480 research outputs found
Monopole condensation in the ground state of gauge theories: a disorder parameter
We construct a disorder parameter for dual superconductivity of the ground
state of gauge theory.Comment: 3 pages, contribution to the Lattice '94 conference, shell archive
containing uuencoded LATEX file + 2 figure
Many-body effects in nuclear structure
We calculate, for the first time, the state-dependent pairing gap of a finite
nucleus (120Sn) diagonalizing the bare nucleon-nucleon potential (Argonne v14)
in a Hartree-Fock basis (with effective k-mass m_k eqult to 0.7 m), within the
framework of the BCS approximation including scattering states up to 800 MeV
above the Fermi energy to achieve convergence. The resulting gap accounts for
about half of the experimental gap. We find that a consistent description of
the low-energy nuclear spectrum requires, aside from the bare nucleon-nucleon
interaction, not only the dressing of single-particle motion through the
coupling to the nuclear surface, to give the right density of levels close to
the Fermi energy (and thus an effective mass m* approximately equal to m), but
also the renormalization of collective vibrational modes through vertex and
self-energy processes, processes which are also found to play an essential role
in the pairing channel, leading to a long range, state dependent component of
the pairing interaction. The combined effect of the bare nucleon-nucleon
potential and of the induced pairing interaction arising from the exchange of
low-lying surface vibrations between nucleons moving in time reversal states
close to the Fermi energy accounts for the experimental gap.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; author list correcte
Physiological relation between respiration activity and heterologous expression of selected benzoylformate decarboxylase variants in Escherichia coli
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The benzoylformate decarboxylase (BFD) from <it>Pseudomonas putida </it>is a biotechnologically interesting biocatalyst. It catalyses the formation of chiral 2-hydroxy ketones, which are important building blocks for stereoselective syntheses. To optimise the enzyme function often the amino acid composition is modified to improve the performance of the enzyme. So far it was assumed that a relatively small modification of the amino acid composition of a protein does not significantly influence the level of expression or media requirements. To determine, which effects these modifications might have on cultivation and product formation, six different BFD-variants with one or two altered amino acids and the wild type BFD were expressed in <it>Escherichia coli </it>SG13009 pKK233-2. The oxygen transfer rate (OTR) as parameter for growth and metabolic activity of the different <it>E. coli </it>clones was monitored on-line in LB, TB and modified PanG mineral medium with the Respiratory Activity MOnitoring System (RAMOS).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Although the <it>E. coli </it>clones were genetically nearly identical, the kinetics of their metabolic activity surprisingly differed in the standard media applied. Three different types of OTR curves could be distinguished. Whereas the first type (clones expressing Leu476Pro-Ser181Thr or Leu476Pro) had typical OTR curves, the second type (clones expressing the wild type BFD, Ser181Thr or His281Ala) showed an early drop of OTR in LB and TB medium and a drastically reduced maximum OTR in modified PanG mineral medium. The third type (clone expressing Leu476Gln) behaved variable. Depending on the cultivation conditions, its OTR curve was similar to the first or the second type. It was shown, that the kinetics of the metabolic activity of the first type depended on the concentration of thiamine, which is a cofactor of BFD, in the medium. It was demonstrated that the cofactor binding strength of the different BFD-variants correlated with the differences in metabolic activity of their respective host strain.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The BFD-variants with high cofactor binding affinity (wild type, His281Ala, Ser181Thr) obviously extract thiamine from the medium and bind it tightly to the enzyme. This might explain the hampered growth of these clones. In contrast, growth of clones expressing variants with low cofactor binding affinity (Leu476His, Leu476Pro, Leu476Pro-Ser181Thr) is not impaired. Leu476Gln has an intermediate cofactor binding strength, thus, growth of its host strain depends on the specific cultivation conditions. This paper shows that slight differences of the amino acid composition can affect protein expression and cultivation and might require an adaptation of media components. Effects such as the observed are hardly foreseeable and difficult to detect in conventional screening processes. Via small scale experiments with on-line measurements in shake flasks such effects influencing the cultivation and product formation can be detected and avoided.</p
Flow equations for QED in the light front dynamics
The method of flow equations is applied to QED on the light front. Requiring
that the partical number conserving terms in the Hamiltonian are considered to
be diagonal and the other terms off-diagonal an effective Hamiltonian is
obtained which reduces the positronium problem to a two-particle problem, since
the particle number violating contributions are eliminated. No infrared
divergencies appear. The ultraviolet renormalization can be performed
simultaneously.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, 3 pictures, Submitted to Phys.Rev.
Oblique Confinement and Phase Transitions in Chern-Simons Gauge Theories
We investigate non-perturbative features of a planar Chern-Simons gauge
theory modeling the long distance physics of quantum Hall systems, including a
finite gap M for excitations. By formulating the model on a lattice, we
identify the relevant topological configurations and their interactions. For M
bigger than a critical value, the model exhibits an oblique confinement phase,
which we identify with Lauglin's incompressible quantum fluid. For M smaller
than the critical value, we obtain a phase transition to a Coulomb phase or a
confinement phase, depending on the value of the electromagnetic coupling.Comment: 8 pages, harvmac, DFUPG 91/94 and MPI-PhT/94-9
Effective electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions in the Hubbard-Holstein model
We investigate the interplay between the electron-electron and the
electron-phonon interaction in the Hubbard-Holstein model. We implement the
flow-equation method to investigate within this model the effect of correlation
on the electron-phonon effective coupling and, conversely, the effect of
phonons in the effective electron-electron interaction. Using this technique we
obtain analytical momentum-dependent expressions for the effective couplings
and we study their behavior for different physical regimes. In agreement with
other works on this subject, we find that the electron-electron attraction
mediated by phonons in the presence of Hubbard repulsion is peaked at low
transferred momenta. The role of the characteristic energies involved is also
analyzed.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure
Poincare Semigroup Symmetry as an Emergent Property of Unstable Systems
The notion that elementary systems correspond to irreducible representations
of the Poincare group is the starting point for this paper, which then goes on
to discuss how a semigroup for the time evolution of unstable states and
resonances could emerge from the underlying Poincare symmetry. Important tools
in this analysis are the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients for the Poincare group.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur
Serum triiodothyronine levels and inflammatory cytokine production capacity
Increasing evidence suggests that pro-inflammatory cytokines are at play in lowering peripheral thyroid hormone levels during critical illness. Conversely, thyroid hormones have been suggested to enhance production of inflammatory cytokines. In view of these considerations, we hypothesized a mutual association between triiodothyronine and pro-inflammatory cytokines. Therefore we evaluated the relation between both circulating and induced inflammatory markers and serum thyroid function parameters in the Leiden 85-plus Study. We found that higher circulating levels of inflammatory markers were associated with lower levels of free serum triiodothyronine. In turn, higher serum free triiodothyronine levels were related to higher production capacity of pro-inflammatory cytokines after stimulation with lipopolysaccharide. By combining in vivo and ex vivo data, we were able to demonstrate for the first time the existence of a potential feedback mechanism between thyroid function and immune production capacity. We conclude that maintenance of normal thyroid function might be important for a preserved immune response in elderly human populations
The Critical Behaviour of Potts models with symmetry breaking fields
The -state Potts model in two dimensions in the presence of external
magnetic fields is studied. For general special choices of these
magnetic fields produce effective models with smaller symmetry . The phase diagram of these models and their critical behaviour are
explored by conventional finite-size scaling and conformal invariance. The
possibility of multicritical behavior, for finite values of the symmetry
breaking fields, in the cases where is also analysed. Our results
indicate that for effective models with symmetry the
multicritical point occurs at zero field. This last result is also corroborated
by Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 15 pages (standart LaTex), 2 figure (PostScript) available by request
to [email protected]
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