or an s-wave and a d-wave superconductor generally breaks time-reversal symmetry and can generate spontaneous currents due to proximity effect. On the other hand, surfaces and interfaces in d-wave superconductors can produce localized current-carrying states by supporting the T-breaking combination of dominant and subdominant order parameters. We investigate spontaneous currents in the presence of both mechanisms and show that at low temperature, counter-intuitively, the subdominant coupling decreases the amplitude of the spontaneous current due to proximity effect. Superscreening of spontaneous currents is demonstrated to be present in any d-d (but not s-d) junction and surface with d+id' order parameter symmetry. We show that this supercreening is the result of contributions from the local magnetic moment of the condensate to the spontaneous current.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, RevTe

Parallel metatranscriptome analyses of host and symbiont gene expression in the gut of the termite Reticulitermes flavipes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Termite lignocellulose digestion is achieved through a collaboration of host plus prokaryotic and eukaryotic symbionts. In the present work, we took a combined host and symbiont metatranscriptomic approach for investigating the digestive contributions of host and symbiont in the lower termite <it>Reticulitermes flavipes</it>. Our approach consisted of parallel high-throughput sequencing from (i) a host gut cDNA library and (ii) a hindgut symbiont cDNA library. Subsequently, we undertook functional analyses of newly identified phenoloxidases with potential importance as pretreatment enzymes in industrial lignocellulose processing.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Over 10,000 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were sequenced from the 2 libraries that aligned into 6,555 putative transcripts, including 171 putative lignocellulase genes. Sequence analyses provided insights in two areas. First, a non-overlapping complement of host and symbiont (prokaryotic plus protist) glycohydrolase gene families known to participate in cellulose, hemicellulose, alpha carbohydrate, and chitin degradation were identified. Of these, cellulases are contributed by host plus symbiont genomes, whereas hemicellulases are contributed exclusively by symbiont genomes. Second, a diverse complement of previously unknown genes that encode proteins with homology to lignase, antioxidant, and detoxification enzymes were identified exclusively from the host library (laccase, catalase, peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, carboxylesterase, cytochrome P450). Subsequently, functional analyses of phenoloxidase activity provided results that were strongly consistent with patterns of laccase gene expression. In particular, phenoloxidase activity and laccase gene expression are mostly restricted to symbiont-free foregut plus salivary gland tissues, and phenoloxidase activity is inducible by lignin feeding.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>To our knowledge, this is the first time that a dual host-symbiont transcriptome sequencing effort has been conducted in a single termite species. This sequence database represents an important new genomic resource for use in further studies of collaborative host-symbiont termite digestion, as well as development of coevolved host and symbiont-derived biocatalysts for use in industrial biomass-to-bioethanol applications. Additionally, this study demonstrates that: (i) phenoloxidase activities are prominent in the <it>R. flavipes </it>gut and are not symbiont derived, (ii) expands the known number of host and symbiont glycosyl hydrolase families in <it>Reticulitermes</it>, and (iii) supports previous models of lignin degradation and host-symbiont collaboration in cellulose/hemicellulose digestion in the termite gut. All sequences in this paper are available publicly with the accession numbers <ext-link ext-link-id="FL634956" ext-link-type="gen">FL634956</ext-link>-<ext-link ext-link-id="FL640828" ext-link-type="gen">FL640828</ext-link> (Termite Gut library) and <ext-link ext-link-id="FL641015" ext-link-type="gen">FL641015</ext-link>-<ext-link ext-link-id="FL645753" ext-link-type="gen">FL645753</ext-link> (Symbiont library).</p

Surfactant-Associated Bacteria in the Near-Surface Layer of the Ocean

Certain marine bacteria found in the near-surface layer of the ocean are expected to play important roles in the production and decay of surface active materials; however, the details of these processes are still unclear. Here we provide evidence supporting connection between the presence of surfactant-associated bacteria in the near-surface layer of the ocean, slicks on the sea surface, and a distinctive feature in the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery of the sea surface. From DNA analyses of the in situ samples using pyrosequencing technology, we found the highest abundance of surfactant-associated bacterial taxa in the near-surface layer below the slick. Our study suggests that production of surfactants by marine bacteria takes place in the organic-rich areas of the water column. Produced surfactants can then be transported to the sea surface and form slicks when certain physical conditions are met. This finding has potential applications in monitoring organic materials in the water column using remote sensing techniques. Identifying a connection between marine bacteria and production of natural surfactants may provide a better understanding of the global picture of biophysical processes at the boundary between the ocean and atmosphere, air-sea exchange of greenhouse gases, and production of climate-active marine aerosols

Realizability of metamaterials with prescribed electric permittivity and magnetic permeability tensors

We show that any pair of real symmetric tensors \BGve and \BGm can be realized as the effective electric permittivity and effective magnetic permeability of a metamaterial at a given fixed frequency. The construction starts with two extremely low loss metamaterials, with arbitrarily small microstructure, whose existence is ensured by the work of Bouchitt{\'e} and Bourel and Bouchitt\'e and Schweizer, one having at the given frequency a permittivity tensor with exactly one negative eigenvalue, and a positive permeability tensor, and the other having a positive permittivity tensor, and a permeability tensor having exactly one negative eigenvalue. To achieve the desired effective properties these materials are laminated together in a hierarchical multiple rank laminate structure, with widely separated length scales, and varying directions of lamination, but with the largest length scale still much shorter than the wavelengths and attenuation lengths in the macroscopic effective medium.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

Anomalous diffusion for a class of systems with two conserved quantities

We introduce a class of one dimensional deterministic models of energy-volume conserving interfaces. Numerical simulations show that these dynamics are genuinely super-diffusive. We then modify the dynamics by adding a conservative stochastic noise so that it becomes ergodic. System of conservation laws are derived as hydrodynamic limits of the modified dynamics. Numerical evidence shows these models are still super-diffusive. This is proven rigorously for harmonic potentials

Continuous, Semi-discrete, and Fully Discretized Navier-Stokes Equations

The Navier--Stokes equations are commonly used to model and to simulate flow phenomena. We introduce the basic equations and discuss the standard methods for the spatial and temporal discretization. We analyse the semi-discrete equations -- a semi-explicit nonlinear DAE -- in terms of the strangeness index and quantify the numerical difficulties in the fully discrete schemes, that are induced by the strangeness of the system. By analyzing the Kronecker index of the difference-algebraic equations, that represent commonly and successfully used time stepping schemes for the Navier--Stokes equations, we show that those time-integration schemes factually remove the strangeness. The theoretical considerations are backed and illustrated by numerical examples.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figure, code available under DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.998909, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.99890

Weak-strong uniqueness of dissipative measure-valued solutions for polyconvex elastodynamics

For the equations of elastodynamics with polyconvex stored energy, and some related simpler systems, we define a notion of dissipative measure-valued solution and show that such a solution agrees with a classical solution with the same initial data when such a classical solution exists. As an application of the method we give a short proof of strong convergence in the continuum limit of a lattice approximation of one dimensional elastodynamics in the presence of a classical solution. Also, for a system of conservation laws endowed with a positive and convex entropy, we show that dissipative measure-valued solutions attain their initial data in a strong sense after time averaging

About curvature, conformal metrics and warped products

We consider the curvature of a family of warped products of two pseduo-Riemannian manifolds $(B,g_B)$ and $(F,g_F)$ furnished with metrics of the form $c^{2}g_B \oplus w^2 g_F$ and, in particular, of the type $w^{2 \mu}g_B \oplus w^2 g_F$, where $c, w \colon B \to (0,\infty)$ are smooth functions and $\mu$ is a real parameter. We obtain suitable expressions for the Ricci tensor and scalar curvature of such products that allow us to establish results about the existence of Einstein or constant scalar curvature structures in these categories. If $(B,g_B)$ is Riemannian, the latter question involves nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations with concave-convex nonlinearities and singular partial differential equations of the Lichnerowicz-York type among others.Comment: 32 pages, 3 figure

Small BGK waves and nonlinear Landau damping

Consider 1D Vlasov-poisson system with a fixed ion background and periodic condition on the space variable. First, we show that for general homogeneous equilibria, within any small neighborhood in the Sobolev space W^{s,p} (p>1,s<1+(1/p)) of the steady distribution function, there exist nontrivial travelling wave solutions (BGK waves) with arbitrary minimal period and traveling speed. This implies that nonlinear Landau damping is not true in W^{s,p}(s<1+(1/p)) space for any homogeneous equilibria and any spatial period. Indeed, in W^{s,p} (s<1+(1/p)) neighborhood of any homogeneous state, the long time dynamics is very rich, including travelling BGK waves, unstable homogeneous states and their possible invariant manifolds. Second, it is shown that for homogeneous equilibria satisfying Penrose's linear stability condition, there exist no nontrivial travelling BGK waves and unstable homogeneous states in some W^{s,p} (p>1,s>1+(1/p)) neighborhood. Furthermore, when p=2,we prove that there exist no nontrivial invariant structures in the H^{s} (s>(3/2)) neighborhood of stable homogeneous states. These results suggest the long time dynamics in the W^{s,p} (s>1+(1/p)) and particularly, in the H^{s} (s>(3/2)) neighborhoods of a stable homogeneous state might be relatively simple. We also demonstrate that linear damping holds for initial perturbations in very rough spaces, for linearly stable homogeneous state. This suggests that the contrasting dynamics in W^{s,p} spaces with the critical power s=1+(1/p) is a trully nonlinear phenomena which can not be traced back to the linear level