612 research outputs found
Is group psychotherapy feasible for oncology outpatients attenders selected on the basis of psychological morbidity?
Of 120 consecutive attenders at an oncology outpatients department, 108 were screened for psychological symptoms using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond & Snaith, 1983). Thirty-nine patients had significant scores indicating moderate anxiety and/or depression. We felt that this warranted an offer of group psychotherapy in the belief that sharing issues and exploring personal concerns may alleviate some of the experienced psychological distress. Only 10 patients consented to and were able to attend this group, with which five patients persisted. Thus in this group of patients with advanced cancer group psychotherapy was applicable only to a limited number of selected patients. The nature of this study and the size of the population markedly limited our ability to comment on the usefulness of group psychotherapy. Many patients, particularly the most severely psychologically distressed, continued to require other forms of support, particularly domiciliary individual therapy
Quark zero modes in intersecting center vortex gauge fields
The zero modes of the Dirac operator in the background of center vortex gauge
field configurations in and are examined. If the net flux in D=2
is larger than 1 we obtain normalizable zero modes which are mainly localized
at the vortices. In D=4 quasi-normalizable zero modes exist for intersecting
flat vortex sheets with the Pontryagin index equal to 2. These zero modes are
mainly localized at the vortex intersection points, which carry a topological
charge of . To circumvent the problem of normalizability the
space-time manifold is chosen to be the (compact) torus \T^2 and \T^4,
respectively. According to the index theorem there are normalizable zero modes
on \T^2 if the net flux is non-zero. These zero modes are localized at the
vortices. On \T^4 zero modes exist for a non-vanishing Pontryagin index. As
in these zero modes are localized at the vortex intersection points.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX2e, references added, treatment of ideal
vortices on the torus shortene
Gauge Orbit Types for Theories with Classical Compact Gauge Group
We determine the orbit types of the action of the group of local gauge
transformations on the space of connections in a principal bundle with
structure group O(n), SO(n) or over a closed, simply connected manifold
of dimension 4. Complemented with earlier results on U(n) and SU(n) this
completes the classification of the orbit types for all classical compact gauge
groups over such space-time manifolds. On the way we derive the classification
of principal bundles with structure group SO(n) over these manifolds and the
Howe subgroups of SO(n).Comment: 57 page
Vacuum local and global electromagnetic self-energies for a point-like and an extended field source
We consider the electric and magnetic energy densities (or equivalently field
fluctuations) in the space around a point-like field source in its ground
state, after having subtracted the spatially uniform zero-point energy terms,
and discuss the problem of their singular behavior at the source's position. We
show that the assumption of a point-like source leads, for a simple Hamiltonian
model of the interaction of the source with the electromagnetic radiation
field, to a divergence of the renormalized electric and magnetic energy density
at the position of the source. We analyze in detail the mathematical structure
of such singularity in terms of a delta function and its derivatives. We also
show that an appropriate consideration of these singular terms solves an
apparent inconsistency between the total field energy and the space integral of
its density. Thus the finite field energy stored in these singular terms gives
an important contribution to the self-energy of the source. We then consider
the case of an extended source, smeared out over a finite volume and described
by an appropriate form factor. We show that in this case all divergences in
local quantities such as the electric and the magnetic energy density, as well
as any inconsistency between global and space-integrated local self-energies,
disappear.Comment: 8 pages. The final publication is available at link.springer.co
Thermodynamic anomaly of the free damped quantum particle: the bath perspective
A possible definition of the specific heat of open quantum systems is based
on the reduced partition function of the system. For a free damped quantum
particle, it has been found that under certain conditions, this specific heat
can become negative at low temperatures. In contrast to the conventional
approaches focusing on the system degree of freedom, here we concentrate on the
changes induced in the environment when the system is coupled to it. Our
analysis is carried out for an Ohmic environment consisting of harmonic
oscillators and allows to identify the mechanism by which the specific heat
becomes negative. Furthermore, the formal condition for the occurrence of a
negative specific heat is given a physical interpretation in terms of the total
mass of bath oscillators and the system mass.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, final version after one round of refereein
Measurement of the partial widths of the Z into up- and down-type quarks
Using the entire OPAL LEP1 on-peak Z hadronic decay sample, Z -> qbarq gamma
decays were selected by tagging hadronic final states with isolated photon
candidates in the electromagnetic calorimeter. Combining the measured rates of
Z -> qbarq gamma decays with the total rate of hadronic Z decays permits the
simultaneous determination of the widths of the Z into up- and down-type
quarks. The values obtained, with total errors, were Gamma u = 300 ^{+19}_{-18}
MeV and Gamma d = 381 ^{+12}_{-12} MeV. The results are in good agreement with
the Standard Model expectation.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, Submitted to Phys. Letts.
Search for R-Parity Violating Decays of Scalar Fermions at LEP
A search for pair-produced scalar fermions under the assumption that R-parity
is not conserved has been performed using data collected with the OPAL detector
at LEP. The data samples analysed correspond to an integrated luminosity of
about 610 pb-1 collected at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt(s) 189-209 GeV. An
important consequence of R-parity violation is that the lightest supersymmetric
particle is expected to be unstable. Searches of R-parity violating decays of
charged sleptons, sneutrinos and squarks have been performed under the
assumptions that the lightest supersymmetric particle decays promptly and that
only one of the R-parity violating couplings is dominant for each of the decay
modes considered. Such processes would yield final states consisting of
leptons, jets, or both with or without missing energy. No significant
single-like excess of events has been observed with respect to the Standard
Model expectations. Limits on the production cross- section of scalar fermions
in R-parity violating scenarios are obtained. Constraints on the supersymmetric
particle masses are also presented in an R-parity violating framework analogous
to the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.Comment: 51 pages, 24 figures, Submitted to Eur. Phys. J.
Measurement of the Strong Coupling alpha s from Four-Jet Observables in e+e- Annihilation
Data from e+e- annihilation into hadrons at centre-of-mass energies between
91 GeV and 209 GeV collected with the OPAL detector at LEP, are used to study
the four-jet rate as a function of the Durham algorithm resolution parameter
ycut. The four-jet rate is compared to next-to-leading order calculations that
include the resummation of large logarithms. The strong coupling measured from
the four-jet rate is alphas(Mz0)=
0.1182+-0.0003(stat.)+-0.0015(exp.)+-0.0011(had.)+-0.0012(scale)+-0.0013(mass)
in agreement with the world average. Next-to-leading order fits to the
D-parameter and thrust minor event-shape observables are also performed for the
first time. We find consistent results, but with significantly larger
theoretical uncertainties.Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, Submitted to Euro. Phys. J.
Measurement of the Hadronic Photon Structure Function F_2^gamma at LEP2
The hadronic structure function of the photon F_2^gamma is measured as a
function of Bjorken x and of the factorisation scale Q^2 using data taken by
the OPAL detector at LEP. Previous OPAL measurements of the x dependence of
F_2^gamma are extended to an average Q^2 of 767 GeV^2. The Q^2 evolution of
F_2^gamma is studied for average Q^2 between 11.9 and 1051 GeV^2. As predicted
by QCD, the data show positive scaling violations in F_2^gamma. Several
parameterisations of F_2^gamma are in agreement with the measurements whereas
the quark-parton model prediction fails to describe the data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of Photon 2001,
Ascona, Switzerlan
A measurement of the tau mass and the first CPT test with tau leptons
We measure the mass of the tau lepton to be 1775.1+-1.6(stat)+-1.0(syst.) MeV
using tau pairs from Z0 decays. To test CPT invariance we compare the masses of
the positively and negatively charged tau leptons. The relative mass difference
is found to be smaller than 3.0 10^-3 at the 90% confidence level.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Phys. Letts.
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