11,061 research outputs found
The Prevalence of Carbon-13 in Respiratory Carbon Dioxide As an Indicator of the Type of Endogenous Substrate. The change from lipid to carbohydrate during the respiratory rise in potato slices
Isotope discrimination is a common feature of biosynthesis in nature, with the result that different classes of carbon compounds frequently display different 13C/12C ratios. The 13C/12C ratio of lipid in potato tuber tissue is considerably lower than that for starch or protein. We have collected respiratory CO2 from potato discs in successive periods through 24 hr from the time of cutting—an interval in which the respiration rate rises 3–5-fold. The 13C/12C ratio of the evolved CO2 was determined for each period, and compared with the 13C/12C ratios of the major tissue metabolites. In the first hours the carbon isotope ratio of the CO2 matches that of lipid. With time, the ratio approaches that typical of starch or protein. An estimation has been made of the contribution of lipid and carbohydrate to the total respiration at each juncture. In connection with additional observations, it was deduced that the basal, or initial, respiration represents lipid metabolism —- possibly the alpha-oxidation of long chain fatty acids -— while the developed repiration represents conventional tricarboxylic acid cycle oxidation of the products of carbohydrate glycolysis. The true isotopic composition of the respiratory CO2 may be obscured by fractionation attending the refixation of CO2 during respiration, and by CO2 arising from dissolved CO2 and bicarbonate preexisting in the tuber. Means are described for coping with both pitfalls
Causal perturbation theory in terms of retarded products, and a proof of the Action Ward Identity
In the framework of perturbative algebraic quantum field theory a local
construction of interacting fields in terms of retarded products is performed,
based on earlier work of Steinmann. In our formalism the entries of the
retarded products are local functionals of the off shell classical fields, and
we prove that the interacting fields depend only on the action and not on terms
in the Lagrangian which are total derivatives, thus providing a proof of
Stora's 'Action Ward Identity'. The theory depends on free parameters which
flow under the renormalization group. This flow can be derived in our local
framework independently of the infrared behavior, as was first established by
Hollands and Wald. We explicitly compute non-trivial examples for the
renormalization of the interaction and the field.Comment: 76 pages, to appear in Rev. Math. Phy
Thermoelectric Amplification of Phonons in Graphene
Amplification of acoustic phonons due to an external temperature gredient
() in Graphene was studied theoretically. The threshold temperature
gradient at which absorption switches over to amplification
in Graphene was evaluated at various frequencies and temperatures
. For and frequency , . The calculation was done in the regime at . The
dependence of the normalized () on the frequency
and the temperature gradient are evaluated numerically and
presented graphically. The calculated for Graphene is lower
than that obtained for homogeneous semiconductors () , Superlattices , Cylindrical Quantum Wire . This makes Graphene a much better material for thermoelectric
phonon amplifier.Comment: 12 Pages, 6 figure
Online unit clustering in higher dimensions
We revisit the online Unit Clustering and Unit Covering problems in higher
dimensions: Given a set of points in a metric space, that arrive one by
one, Unit Clustering asks to partition the points into the minimum number of
clusters (subsets) of diameter at most one; while Unit Covering asks to cover
all points by the minimum number of balls of unit radius. In this paper, we
work in using the norm.
We show that the competitive ratio of any online algorithm (deterministic or
randomized) for Unit Clustering must depend on the dimension . We also give
a randomized online algorithm with competitive ratio for Unit
Clustering}of integer points (i.e., points in , , under norm). We show that the competitive ratio of
any deterministic online algorithm for Unit Covering is at least . This
ratio is the best possible, as it can be attained by a simple deterministic
algorithm that assigns points to a predefined set of unit cubes. We complement
these results with some additional lower bounds for related problems in higher
dimensions.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. A preliminary version appeared in the
Proceedings of the 15th Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms (WAOA
2017
Perturbative Gravity in the Causal Approach
Quantum theory of the gravitation in the causal approach is studied up to the
second order of perturbation theory. We prove gauge invariance and
renormalizability in the second order of perturbation theory for the pure
gravity system (massless and massive). Then we investigate the interaction of
massless gravity with matter (described by scalars and spinors) and massless
Yang-Mills fields. We obtain a difference with respect to the classical field
theory due to the fact that in quantum field theory one cannot enforce the
divergenceless property on the vector potential and this spoils the
divergenceless property of the usual energy-momentum tensor. To correct this
one needs a supplementary ghost term in the interaction Lagrangian.Comment: 50 pages, no figures, some changes in the last sectio
Vacuum polarization around stars: nonlocal approximation
We compute the vacuum polarization associated with quantum massless fields
around stars with spherical symmetry. The nonlocal contribution to the vacuum
polarization is dominant in the weak field limit, and induces quantum
corrections to the exterior metric that depend on the inner structure of the
star. It also violates the null energy conditions. We argue that similar
results also hold in the low energy limit of quantum gravity. Previous
calculations of the vacuum polarization in spherically symmetric spacetimes,
based on local approximations, are not adequate for newtonian stars.Comment: 8 pages, no figure
Absorption and optical selection rules of tunable excitons in biased bilayer graphene
Biased bilayer graphene, with its easily tunable band gap, presents itself as the ideal system to explore the excitonic effect in graphene-based systems. In this paper we study the excitonic optical response of such a system by combining a tight-binding model with the solution of the Bethe-Salpeter equation, the latter being solved in a semianalytical manner, requiring a single numerical quadrature, thus allowing for a transparent calculation. With our approach we start by analytically obtaining the optical selection rules, followed by the computation of the absorption spectrum for the case of a biased bilayer encapsulated in hexagonal boron nitride, a system which has been the subject of a recent experimental study. Excellent agreement is seen when we compare our theoretical prediction with the experimental data.N.M.R.P. acknowledges support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the framework of the Strategic Funding UIDB/04650/2020. J.C.G.H. acknowledges the Center of Physics for a grant funded by the UIDB/04650/2020 strategic project. N.M.R.P. also acknowledges support from the European Commission through the project Graphene Driven Revolutions in ICT and Beyond (Ref. No. 881603, CORE 3), COMPETE 2020, PORTUGAL 2020, FEDER, and the FCT through projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028114, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-02888, and PTDC/NANOPT/29265/2017
Relating on-shell and off-shell formalism in perturbative quantum field theory
In the on-shell formalism (mostly used in perturbative quantum field theory)
the entries of the time ordered product T are on-shell fields (i.e. the basic
fields satisfy the free field equations). With that, (multi)linearity of T is
incompatible with the Action Ward identity. This can be circumvented by using
the off-shell formalism in which the entries of T are off-shell fields. To
relate on- and off-shell formalism correctly, a map sigma from on-shell fields
to off-shell fields was introduced axiomatically by Duetsch and Fredenhagen. In
that paper it was shown that, in the case of one real scalar field in N=4
dimensional Minkowski space, these axioms have a unique solution. However, this
solution was given there only recursively. We solve this recurrence relation
and give a fully explicit expression for sigma in the cases of the scalar,
Dirac and gauge fields for arbitrary values of the dimension N.Comment: The case of gauge fields was added. 16 page
Continuity of the four-point function of massive -theory above threshold
In this paper we prove that the four-point function of massive
\vp_4^4-theory is continuous as a function of its independent external
momenta when posing the renormalization condition for the (physical) mass
on-shell. The proof is based on integral representations derived inductively
from the perturbative flow equations of the renormalization group. It closes a
longstanding loophole in rigorous renormalization theory in so far as it shows
the feasibility of a physical definition of the renormalized coupling.Comment: 23 pages; to appear in Rev. Math. Physics few corrections, two
explanatory paragraphs adde
`Operational' Energy Conditions
I show that a quantized Klein-Gordon field in Minkowski space obeys an
`operational' weak energy condition: the energy of an isolated device
constructed to measure or trap the energy in a region, plus the energy it
measures or traps, cannot be negative. There are good reasons for thinking that
similar results hold locally for linear quantum fields in curved space-times. A
thought experiment to measure energy density is analyzed in some detail, and
the operational positivity is clearly manifested.
If operational energy conditions do hold for quantum fields, then the
negative energy densities predicted by theory have a will-o'-the-wisp
character: any local attempt to verify a total negative energy density will be
self-defeating on account of quantum measurement difficulties. Similarly,
attempts to drive exotic effects (wormholes, violations of the second law,
etc.) by such densities may be defeated by quantum measurement problems. As an
example, I show that certain attempts to violate the Cosmic Censorship
principle by negative energy densities are defeated.
These quantum measurement limitations are investigated in some detail, and
are shown to indicate that space-time cannot be adequately modeled classically
in negative energy density regimes.Comment: 18 pages, plain Tex, IOP macros. Expanded treatment of measurement
problems for space-time, with implications for Cosmic Censorship as an
example. Accepted by Classical and Quantum Gravit
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