587 research outputs found
An adaptogenic role for omega-3 fatty acids in stress; a randomised placebo controlled double blind intervention study (pilot) [ISRCTN22569553]
BACKGROUND: There is evidence for an adaptive role of the omega -3 fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) during stress. Mechanisms of action may involve regulation of stress mediators, such as the catecholamines and proinflammatory cytokines. Prevention of stress-induced aggression and hostility were demonstrated in a series of clinical trials. This study investigates whether perceived stress is ameliorated by DHA in stressed university staff. METHODS: Subjects that scored â„ 17 on the Perceived Stress Scale were randomised into a 6-week pilot intervention study. The diet reactive group was supplemented with 6 g of fish oil containing 1.5 g per day DHA, while the placebo group was supplemented with 6 g a day of olive oil. The groups were compared with each other and a wider cross sectional study population that did not receive either active or placebo intervention. RESULTS: There was a significant reduction in perceived stress in both the fish oil and the placebo group from baseline. There was also a significant between-group difference between the fish oil group and the no-treatment controls in the rate of stress reduction (p < 0.05). However, there was not a significant between-group difference between the fish oil and the placebo group, nor the placebo group and the control group. These results are discussed in the context of several methodological limitations. The significant stress reductions in both the fish oil and the placebo group are considered in view of statistical regression, an effect likely to have been exaggerated by the time course of the study, a large placebo effect and the possibility of an active effect from the placebo. CONCLUSION: There were significant differences (p < 0.05) in the fish oil group compared with no-treatment controls. This effect was not demonstrated in the placebo group. As a pilot study, it was not sufficiently powered to find the difference between the fish oil group and the placebo group significant. Further work needs to be undertaken to conclusively demonstrate these data trends. However, the findings from this research support the literature in finding a protective or 'adaptogenic' role for omega-3 fatty acids in stress
Relation between Tunneling and Particle Production in Vacuum Decay
The field-theoretical description of quantum fluctuations on the background
of a tunneling field is revisited in the case of a functional
Schrodinger approach. We apply this method in the case when quantum
fluctuations are coupled to the field through a mass-squared term,
which is 'time-dependent' since we include the dynamics of . The
resulting mode functions of the fluctuation field, which determine the quantum
state after tunneling, display a previously unseen resonance effect when their
mode number is comparable to the curvature scale of the bubble. A detailed
analysis of the relation between the excitations of the field about the true
vacuum (interpreted as particle creation) and the phase shift coming from
tunneling is presented.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR
Metric perturbations at reheating: the use of spherical symmetry
We consider decay of the inflaton with a quartic potential coupled to other
fields, including gravity, but restricted to spherical symmetry. We describe
analytically an early, quasilinear regime, during which inflaton fluctuations
and the metric functions are driven by nonlinear effects of the decay products.
We present a detailed study of the leading nonlinear effects in this regime.
Results of the quasilinear approximation, in its domain of applicability, are
found to be consistent with those of fully nonlinear lattice studies. We
discuss how these results may be promoted to the full three dimensions.Comment: 18 pages, revtex, 2 figure
Evolution of Second-Order Cosmological Perturbations and Non-Gaussianity
We present a second-order gauge-invariant formalism to study the evolution of
curvature perturbations in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe filled by
multiple interacting fluids. We apply such a general formalism to describe the
evolution of the second-order curvature perturbations in the standard
one-single field inflation, in the curvaton and in the inhomogeneous reheating
scenarios for the generation of the cosmological perturbations. Moreover, we
provide the exact expression for the second-order temperature anisotropies on
large scales, including second-order gravitational effects and extend the
well-known formula for the Sachs-Wolfe effect at linear order. Our findings
clarify what is the exact non-linearity parameter f_NL entering in the
determination of higher-order statistics such as the bispectrum of Cosmic
Microwave Background temperature anisotropies. Finally, we compute the level of
non-Gaussianity in each scenario for the creation of cosmological
perturbations.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX file. Further comments adde
Bubble fluctuations in inflation
In the context of the open inflationary universe, we calculate the amplitude
of quantum fluctuations which deform the bubble shape. These give rise to
scalar field fluctuations in the open Friedman-Robertson-Walker universe which
is contained inside the bubble. One can transform to a new gauge in which
matter looks perfectly smooth, and then the perturbations behave as tensor
modes (gravitational waves of very long wavelength). For , where
is the density parameter, the microwave temperature anisotropies
produced by these modes are of order . Here, is the expansion rate during inflation, is
the intrinsic radius of the bubble at the time of nucleation, is the
bubble wall tension and labels the different multipoles (). The
gravitational backreaction of the bubble has been ignored. In this
approximation, , and the new effect can be much larger than the
one due to ordinary gravitational waves generated during inflation (unless, of
course, gets too close to one, in which case the new effect
disappears).Comment: 17 pages, 3 figs, LaTeX, epsfig.sty, available at
ftp://ftp.ifae.es/preprint/ft/uabft387.p
Quantized gravitational waves in the Milne universe
The quantization of gravitational waves in the Milne universe is discussed.
The relation between positive frequency functions of the gravitational waves in
the Milne universe and those in the Minkowski universe is clarified.
Implications to the one-bubble open inflation scenario are also discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure, revtex. submitted to Phys. Rev. D1
Self Excitation of the Tunneling Scalar Field in False Vacuum Decay
A method to determine the quantum state of a scalar field after
-symmetric bubble nucleation has been developed recently. The method has
an advantage that it concisely gives us a clear picture of the resultant
quantum state. In particular, one may interpret the excitations as a particle
creation phenomenon just as in the case of particle creation in curved
spacetime. As an application, we investigate in detail the spectrum of quantum
excitations of the tunneling field when it undergoes false vacuum decay. We
consider a tunneling potential which is piece-wise quadratic, hence is simple
enough to allow us an analytical treatment. We find a strong dependence of the
excitation spectrum upon the shape of the potential on the true vacuum side. We
then discuss features of the excitation spectrum common to general tunneling
potentials not restricted to our simple model.Comment: 24 pages, uuencoded compressed postscript fil
Quantum fluctuations and CMB anisotropies in one-bubble open inflation models
We first develop a method to calculate a complete set of mode functions which
describe the quantum fluctuations generated in one-bubble open inflation
models. We consider two classes of models. One is a single scalar field model
proposed by Bucher, Goldhaber and Turok and by us as an example of the open
inflation scinario, and the other is a two-field model such as the
``supernatural'' inflation proposed by Linde and Mezhlumian. In both cases we
assume the difference in the vacuum energy density between inside and outside
the bubble is negligible. There are two kinds of mode functions. One kind has
usual continuous spectrum and the other has discrete spectrum with
characteristic wavelengths exceeding the spatial curvature scale. The latter
can be further devided into two classes in terms of its origin. One is called
the de Sitter super-curvature mode, which arises due to the global spacetime
structure of de Sitter space, and the other is due to fluctuations of the
bubble wall. We calculate the spectrum of quantum fluctuations in these models
and evaluate the resulting large angular scale CMB anisotropies. We find there
are ranges of model parameters that are consistent with observed CMB
anisotropies.Comment: 22 pages revtex file, 12 postscript figures, tarred, gzippe
Cosmological Perturbations with Multiple Fluids and Fields
We consider the evolution of perturbed cosmological spacetime with multiple
fluids and fields in Einstein gravity. Equations are presented in gauge-ready
forms, and are presented in various forms using the curvature (\Phi or
\phi_\chi) and isocurvature (S_{(ij)} or \delta \phi_{(ij)}) perturbation
variables in the general background with K and \Lambda. We clarify the
conditions for conserved curvature and isocurvature perturbations in the
large-scale limit. Evolutions of curvature perturbations in many different
gauge conditions are analysed extensively. In the multi-field system we present
a general solution to the linear order in slow-roll parameters.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, revised thoroughly; published version in Class.
Quant. Gra
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