Primordial magnetic fields at preheating

Using lattice techniques we investigate the generation of long range cosmological magnetic fields during a cold electroweak transition. We will show how magnetic fields arise, during bubble collisions, in the form of magnetic strings. We conjecture that these magnetic strings originate from the alignment of magnetic dipoles associated with EW sphaleron-like configurations. We also discuss the early thermalisation of photons and the turbulent behaviour of the scalar fields after tachyonic preheating.Comment: 7 pages. Talk presented at Lattice200

Localization of axonally transported 125I-wheat germ agglutinin beneath the plasma membrane of chick retinal ganglion cells.

The distribution of 125I-wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) transported by axons of chick retinal ganglion cells to layer d of the optic tectum was studied by electron microscopic autoradiography. We found that 52% of the radioactivity was located in axons and axon terminals in the contralateral optic tectum 22 h after intravitreal injection of affinity-purified 125I-WGA. Axons comprised 43% of the volume of layer d. Dendrites, glial cells, and neuron cell bodies contained 20%, 17%, and 3% of the label, whereas these structures comprised 24%, 21%, and 2% of the tissue volume, respectively. We also measured the distances between the autoradiographic silver grains and the plasma membranes of these profiles, and compared observed distributions of grains to theoretical distributions computed for band-shaped sources at various distances from the plasma membranes. This analysis revealed that the radioactive source within axons was distributed in a band of cytoplasm extending in from the plasma membrane a distance of 63 nm. Because WGA is known to bind to specific membrane glycoconjugates, we infer that at least some glycoconjugates may be concentrated within an annular region of cytoplasm just beneath the axonal plasma membrane after axoplasmic transport from the neuron cell body

Structure of Quantum Wires in Au/Si(557)

The structure of the Au/Si(557) surface is determined from three-dimensional x-ray diffraction measurements, which directly mandate a single Au atom per unit cell. We use a “heavy atom” method in which the Au atom images the rest of the structure. Au is found to substitute for a row of first-layer Si atoms in the middle of the terrace, which then reconstructs by step rebonding and adatoms. The structure is consistent with the 1D metallic behavior seen by photoemission

Singularities in mass-loaded MHD flow: The cometary bow shock

We present a one-dimensional model of the mass-loading of the solar wind by cometary ions which predicts a singularity in the mass-loaded flow at M = 2. Further, a subshock occurs when the flow speed reaches M almost-equal-to 1.15. The shape of the cometary bow shock in two dimensions is predicted, by requiring that the flow Mach number of the shock is 2 taking the velocity component normal to the shock surface. The Mach number results compare favourably with observations at comet Halley