Hartle-Hawking boundary conditions as Nucleation by de Sitter Vacuum

It is shown that, for a de Sitter Universe, the Hartle-Hawking (HH) wave function can be obtained in a simple way starting from the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) line element of cosmological equations. An oscillator having imaginary time is indeed derived starting from the Hamiltonian obtaining the HH condition. This proposes again some crucial matter on the meaning of complex time in cosmology. In order to overcome such difficulties, we propose an interpretation of the HH framework based on de Sitter Projective Holography.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Physics of the Dark Univers

On the quantization of the extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black hole

Following Rosen's quantization rules, two of the Authors (CC and FF) recently described the Schwarzschild black hole (BH) formed after the gravitational collapse of a pressureless "star of dust" in terms of a "gravitational hydrogen atom". Here we generalize this approach to the gravitational collapse of a charged object, namely, to the geometry of a Reissner-Nordstrom BH (RNBH) and calculate the gravitational potential, the Schr\"odinger equation and the exact solutions of the energy levels of the gravitational collapse. By using the concept of BH effective state, previously introduced by one of us (CC), we describe the quantum gravitational potential, the mass spectrum and the energy spectrum for the extremal RNBH. The area spectrum derived from the mass spectrum finds agreement with a previous result by Bekenstein. The stability of these solutions, described with the Majorana approach to the Archaic Universe scenario, show the existence of oscillatory regimes or exponential damping for the evolution of a small perturbation from a stable state.Comment: 7 pages, to appear in Europhysics Letter

Quantum oscillations in the black hole horizon

By applying Rosen's quantization approach to the historical Oppenheimer and Snyder gravitational collapse and by setting the constraints for the formation of the Schwarzschild black hole (SBH), in a previous paper [1] two of the Authors (CC and FF) found the gravitational potential, the Schrodinger equation, the solution for the energy levels, the area quantum and the quantum representation of the ground state at the Planck scale of the SBH. Such results are consistent with previous ones in the literature. It was also shown that the traditional classical singularity in the core of the SBH is replaced by a quantum oscillator describing a non-singular two-particle system where the two components, named the "nucleus" and the "electron", strongly interact with each other through a quantum gravitational interaction. In agreement with the de Broglie hypothesis, the "electron" is interpreted in terms of the quantum oscillations of the BH horizon. In other words, the SBH should be the gravitational analogous of the hydrogen atom. In this paper, it is shown that these results allow us to compute the SBH entropy as a function of the BH principal quantum number in terms of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and three sub-leading corrections. In addition, the coefficient of the formula of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is reduced to a quarter of the traditional value. Then, it is shown that, by performing a correct rescaling of the energy levels, the semi-classical Bohr-like approach to BH quantum physics, previously developed by one of the Authors (CC), is consistent with the obtained results for large values of the BH principal quantum number. After this, Hawking radiation will be analysed by discussing its connection with the BH quantum structure. Finally, it is shown that the time evolution of the above mentioned system solves the BH information paradox.Comment: 29 pages.Comments are welcome. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1912.0647

Black hole thermodynamics in the Sharma-Mittal generalized entropy formalism

Using the Sharma-Mittal entropy, we study some properties of the Schwarzschild and Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes. The results are compared with those obtained by attributing the Bekenstein entropy bound to the mentioned black holes. Our main results show that while the Schwarzschild black hole is always stable in the micro-canonical ensemble, it can be stable in the canonical ensemble if its mass is bigger than the mass of the coldest Schwarzschild black hole. A semi-classical analysis has also been used to find an approximate relation between the entropy free parameters. Throughout the paper, we use units $c=G=\hbar=k_B=1$, where $k_B$ denotes the Boltzmann constant.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Breast-Lesion Characterization using Textural Features of Quantitative Ultrasound Parametric Maps

© 2017 The Author(s). This study evaluated, for the first time, the efficacy of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) spectral parametric maps in conjunction with texture-analysis techniques to differentiate non-invasively benign versus malignant breast lesions. Ultrasound B-mode images and radiofrequency data were acquired from 78 patients with suspicious breast lesions. QUS spectral-analysis techniques were performed on radiofrequency data to generate parametric maps of mid-band fit, spectral slope, spectral intercept, spacing among scatterers, average scatterer diameter, and average acoustic concentration. Texture-analysis techniques were applied to determine imaging biomarkers consisting of mean, contrast, correlation, energy and homogeneity features of parametric maps. These biomarkers were utilized to classify benign versus malignant lesions with leave-one-patient-out cross-validation. Results were compared to histopathology findings from biopsy specimens and radiology reports on MR images to evaluate the accuracy of technique. Among the biomarkers investigated, one mean-value parameter and 14 textural features demonstrated statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) between the two lesion types. A hybrid biomarker developed using a stepwise feature selection method could classify the legions with a sensitivity of 96%, a specificity of 84%, and an AUC of 0.97. Findings from this study pave the way towards adapting novel QUS-based frameworks for breast cancer screening and rapid diagnosis in clinic

Charged particle scattering near the horizon

We study Maxwell theory, in the presence of charged scalar sources, near the black hole horizon in a partial wave basis. We derive the gauge field configuration that solves Maxwell equations in the near-horizon region of a Schwarzschild black hole when sourced by a charge density of a localised charged particle. This is the electromagnetic analog of the gravitational Dray-’t Hooft shockwave near the horizon. We explicitly calculate the S-matrix associated with this shockwave in the first quantised 1 → 1 formalism. We develop a theory for scalar QED near the horizon using which we compute the electromagnetic eikonal S-matrix from elastic 2 → 2 scattering of charged particles exchanging soft photons in the black hole eikonal limit. The resulting ladder resummation agrees perfectly with the result from the first quantised formalism, whereas the field-theoretic formulation allows for a computation of a wider range of amplitudes. As a demonstration, we explicitly compute sub-leading corrections that arise from four-vertices

Chemotherapy-Response Monitoring of Breast Cancer Patients Using Quantitative Ultrasound-Based Intra-Tumour Heterogeneities

© 2017 The Author(s). Anti-cancer therapies including chemotherapy aim to induce tumour cell death. Cell death introduces alterations in cell morphology and tissue micro-structures that cause measurable changes in tissue echogenicity. This study investigated the effectiveness of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) parametric imaging to characterize intra-tumour heterogeneity and monitor the pathological response of breast cancer to chemotherapy in a large cohort of patients (n = 100). Results demonstrated that QUS imaging can non-invasively monitor pathological response and outcome of breast cancer patients to chemotherapy early following treatment initiation. Specifically, QUS biomarkers quantifying spatial heterogeneities in size, concentration and spacing of acoustic scatterers could predict treatment responses of patients with cross-validated accuracies of 82 ± 0.7%, 86 ± 0.7% and 85 ± 0.9% and areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.75 ± 0.1, 0.80 ± 0.1 and 0.89 ± 0.1 at 1, 4 and 8 weeks after the start of treatment, respectively. The patients classified as responders and non-responders using QUS biomarkers demonstrated significantly different survivals, in good agreement with clinical and pathological endpoints. The results form a basis for using early predictive information on survival-linked patient response to facilitate adapting standard anti-cancer treatments on an individual patient basis

Self-medication of migraine and tension-type headache: summary of the evidence-based recommendations of the Deutsche Migräne und Kopfschmerzgesellschaft (DMKG), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurologie (DGN), the Österreichische Kopfschmerzgesellschaft (ÖKSG) and the Schweizerische Kopfwehgesellschaft (SKG)

The current evidence-based guideline on self-medication in migraine and tension-type headache of the German, Austrian and Swiss headache societies and the German Society of Neurology is addressed to physicians engaged in primary care as well as pharmacists and patients. The guideline is especially concerned with the description of the methodology used, the selection process of the literature used and which evidence the recommendations are based upon. The following recommendations about self-medication in migraine attacks can be made: The efficacy of the fixed-dose combination of acetaminophen, acetylsalicylic acid and caffeine and the monotherapies with ibuprofen or naratriptan or acetaminophen or phenazone are scientifically proven and recommended as first-line therapy. None of the substances used in self-medication in migraine prophylaxis can be seen as effective. Concerning the self-medication in tension-type headache, the following therapies can be recommended as first-line therapy: the fixed-dose combination of acetaminophen, acetylsalicylic acid and caffeine as well as the fixed combination of acetaminophen and caffeine as well as the monotherapies with ibuprofen or acetylsalicylic acid or diclofenac. The four scientific societies hope that this guideline will help to improve the treatment of headaches which largely is initiated by the patients themselves without any consultation with their physicians