Effect of Intraduodenal Bile and Taurodeoxycholate on Exocrine Pancreatic Secretion and on Plasma Levels of Vasoactive Intestinal Polypeptide and Somatostatin in Man

Intraduodenal (i.d.) application of bile or Na-taurodeoxycholate (TDC) dose dependently enhances basal exocrine pancreatic secretion. The hydrokinetic effect is mediated at least in part by secretin. This study should show, whether vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP), a partial agonist of secretin, may also be involved in the mediation of the hydrokinetic effect. Furthermore, plasma concentrations of somatostatin-like immunoreactivity (SLI) were measured in order to check whether this counterregulating hormone is also released by bile and TDC. Twenty investigations were carried out on 10 fasting healthy volunteers provided with a double-lumen Dreiling tube. Bile and TDC were intraduodenally applied in doses of 2-6 g and 200-600 mg, respectively, at 65-min intervals. Plasma samples were withdrawn at defined intervals for radioimmunological determination of VIP and SLI. Duodenal juice was collected in 10-min fractions and analyzed for volume, pH, bicarbonate, lipase, trypsin, and amylase. I.d. application of bile or TDC dose dependently stimulated hydrokinetic and ecbolic pancreatic secretion. Bile exerted a slightly stronger effect than TDC. Pancreatic response was simultaneously accompanied by a significant increase of plasma VIP and SLI concentrations. The effect of bile on integrated plasma VIP and SLI concentrations seems to be dose dependent; the effect of TDC on integrated SLI, too. For the increase of integrated plasma VIP concentrations after TDC no dose-response relation could be established. We conclude that VIP may be a further mediator of bile-induced volume and bicarbonate secretion. The release of plasma SLI indicates that inhibitory mechanisms concomitantly are triggered by i.d. bile and TDC, as already shown during digestion for the intestinal phase of pancreatic secretion

Purcell-induced suppression of superradiance for molecular overlayers on noble atom surfaces

We study the impact of an environment on the electromagnetic responses of a molecule in the presence of a dielectric medium. By applying the dipole-dipole coupling between the molecule's and the environment's degrees of freedom, we can reduce the complex system into its components and predict excitation lifetimes of single and few molecules attached to a dielectric surface by knowing the entire quantum-mechanical properties of the molecules, such as transition energies and dipole moments. The derived theory allows for the description of superradiance between two molecules depending on the geometric arrangement between both concerning their separation and orientation with respect to each other. We analyse the possibility of superradiance between two molecules bound to a dielectric sphere and determine a change of the relevant length scale where the usually considered wavelength in free space is replaced with the binding distance, drastically reducing the length scales at which collective effects can take place

Spectroscopy on nanoparticles without light

One of the most important tools in modern science is the analysis of electromagnetic properties via spectroscopy. The various types of spectroscopy can be classified by the underlying type of interactions between energy and material. In this paper we demonstrate a new class of spectroscopy based on Casimir interactions between a solid investigated object and a reference surface embedded in an environmental liquid medium. Our main example is based on the measurement of Hamaker constants upon changing the concentration of an intervening two-component liquid, where we demonstrate a possible reconstruction algorithm to estimate the frequency-dependent dielectric function of the investigated particle

Probing atom-surface interactions by diffraction of Bose-Einstein condensates

In this article we analyze the Casimir-Polder interaction of atoms with a solid grating and an additional repulsive interaction between the atoms and the grating in the presence of an external laser source. The combined potential landscape above the solid body is probed locally by diffraction of Bose-Einstein condensates. Measured diffraction efficiencies reveal information about the shape of the Casimir-Polder interaction and allow us to discern between models based on a pairwise-summation (Hamaker) approach and Lifshitz theory.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Orientational dependence of the van der Waals interactions for finite-sized particles

Van der Waals forces as interactions between neutral and polarisable particles act at small distances between two objects. Their theoretical origin lies in the electromagnetic interaction between induced dipole moments caused by the vacuum fluctuations of the ground-state electromagnetic field. The resulting theory well describes the experimental situation in the limit of the point dipole assumption. At smaller distances, where the finite size of the particles has to be taken into account, this description fails and has to be corrected by higher orders of the multipole expansion, such as quadrupole moments and so on. With respect to the complexity of the spatial properties of the particles this task requires a considerable effort. In order to describe the van der Waals interaction between such particles, we apply the established method of a spatially spread out polarisability distribution to approximate the higher orders of the multipole expansion. We hence construct an effective theory for effects from anisotropy and finite size on the van der Waals potential

Monolithic atom interferometry

Atom and, more recently, molecule interferometers are used in fundamental research and industrial applications. Most atom interferometers rely on gratings made from laser beams, which can provide high precision but cannot reach very short wavelengths and require complex laser systems to function. Contrary to this, simple monolithic interferometers cut from single crystals offer (sub) nano-meter wavelengths with an extreme level of stability and robustness. Such devices have been conceived and demonstrated several decades ago for neutrons and electrons. Here, we propose a monolithic design for a thermal-beam molecule interferometer based on (quantum) reflection. We show, as an example, how a reflective, monolithic interferometer (Mach-Zehnder type) can be realised for a helium beam using Si(111)-H(1x1) surfaces, which have previously been demonstrated to act as very robust and stable diffractive mirrors for neutral helium atoms