Microwave-induced resistance oscillations in a back-gated GaAs quantum well

We performed effective mass measurements employing microwave-induced resistance oscillation in a tunable-density GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well. Our main result is a clear observation of an effective mass increase with decreasing density, in general agreement with earlier studies which investigated the density dependence of the effective mass employing Shubnikov- de Haas oscillations. This finding provides further evidence that microwave-induced resistance oscillations are sensitive to electron-electron interactions and offer a convenient and accurate way to obtain the effective mass.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Observation of microwave-induced resistance oscillations in strained Ge/SiGe quantum wells

Microwave-induced resistance oscillations (MIRO) have been extensively studied for more than a decade but, until now, have remained unique to GaAs/AlGaAs-based 2D electron systems. Here, we report on the first observation of MIRO in a 2D hole gas hosted in Ge/SiGe quantum well. Our findings confirm that MIRO is a universal phenomenon and demonstrate that microwave photoresistance can be utilized to probe the energy spectrum and the correlation effects of 2D holes in Ge/SiGe quantum wells

Stability of vortex lines in liquid 3He-4He mixtures at zero temperature

At low temperatures and 3He concentrations below 6.6 %, there is experimental evidence about the existence in liquid helium mixtures, of stable vortices with 3He-rich cores. When the system is either supersaturated or submitted to a tensile strength, vortices lose stability becoming metastable and eventually completely unstable, so that their cores freely expand. Within a density functional approach, we have determined the pressure-3He concentration curve along which this instability appears at zero temperature.Comment: Typeset using Revtex, 9 pages and 5 Postscript figure

Wetting transitions of Ne

We report studies of the wetting behavior of Ne on very weakly attractive surfaces, carried out with the Grand Canonical Monte Carlo method. The Ne-Ne interaction was taken to be of Lennard-Jones form, while the Ne-surface interaction was derived from an ab initio calculation of Chizmeshya et al. Nonwetting behavior was found for Li, Rb, and Cs in the temperature regime explored (i.e., T < 42 K). Drying behavior was manifested in a depleted fluid density near the Cs surface. In contrast, for the case of Mg (a more attractive potential) a prewetting transition was found near T= 28 K. This temperature was found to shift slightly when a corrugated potential was used instead of a uniform potential. The isotherm shape and the density profiles did not differ qualitatively between these cases.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Anisotropic Condensation of Helium in Nanotube Bundles

Helium atoms are strongly attracted to the interstitial channels within a bundle of carbon nanotubes. The strong corrugation of the axial potential within a channel can produce a lattice gas system where the weak mutual attraction between atoms in neighboring channels of a bundle induces condensation into a remarkably anisotropic phase with very low binding energy. We estimate the binding energy and critical temperature for 4He in this novel quasi-one-dimensional condensed state. At low temperatures, the specific heat of the adsorbate phase (fewer than 2% of the total number of atoms) greatly exceeds that of the host material.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PRL (corrected typo in abstract

High-momentum dynamic structure function of liquid 3He-4He mixtures: a microscopic approach

The high-momentum dynamic structure function of liquid 3He-4He mixtures has been studied introducing final state effects. Corrections to the impulse approximation have been included using a generalized Gersch-Rodriguez theory that properly takes into account the Fermi statistics of 3He atoms. The microscopic inputs, as the momentum distributions and the two-body density matrices, correspond to a variational (fermi)-hypernetted chain calculation. The agreement with experimental data obtained at $q=23.1$ \AA$^{-1}$ is not completely satisfactory, the comparison being difficult due to inconsistencies present in the scattering measurements. The significant differences between the experimental determinations of the 4He condensate fraction and the 3He kinetic energy, and the theoretical results, still remain unsolved.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

The BET inhibitor JQ1 selectively impairs tumour response to hypoxia and downregulates CA9 and angiogenesis in triple negative breast cancer

The availability of bromodomain and extra-terminal inhibitors (BETi) has enabled translational epigenetic studies in cancer. BET proteins regulate transcription by selectively recognizing acetylated lysine residues on chromatin. BETi compete with this process leading to both downregulation and upregulation of gene expression. Hypoxia enables progression of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most aggressive form of breast cancer, partly by driving metabolic adaptation, angiogenesis and metastasis through upregulation of hypoxia-regulated genes (for example, carbonic anhydrase 9 (CA9) and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). Responses to hypoxia can be mediated epigenetically, thus we investigated whether BETi JQ1 could impair the TNBC response induced by hypoxia and exert anti-tumour effects. JQ1 significantly modulated 44% of hypoxia-induced genes, of which two-thirds were downregulated including CA9 and VEGF-A. JQ1 prevented HIF binding to the hypoxia response element in CA9 promoter, but did not alter HIF expression or activity, suggesting some HIF targets are BET-dependent. JQ1 reduced TNBC growth in vitro and in vivo and inhibited xenograft vascularization. These findings identify that BETi dually targets angiogenesis and the hypoxic response, an effective combination at reducing tumour growth in preclinical studies