Symmetry constraints for the emission angle dependence of Hanbury Brown--Twiss radii

We discuss symmetry constraints on the azimuthal oscillations of two-particle correlation (Hanbury Brown--Twiss interferometry) radii for non-central collisions between equal spherical nuclei. We also propose a new method for correcting in a model-independent way the emission angle dependent correlation function for finite event plane resolution and angular binning effects.Comment: 8 pages revtex4, 2 tables, no figures. Short Section VI added and correction algorithm in Section VII made more explicit. Submitted to Physical Review

Excitotoxic neuronal cell death during an oligodendrocyte-directed CD8+ T cell attack in the CNS gray matter

Background: Neural-antigen reactive cytotoxic CD8+ T cells contribute to neuronal dysfunction and degeneration in a variety of inflammatory CNS disorders. Facing excess numbers of target cells, CNS-invading CD8+ T cells cause neuronal cell death either via confined release of cytotoxic effector molecules towards neurons, or via spillover of cytotoxic effector molecules from 'leaky’ immunological synapses and non-confined release by CD8+ T cells themselves during serial and simultaneous killing of oligodendrocytes or astrocytes. Methods: Wild-type and T cell receptor transgenic CD8+ T cells were stimulated in vitro, their activation status was assessed by flow cytometry, and supernatant glutamate levels were determined using an enzymatic assay. Expression regulation of molecules involved in vesicular glutamate release was examined by quantitative real-time PCR, and mechanisms of non-vesicular glutamate release were studied by pharmacological blocking experiments. The impact of CD8+ T cell-mediated glutamate liberation on neuronal viability was studied in acute brain slice preparations. Results: Following T cell receptor stimulation, CD8+ T cells acquire the molecular repertoire for vesicular glutamate release: (i) they upregulate expression of glutaminase required to generate glutamate via deamination of glutamine and (ii) they upregulate expression of vesicular proton-ATPase and vesicular glutamate transporters required for filling of vesicles with glutamate. Subsequently, CD8+ T cells release glutamate in a strictly stimulus-dependent manner. Upon repetitive T cell receptor stimulation, CD25high CD8+ T effector cells exhibit higher estimated single cell glutamate release rates than CD25low CD8+ T memory cells. Moreover, glutamate liberation by oligodendrocyte-reactive CD25high CD8+ T effector cells is capable of eliciting collateral excitotoxic cell death of neurons (despite glutamate re-uptake by glia cells and neurons) in intact CNS gray matter. Conclusion: Glutamate release may represent a crucial effector pathway of neural-antigen reactive CD8+ T cells, contributing to excitotoxicity in CNS inflammation.<br

The QCD thermal phase transition in the presence of a small chemical potential

We propose a new method to investigate the thermal properties of QCD with a small quark chemical potential $\mu$. Derivatives of the phase transition point with respect to $\mu$ are computed at $\mu=0$ for 2 flavors of p-4 improved staggered fermions with $ma=0.1,0.2$ on a $16^3\times4$ lattice. The resulting Taylor expansion is well behaved for the small values of $\mu_{\rm q}/T_c\sim0.1$ relevant for RHIC phenomenology, and predicts a critical curve $T_c(\mu)$ in reasonable agreement with estimates obtained using exact reweighting. In addition, we contrast the case of isoscalar and isovector chemical potentials, quantify the effect of $\mu\not=0$ on the equation of state, and comment on the complex phase of the fermion determinant in QCD with $\mu\not=0$.Comment: 26 pages, 25 figures, minor modificatio

Baryon Density Correlations in High Temperature Hadronic Matter

As part of an ongoing effort to characterize the high temperature phase of QCD, in a numerical simulation using the staggered fermion scheme, we measure the quark baryon density in the vicinity of a fixed test quark at high temperature and compare it with similar measurements at low temperature and at the crossover temperature. We find an extremely weak correlation at high temperature, suggesting that small color singlet clusters are unimportant in the thermal ensemble. We also find that at $T = 0.75\ T_c$ the total induced quark number shows a surprisingly large component attributable to baryonic screening. A companion simulation of a simple flux tube model produces similar results and also suggests a plausible phenomenological scenario: As the crossover temperature is approached from below, baryonic states proliferate. Above the crossover temperature the mean size of color singlet clusters grows explosively, resulting in an effective electrostatic deconfinement.Comment: 26 pp, RevTeX, 12 postscript figures, combined in a single shell archive file. (Also available in 13 postscript files by anonymous ftp from einstein.physics.utah.edu, /pub/milc/paper.sh.Z.

Radio emission and jets from microquasars

To some extent, all Galactic binary systems hosting a compact object are potential `microquasars', so much as all galactic nuclei may have been quasars, once upon a time. The necessary ingredients for a compact object of stellar mass to qualify as a microquasar seem to be: accretion, rotation and magnetic field. The presence of a black hole may help, but is not strictly required, since neutron star X-ray binaries and dwarf novae can be powerful jet sources as well. The above issues are broadly discussed throughout this Chapter, with a a rather trivial question in mind: why do we care? In other words: are jets a negligible phenomenon in terms of accretion power, or do they contribute significantly to dissipating gravitational potential energy? How do they influence their surroundings? The latter point is especially relevant in a broader context, as there is mounting evidence that outflows powered by super-massive black holes in external galaxies may play a crucial role in regulating the evolution of cosmic structures. Microquasars can also be thought of as a form of quasars for the impatient: what makes them appealing, despite their low number statistics with respect to quasars, are the fast variability time-scales. In the first approximation, the physics of the jet-accretion coupling in the innermost regions should be set by the mass/size of the accretor: stellar mass objects vary on 10^5-10^8 times shorter time-scales, making it possible to study variable accretion modes and related ejection phenomena over average Ph.D. time-scales. [Abridged]Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures, To appear in Belloni, T. (ed.): The Jet Paradigm - From Microquasars to Quasars, Lect. Notes Phys. 794 (2009

Galactic X-ray binary jets

With their relatively fast variability time-scales, Galactic X-ray binaries provide an excellent laboratory to explore the physics of accretion and related phenomena, most notably outflows, over different regimes. After comparing the phenomenology of jets in black hole X-ray binary systems to that of neutron stars, here I discuss the role of the jet at very low Eddington ratios, and present preliminary results obtained by fitting the broadband spectral energy distribution of a quiescent black hole binary with a `maximally jet-dominated' model.Comment: Refereed version, accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Heavy ion event generator HYDJET++ (HYDrodynamics plus JETs)

HYDJET++ is a Monte-Carlo event generator for simulation of relativistic heavy ion AA collisions considered as a superposition of the soft, hydro-type state and the hard state resulting from multi-parton fragmentation. This model is the development and continuation of HYDJET event generator (Lokhtin & Snigirev, 2006, EPJC, 45, 211). The main program is written in the object-oriented C++ language under the ROOT environment. The hard part of HYDJET++ is identical to the hard part of Fortran-written HYDJET and it is included in the generator structure as a separate directory. The soft part of HYDJET++ event is the "thermal" hadronic state generated on the chemical and thermal freeze-out hypersurfaces obtained from the parameterization of relativistic hydrodynamics with preset freeze-out conditions. It includes the longitudinal, radial and elliptic flow effects and the decays of hadronic resonances. The corresponding fast Monte-Carlo simulation procedure, C++ code FAST MC (Amelin et al., 2006, PRC, 74, 064901; 2008, PRC, 77, 014903) is adapted to HYDJET++. It is designed for studying the multi-particle production in a wide energy range of heavy ion experimental facilities: from FAIR and NICA to RHIC and LHC.Comment: 44 pages including 6 figures as EPS-files; prepared using LaTeX package for publication in Computer Physics Communication

Theoretical overview on high-energy emission in microquasars

Microquasar (MQ) jets are sites of particle acceleration and synchrotron emission. Such synchrotron radiation has been detected coming from jet regions of different spatial scales, which for the instruments at work nowadays appear as compact radio cores, slightly resolved radio jets, or (very) extended structures. Because of the presence of relativistic particles and dense photon, magnetic and matter fields, these outflows are also the best candidates to generate the very high-energy (VHE) gamma-rays detected coming from two of these objects, LS 5039 and LS I +61 303, and may be contributing significantly to the X-rays emitted from the MQ core. In addition, beside electromagnetic radiation, jets at different scales are producing some amount of leptonic and hadronic cosmic rays (CR), and evidences of neutrino production in these objects may be eventually found. In this work, we review on the different physical processes that may be at work in or related to MQ jets. The jet regions capable to produce significant amounts of emission at different wavelengths have been reduced to the jet base, the jet at scales of the order of the size of the system orbital semi-major axis, the jet middle scales (the resolved radio jets), and the jet termination point. The surroundings of the jet could be sites of multiwavelegnth emission as well, deserving also an insight. We focus on those scenarios, either hadronic or leptonic, in which it seems more plausible to generate both photons from radio to VHE and high-energy neutrinos. We briefly comment as well on the relevance of MQ as possible contributors to the galactic CR in the GeV-PeV range.Comment: Astrophysics & Space Science, in press (invited talk in the conference: The multimessenger approach to the high-energy gamma-ray sources", Barcelona/Catalonia, in July 4-7); 10 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables (one reference corrected

Optical nanofibers and spectroscopy

We review our recent progress in the production and characterization of tapered optical fibers with a sub-wavelength diameter waist. Such fibers exhibit a pronounced evanescent field and are therefore a useful tool for highly sensitive evanescent wave spectroscopy of adsorbates on the fiber waist or of the medium surrounding. We use a carefully designed flame pulling process that allows us to realize preset fiber diameter profiles. In order to determine the waist diameter and to verify the fiber profile, we employ scanning electron microscope measurements and a novel accurate in situ optical method based on harmonic generation. We use our fibers for linear and non-linear absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy of surface-adsorbed organic molecules and investigate their agglomeration dynamics. Furthermore, we apply our spectroscopic method to quantum dots on the surface of the fiber waist and to caesium vapor surrounding the fiber. Finally, towards dispersive measurements, we present our first results on building and testing a single-fiber bi-modal interferometer.Comment: 13 pages, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in Applied Physics B. Changes according to referee suggestions: changed title, clarification of some points in the text, added references, replacement of Figure 13