667 research outputs found
Mechanisms and dynamics of the metastable decay in Ar-2(+)
A detailed experimental as well as theoretical investigation of the properties of the metastable dissociation Ar-2(+)--\u3eAr++Ar is presented. The mass-analyzed ion kinetic energy (MIKE) scan technique has been performed using a three sector field mass spectrometer. The possible mechanisms of the metastability of Ar-2(+) have been examined and the observed decay process is assigned to the II(1/2)(u)--\u3eI(1/2)(g) bound to continuum radiative transition, in agreement with earlier work. The calculation of the theoretical shape of the kinetic energy release distribution of fragment ions allowed us to construct the theoretical MIKE peak and compare it with the raw experimental data. The accuracy of various sets of potential energy curves for Ar-2(+) is discussed, as well as the way of production of the metastable Ar-2(+)[II(1/2)(u)] electronic state by electron impact. Excellent agreement between the experimental data and theoretical model has been observed. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics
Stopping Rules for Gradient Methods for Non-Convex Problems with Additive Noise in Gradient
We study the gradient method under the assumption that an additively inexact
gradient is available for, generally speaking, non-convex problems. The
non-convexity of the objective function, as well as the use of an inexactness
specified gradient at iterations, can lead to various problems. For example,
the trajectory of the gradient method may be far enough away from the starting
point. On the other hand, the unbounded removal of the trajectory of the
gradient method in the presence of noise can lead to the removal of the
trajectory of the method from the desired exact solution. The results of
investigating the behavior of the trajectory of the gradient method are
obtained under the assumption of the inexactness of the gradient and the
condition of gradient dominance. It is well known that such a condition is
valid for many important non-convex problems. Moreover, it leads to good
complexity guarantees for the gradient method. A rule of early stopping of the
gradient method is proposed. Firstly, it guarantees achieving an acceptable
quality of the exit point of the method in terms of the function. Secondly, the
stopping rule ensures a fairly moderate distance of this point from the chosen
initial position. In addition to the gradient method with a constant step, its
variant with adaptive step size is also investigated in detail, which makes it
possible to apply the developed technique in the case of an unknown Lipschitz
constant for the gradient. Some computational experiments have been carried out
which demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed stopping rule for the
investigated gradient methods
Kinetic-energy release in Coulomb explosion of metastable C3H52+
C3H52+, formed by electron impact ionization of propane, undergoes metastable decay into C2H2++CH3+. We have monitored this reaction in a magnetic mass spectrometer of reversed geometry that is equipped with two electric sectors (BEE geometry). Three different techniques were applied to identify the fragment ions and determine the kinetic-energy release (KER) of spontaneous Coulomb explosion of C3H52+ in the second and third field free regions of the mass spectrometer. The KER distribution is very narrow, with a width of about 3% [root-mean square standard deviation]. An average KER of 4.58+/-0.15 eV is derived from the distribution. High level ab initio quantum-chemical calculations of the structure and energetics of C3H52+ are reported. The activation barrier of the reverse reaction, CH3++C2H2+ (vinylidene), is computed. The value closely agrees with the experimental average KER, thus indicating that essentially all energy available in the reaction is partitioned into kinetic energy. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics
Enhanced insulin sensitivity associated with provision of mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids in skeletal muscle cells involves counter modulation of PP2A
International audienceAims/Hypothesis: Reduced skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity is a feature associated with sustained exposure to excess saturated fatty acids (SFA), whereas mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids (MUFA and PUFA) not only improve insulin sensitivity but blunt SFA-induced insulin resistance. The mechanisms by which MUFAs and PUFAs institute these favourable changes remain unclear, but may involve stimulating insulin signalling by counter-modulation/repression of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A). This study investigated the effects of oleic acid (OA; a MUFA), linoleic acid (LOA; a PUFA) and palmitate (PA; a SFA) in cultured myotubes and determined whether changes in insulin signalling can be attributed to PP2A regulation. Principal Findings: We treated cultured skeletal myotubes with unsaturated and saturated fatty acids and evaluated insulin signalling, phosphorylation and methylation status of the catalytic subunit of PP2A. Unlike PA, sustained incubation of rat or human myotubes with OA or LOA significantly enhanced Akt-and ERK1/2-directed insulin signalling. This was not due to heightened upstream IRS1 or PI3K signalling nor to changes in expression of proteins involved in proximal insulin signalling, but was associated with reduced dephosphorylation/inactivation of Akt and ERK1/2. Consistent with this, PA reduced PP2Ac demethylation and tyrosine 307 phosphorylation-events associated with PP2A activation. In contrast, OA and LOA strongly opposed these PA-induced changes in PP2Ac thus exerting a repressive effect on PP2A.Conclusions/Interpretation: Beneficial gains in insulin sensitivity and the ability of unsaturated fatty acids to oppose palmitate-induced insulin resistance in muscle cells may partly be accounted for by counter-modulation of PP2A
High magnetic field scales and critical currents in SmFeAs(O,F) crystals: promising for applications
Superconducting technology provides most sensitive field detectors, promising
implementations of qubits and high field magnets for medical imaging and for
most powerful particle accelerators. Thus, with the discovery of new
superconducting materials, such as the iron pnictides, exploring their
potential for applications is one of the foremost tasks. Even if the critical
temperature Tc is high, intrinsic electronic properties might render
applications rather difficult, particularly if extreme electronic anisotropy
prevents effective pinning of vortices and thus severely limits the critical
current density, a problem well known for cuprates. While many questions
concerning microscopic electronic properties of the iron pnictides have been
successfully addressed and estimates point to a very high upper critical field,
their application potential is less clarified. Thus we focus here on the
critical currents, their anisotropy and the onset of electrical dissipation in
high magnetic fields up to 65 T. Our detailed study of the transport properties
of optimally doped SmFeAs(O,F) single crystals reveals a promising combination
of high (>2 x 10^6 A/cm^2) and nearly isotropic critical current densities
along all crystal directions. This favorable intragrain current transport in
SmFeAs(O,F), which shows the highest Tc of 54 K at ambient pressure, is a
crucial requirement for possible applications. Essential in these experiments
are 4-probe measurements on Focused Ion Beam (FIB) cut single crystals with
sub-\mu\m^2 cross-section, with current along and perpendicular to the
crystallographic c-axis and very good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in pulsed
magnetic fields. The pinning forces have been characterized by scaling the
magnetically measured "peak effect"
Quantitative test of the barrier nucleosome model for statistical positioning of nucleosomes up- and downstream of transcription start sites
The positions of nucleosomes in eukaryotic genomes determine which parts of
the DNA sequence are readily accessible for regulatory proteins and which are
not. Genome-wide maps of nucleosome positions have revealed a salient pattern
around transcription start sites, involving a nucleosome-free region (NFR)
flanked by a pronounced periodic pattern in the average nucleosome density.
While the periodic pattern clearly reflects well-positioned nucleosomes, the
positioning mechanism is less clear. A recent experimental study by Mavrich et
al. argued that the pattern observed in S. cerevisiae is qualitatively
consistent with a `barrier nucleosome model', in which the oscillatory pattern
is created by the statistical positioning mechanism of Kornberg and Stryer. On
the other hand, there is clear evidence for intrinsic sequence preferences of
nucleosomes, and it is unclear to what extent these sequence preferences affect
the observed pattern. To test the barrier nucleosome model, we quantitatively
analyze yeast nucleosome positioning data both up- and downstream from NFRs.
Our analysis is based on the Tonks model of statistical physics which
quantifies the interplay between the excluded-volume interaction of nucleosomes
and their positional entropy. We find that although the typical patterns on the
two sides of the NFR are different, they are both quantitatively described by
the same physical model, with the same parameters, but different boundary
conditions. The inferred boundary conditions suggest that the first nucleosome
downstream from the NFR (the +1 nucleosome) is typically directly positioned
while the first nucleosome upstream is statistically positioned via a
nucleosome-repelling DNA region. These boundary conditions, which can be
locally encoded into the genome sequence, significantly shape the statistical
distribution of nucleosomes over a range of up to ~1000 bp to each side.Comment: includes supporting materia
Numerical results for the exact spectrum of planar AdS4/CFT3
We compute the anomalous dimension for a short single-trace operator in
planar ABJM theory at intermediate coupling. This is done by solving
numerically the set of Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz equations which are expected
to describe the exact spectrum of the theory. We implement a truncation method
which significantly reduces the number of integral equations to be solved and
improves numerical efficiency. Results are obtained for a range of 't Hooft
coupling lambda corresponding to , where h(lambda) is
the interpolating function of the AdS4/CFT3 Bethe equations.Comment: v3: corrected Acknowledgements section; v4: minor changes, published
version; v5: fixed typos in Eq. (3.9
Neutrinoless double-beta decay and seesaw mechanism
From the standard seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass generation, which is
based on the assumption that the lepton number is violated at a large
(~10exp(+15) GeV) scale, follows that the neutrinoless double-beta decay is
ruled by the Majorana neutrino mass mechanism. Within this notion, for the
inverted neutrino-mass hierarchy we derive allowed ranges of half-lives of the
neutrinoless double-beta decay for nuclei of experimental interest with
different sets of nuclear matrix elements. The present-day results of the
calculation of the neutrinoless double-beta decay nuclear matrix elements are
briefly discussed. We argue that if neutrinoless double-beta decay will be
observed in future experiments sensitive to the effective Majorana mass in the
inverted mass hierarchy region, a comparison of the derived ranges with
measured half-lives will allow us to probe the standard seesaw mechanism
assuming that future cosmological data will establish the sum of neutrino
masses to be about 0.2 eV.Comment: Some changes in sections I, II, IV, and V; two new figures;
additional reference
Quantum Spectral Curve at Work: From Small Spin to Strong Coupling in N=4 SYM
We apply the recently proposed quantum spectral curve technique to the study
of twist operators in planar N=4 SYM theory. We focus on the small spin
expansion of anomalous dimensions in the sl(2) sector and compute its first two
orders exactly for any value of the 't Hooft coupling. At leading order in the
spin S we reproduced Basso's slope function. The next term of order S^2
structurally resembles the Beisert-Eden-Staudacher dressing phase and takes
into account wrapping contributions. This expansion contains rich information
about the spectrum of local operators at strong coupling. In particular, we
found a new coefficient in the strong coupling expansion of the Konishi
operator dimension and confirmed several previously known terms. We also
obtained several new orders of the strong coupling expansion of the BFKL
pomeron intercept. As a by-product we formulated a prescription for the correct
analytical continuation in S which opens a way for deriving the BFKL regime of
twist two anomalous dimensions from AdS/CFT integrability.Comment: 53 pages, references added; v3: due to a typo in the coefficients C_2
and D_2 on page 29 we corrected the rational part of the strong coupling
predictions in equations (1.5-6), (6.22-24), (6.27-30) and in Table
Grand unified theory constrained supersymmetry and neutrinoless double beta decay
We analyze the contributions to the neutrinoless double decay
(-decay) coming from the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) constrained
Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with trilinear R-parity breaking.
We discuss the importance of two-nucleon and pion-exchange realizations of the
quark-level -decay transitions. In this context, the questions
of reliability of the calculated relevant nuclear matrix elements within the
Renormalized Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation (pn-RQRPA) for several
medium and heavy open-shell nuclei are addressed. The importance of gluino and
neutralino contributions to -decay is also analyzed. We review
the present experiments and deduce limits on the trilinear R-parity breaking
parameter from the non-observability of -decay
for different GUT constrained SUSY scenarios. In addition, a detailed study of
limits on the MSSM parameter space coming from the processes
by using the recent CLEO and OPAL results is performed. Some studies in respect
to the future -decay project GENIUS are also presented.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figure
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