3,565 research outputs found
Calculation of the nucleon axial charge in lattice QCD
Protons and neutrons have a rich structure in terms of their constituents,
the quarks and gluons. Understanding this structure requires solving Quantum
Chromodynamics (QCD). However QCD is extremely complicated, so we must
numerically solve the equations of QCD using a method known as lattice QCD.
Here we describe a typical lattice QCD calculation by examining our recent
computation of the nucleon axial charge.Comment: Prepared for Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC
2006), Denver, Colorado, June 25-29 200
Testosterone reactivity to competition and competitive endurance in men and women
Transient shifts in testosterone occur during competition and are thought to positively influence dominance behavior aimed at enhancing social status. However, individual differences in testosterone reactivity to status contests have not been well-studied in relation to real-time expressions of competitive behavior among men and women. This research tests the association between changes in endogenous testosterone levels during competition and performance in terms of competitive endurance. Participant sex, social presence, and relative status outcomes (e.g., winning vs. losing) are tested as moderators of this relationship. In two studies, men and women (total NÂ =Â 398) competed in the competitive will task (timed weight-holding) either individually or in the presence of an opponent (Study 1) or as a team with and without the presence of a competitor team (Study 2). Results showed a positive relationship between testosterone reactivity and performance for men, particularly those who won or ranked highest among their group - with increasing testosterone predicting better performance and decreasing testosterone predicting worse performance. For women, the effect only emerged among individuals who competed in dyads and lost. In Study 2, an exploratory mediation analysis revealed that individual differences in trait dominance predicted both testosterone reactivity to competition and task performance, with testosterone reactivity (moderated by sex and status outcome) partially explaining the direct relationship between dominance-related traits and behavior. Our goal was to examine testosterone reactivity in relation to real-time competitive effort and highlight the potential role of this relationship in explaining how individual differences in trait dominance produce competitive behavior
Nucleon structure in the chiral regime with domain wall fermions on an improved staggered sea
Moments of unpolarized, helicity, and transversity distributions,
electromagnetic form factors, and generalized form factors of the nucleon are
presented from a preliminary analysis of lattice results using pion masses down
to 359 MeV. The twist two matrix elements are calculated using a mixed action
of domain wall valence quarks and asqtad staggered sea quarks and are
renormalized perturbatively. Several observables are extrapolated to the
physical limit using chiral perturbation theory. Results are compared with
experimental moments of quark distributions and electromagnetic form factors
and phenomenologically determined generalized form factors, and the
implications on the transverse structure and spin content of the nucleon are
discussed.Comment: Talks of J.W. Negele and D.B. Renner at Lattice 200
Instantons and Chiral Symmetry on the Lattice
I address the question of how much of QCD in the chiral limit is reproduced
by instantons. After reconstructing the instanton content of smoothed Monte
Carlo lattice configurations, I compare hadron spectroscopy on this instanton
ensemble to the spectroscopy on the original ``physical'' smoothed
configurations using a chirally optimised clover fermion action. By studying
the zero mode zone in simple instances I find that the optimised action gives a
satisfactory description of it. Through the Banks-Casher formula, instantons by
themselves are shown to break chiral symmetry but hadron correlators on the
instanton backgrounds are strongly influenced by free quark propagation. This
results in unnaturally light hadrons and a small splitting between the vector
and the pseudoscalar meson channels. Superimposing a perturbative ensemble of
zero momentum gauge field fluctuations (torons) on the instantons is found to
be enough to eliminate the free quarks and restore the physical hadron
correlators. I argue that the torons that are present only in finite volumes,
are probably needed to compensate the unnaturally large finite size effects due
to the lack of confinement in the instanton ensemble.Comment: 32 pages, LaTeX with 14 eps figure
Nucleon Generalized Parton Distributions from Full Lattice QCD
We present a comprehensive study of the lowest moments of nucleon generalized
parton distributions in N_f=2+1 lattice QCD using domain wall valence quarks
and improved staggered sea quarks. Our investigation includes helicity
dependent and independent generalized parton distributions for pion masses as
low as 350 MeV and volumes as large as (3.5 fm)^3, for a lattice spacing of
0.124 fm. We use perturbative renormalization at one-loop level with an
improvement based on the non-perturbative renormalization factor for the axial
vector current, and only connected diagrams are included in the isosinglet
channel.Comment: 40 pages, 49 figures; Revised chiral extrapolations in sections A-K,
main conclusions unchange
On the existence of stationary states during granular compaction
When submitted to gentle mechanical taps a granular packing slowly compacts
until it reaches a stationary state that depends on the tap characteristics.
The properties of such stationary states are experimentally investigated. The
influence of the initial state, taps properties and tapping protocol are
studied. The compactivity of the packings is determinated. Our results strongly
support the idea that the stationary states are genuine thermodynamic states.Comment: to be published in EPJE. The original publication will be available
at www.europhysj.or
Random Matrix Theory for the Hermitian Wilson Dirac Operator and the chGUE-GUE Transition
We introduce a random two-matrix model interpolating between a chiral
Hermitian (2n+nu)x(2n+nu) matrix and a second Hermitian matrix without
symmetries. These are taken from the chiral Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (chGUE)
and Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (GUE), respectively. In the microscopic large-n
limit in the vicinity of the chGUE (which we denote by weakly non-chiral limit)
this theory is in one to one correspondence to the partition function of Wilson
chiral perturbation theory in the epsilon regime, such as the related two
matrix-model previously introduced in refs. [20,21]. For a generic number of
flavours and rectangular block matrices in the chGUE part we derive an
eigenvalue representation for the partition function displaying a Pfaffian
structure. In the quenched case with nu=0,1 we derive all spectral correlations
functions in our model for finite-n, given in terms of skew-orthogonal
polynomials. The latter are expressed as Gaussian integrals over standard
Laguerre polynomials. In the weakly non-chiral microscopic limit this yields
all corresponding quenched eigenvalue correlation functions of the Hermitian
Wilson operator.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures; v2 typos corrected, published versio
Variability in conditioned pain modulation predicts response to NSAID treatment in patients with knee osteoarthritis
Background: Patients with painful knee osteoarthritis (OA) demonstrate hyperalgesia and altered pain-modulatory responses. While some prior work has demonstrated cross-sectional associations between laboratory and clinical pain measures, it is unknown whether individual variability in quantitative sensory testing (QST) responses at baseline can prospectively predict analgesic treatment responses. Method: Patients with knee OA (n = 35) were compared on QST responses to a demographically-matched pain-free control group (n = 39), after which patients completed a month-long treatment study of diclofenac sodium topical gel (1 %), applied up to 4 times daily. Results: OA patients demonstrated reduced pain thresholds at multiple anatomic sites, as well as reduced conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and enhanced temporal summation of pain. The most pain-sensitive patients tended to report the most intense and neuropathic OA pain. Following diclofenac treatment, the knee OA cohort showed a roughly 30 % improvement in pain, regardless of the presence or absence of neuropathic symptoms. Baseline CPM scores, an index of endogenous pain-inhibitory capacity, were prospectively associated with treatment-related changes in clinical pain. Specifically, participants with higher CPM at baseline (i.e., better functioning endogenous pain-inhibitory systems) showed more reduction in pain at the end of treatment (p < .05). Conclusions: These results support prior findings of amplified pain sensitivity and reduced pain-inhibition in OA patients. Moreover, the moderate to strong associations between laboratory-based measures of pain sensitivity and indices of clinical pain highlight the clinical relevance of QST in this sample. Finally, the prospective association between CPM and diclofenac response suggests that QST-based phenotyping may have utility in explaining inter-patient variability in long-term analgesic treatment outcomes. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.Gov Identifier: NCT01383954. Registered June 22, 2011
Nucleon structure from mixed action calculations using 2+1 flavors of asqtad sea and domain wall valence fermions
We present high statistics results for the structure of the nucleon from a
mixed-action calculation using 2+1 flavors of asqtad sea and domain wall
valence fermions. We perform extrapolations of our data based on different
chiral effective field theory schemes and compare our results with available
information from phenomenology. We discuss vector and axial form factors of the
nucleon, moments of generalized parton distributions, including moments of
forward parton distributions, and implications for the decomposition of the
nucleon spin.Comment: 68 pages, 47 figures. Main revision points: improved discussion of
chiral fits and systematic uncertainties, several minor refinements. Accepted
for publication in Phys.Rev.
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