Isospin symmetry breaking nucleon-nucleon potentials and nuclear structure

Modern nucleon-nucleon (NN) potentials, which accurately fit the nucleon-nucleon scattering phase shifts, contain terms which break isospin symmetry. The effects of these symmetry violating terms on the bulk properties of nuclear matter are investigated. The predictions of the charge symmetry breaking (CSB) terms are compared with the Nolen-Schiffer (NS) anomaly regarding the energies of neighboring mirror nuclei. We find that, for a quantitative explanation of the NS anomaly, it is crucial to include CSB in partial waves with $L>0$ (besides $^1S_0$) as derived from a microscopic model for CSB of the NN interaction.Comment: 14 pages, RevTex, 2 figure

Baryon-Baryon Interactions from Lattice QCD

We report on new attempt to investigate baryon-baryon interactions in lattice QCD. From the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) wave function, we have successfully extracted the nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) potentials in quenched QCD simulations, which reproduce qualitative features of modern $NN$ potentials. The method has been extended to obtain the tensor potential as well as the central potential and also applied to the hyperon-nucleon ($YN$) interactions, in both quenched and full QCD.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, A plenary talk given at the 5-th International Conference on Quark and Nuclear Physics, Beijing, September 21-26, 200

Rapid enzymatic test for phenotypic HIV protease drug resistance

A phenotypic resistance test based on recombinant expression of the active HIV protease in E. coli from patient blood samples was developed. The protease is purified in a rapid onestep procedure as active enzyme and tested for inhibition by five selected synthetic inhibitors (amprenavir, indinavir, nelfinavir, ritonavir, and saquinavir) used presently for chemotherapy of HIVinfected patients. The HPLC system used in a previous approach was replaced by a continuous fluorogenic assay suitable for highthroughput screening on microtiter plates. This reduces significantly the total assay time and allows the determination of inhibition constants (K-i). The Michaelis constant (K-m) and the inhibition constant (K-i) of recombinant wildtype protease agree well with published data for cloned HIV protease. The enzymatic test was evaluated with recombinant HIV protease derived from eight HIVpositive patients scored from sensitive to highly resistant according to mutations detected by genotypic analysis. The measured K-i values correlate well with the genotypic resistance scores, but allow a higher degree of differentiation. The noninfectious assay enables a more rapid yet sensitive detection of HIV protease resistance than other phenotypic assays

Phaseshift equivalent NN potentials and the deuteron

Different modern phase shift equivalent NN potentials are tested by evaluating the partial wave decomposition of the kinetic and potential energy of the deuteron. Significant differences are found, which are traced back to the matrix elements of the potentials at medium and large momenta. The influence of the localisation of the one-pion-exchange contribution to these potentials is analyzed in detail.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures include

Modern nucleon-nucleon interactions and charge-symmetry breaking in nuclei

Coulomb displacement energies, i.e., the differences between the energies of corresponding nuclear states in mirror nuclei, are evaluated using recent models for the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction. These modern NN potentials account for breaking of isospin symmetry and reproduce $pp$ and $pn$ phase shifts accurately. The predictions by these new potentials for the binding of $^{16}O$ are calculated. A particular focus of our study are effects due to nuclear correlations and charge-symmetry breaking (CSB). We find that the CSB terms in the modern NN interactions substantially reduce the discrepancy between theory and experiment for the Coulomb displacement energies; however, our calculations do not completely explain the Nolen-Schiffer anomaly. Potential sources for the remaining discrepancies are discussed.Comment: 10 pages RevTeX, no figure

Accurate Charge-Dependent Nucleon-Nucleon Potential at Fourth Order of Chiral Perturbation Theory

We present the first nucleon-nucleon potential at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (fourth order) of chiral perturbation theory. Charge-dependence is included up to next-to-leading order of the isospin-violation scheme. The accuracy for the reproduction of the NN data below 290 MeV lab. energy is comparable to the one of phenomenological high-precision potentials. Since NN potentials of order three and less are known to be deficient in quantitative terms, the present work shows that the fourth order is necessary and sufficient for a reliable NN potential derived from chiral effective Lagrangians. The new potential provides a promising starting point for exact few-body calculations and microscopic nuclear structure theory (including chiral many-body forces derived on the same footing).Comment: 4 pages Revtex including one figur