2,535 research outputs found
Electromagnetic mirror drive system
Oscillatory electromagnetic mirror drive system for horizon scanner
Biophysical Features of Bacillithiol, the Glutathione Surrogate of Bacillus subtilis and other Firmicutes
Bacillithiol (BSH) is the major low-molecular-weight (LMW) thiol in many low-G+C Gram-positive bacteria (Firmicutes). Evidence now emerging suggests that BSH functions as an important LMW thiol in redox regulation and xenobiotic detoxification, analogous to what is already known for glutathione and mycothiol in other microorganisms. The biophysical properties and cellular concentrations of such LMW thiols are important determinants of their biochemical efficiency both as biochemical nucleophiles and as redox buffers. Here, BSH has been characterised and compared with other LMW thiols in terms of its thiol pKa, redox potential and thiol–disulfide exchange reactivity. Both the thiol pKa and the standard thiol redox potential of BSH are shown to be significantly lower than those of glutathione whereas the reactivities of the two compounds in thiol–disulfide reactions are comparable. The cellular concentration of BSH in Bacillus subtilis varied over different growth phases and reached up to 5 mM, which is significantly greater than previously observed from single measurements taken during mid-exponential growth. These results demonstrate that the biophysical characteristics of BSH are distinctively different from those of GSH and that its cellular concentrations can reach levels much higher than previously reported
The Probability Density of the Higgs Boson Mass
The LEP Collaborations have reported a small excess of events in their
combined Higgs boson analysis at center of mass energies up to about 208 GeV.
In this communication, I present the result of a calculation of the probability
distribution function of the Higgs boson mass which can be rigorously obtained
if the validity of the Standard Model is assumed. It arises from the
combination of the most recent set of precision electroweak data and the
current results of the Higgs searches at LEP 2.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure
Single Top Production at HERA and THERA
We study the single top production mediated by flavor changing neutral
current via both of the and vertices (here q represents c
and u quarks) in ep collisions at two colliders HERA and THERA. Contribution of
the second vertex becomes even more important as the couplings take more
improved values provided by the higher luminosities of colliders. In addition
to these improvements if the CM energy of the collider is increased, the
production will be dominated by the anomalous vertex.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, RevTeX4, references adde
Is strong CP invariance due to a massless up quark?
A standing mystery in the Standard Model is the unnatural smallness of the
strong CP violating phase. A massless up quark has long been proposed as one
potential solution. A lattice calculation of the constants of the chiral
Lagrangian essential for the determination of the up quark mass, 2 alpha_8 -
alpha_5, is presented. We find 2 alpha_8 - alpha_5 = 0.29 +/- 0.18, which
corresponds to m_u / m_d = 0.410 +/- 0.036. This is the first such calculation
using a physical number of dynamical light quarks, N_f = 3.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett., corrected small
normalization error in f_pi (conclusions were unaffected), improved lattice
spacing analysis, improved finite volume analysi
The finite-width Laplace sum rules for scalar glueball in instanton liquid model
In the framework of a semi-classical expansion for quantum chromodynamics in
the instanton liquid background, the correlation function of the
scalar glueball current is given. Besides the pure classical and quantum
contributions, the contributions arising from the interactions between the
classical instanton fields and quantum gluons are taken into account as well.
Instead of the usual zero-width approximation for the resonance, the
Brite-Wigner form for the spectral function of the finite-width resonance is
adopted. The family of the Laplace sum rules for the scalar glueball in quantum
chromodynamics with and without light quarks are studed. A consistency between
the subtracted and unsubtracted sum rules are very well justified, and the
values of the mass, decay width, and the coupling to the corresponding current
for the resonance in which the glueball fraction is dominant, are
obtained.Comment: 6 figure
Radiative corrections to all charge assignments of heavy quark baryon semileptonic decays
In semileptonic decays of spin-1/2 baryons containing heavy quarks up to six
charge assignments for the baryons and lepton are possible. We show that the
radiative corrections to four of these possibilities can be directly obtained
from the final results of the two possibilities previously studied. There is no
need to recalculate integrals over virtual or real photon momentum or any
traces.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, RevTex. Extended discussion. Final version to
appear in Physical Review
Decay of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos
Existing limits on the non-radiative decay of one neutrino to another plus a
massless particle (e.g., a singlet Majoron) are very weak. The best limits on
the lifetime to mass ratio come from solar neutrino observations, and are
\tau/m \agt 10^{-4} s/eV for the relevant mass eigenstate(s). For lifetimes
even several orders of magnitude longer, high-energy neutrinos from distant
astrophysical sources would decay. This would strongly alter the flavor ratios
from the expected
from oscillations alone, and should be readily visible in the near future in
detectors such as IceCube.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. References added. Version to appear in PR
Unknowns after the SNO Charged-Current Measurement
We perform a model-independent analysis of solar neutrino flux rates
including the recent charged-current measurement at the Sudbury Neutrino
Observatory (SNO). We derive a universal sum rule involving SNO and
SuperKamiokande rates, and show that the SNO neutral-current measurement can
not fix the fraction of solar oscillating to sterile neutrinos. The
large uncertainty in the SSM B flux impedes a determination of the sterile
neutrino fraction.Comment: Version to appear in PRL; includes analysis with anticipated SNO NC
measuremen
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