A Simple UV-Completion of QED in 5D

We construct a Lifshitz-like version of five-dimensional (5D) QED which is UV - completed and reduces at low energies to ordinary 5D QED. The UV quantum behaviour of this theory is very smooth. In particular, the gauge coupling constant is finite at all energy scales and at all orders in perturbation theory. We study the IR properties of this theory, when compactified on a circle, and compare the one-loop energy dependence of the coupling in the Lifshitz theory with that coming from the standard 5D QED effective field theory. The range of validity of the 5D effective field theory is found to agree with the more conservative version of Naive Dimensional Analysis.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures; v2: Minor improvements, matches journal versio

Effect of sodium hyluronate added to topical corticosteroids in chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis

Available medical treatments for chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) with nasal polyposis (CRSwNP) comprise systemic and topical therapies. Although topical corticosteroids are effective in the treatment of CRS, they are not completely devoid of adverse effects. Thus, care has to be taken when long-term treatments are prescribed. There is recent evidence that sodium hyaluronate (SH), the major component of many extracellular matrices, promotes tissue healing, including activation and moderation of the inflammatory responses, cell proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis

Multiloop divergences in the closed bosonic string theory

The structure of the divergences in the multiloop vacuum diagrams for the closed bosonic strings in the framework of the Polyakov covariant formalism is discussed. It is found, by an explicit computation, that all the divergences in the theory may be interpreted as due to tadpole diagrams in which the dilaton goes into the vacuum

Sommerfeld enhancement from Goldstone pseudo-scalar exchange

We point out that the exchange of a Goldstone pseudo-scalar can provide an enhancement in the dark matter annihilation rate capable of explaining the excess flux seen in high energy cosmic ray data. The mechanism of enhancement involves the coupling of s and d waves through the tensor force that is very strong and, in fact, singular at short distances. The results indicate that large enhancements require some amount of fine tuning. We also discuss the enhancement due to other singular attractive potentials, such as WIMP models with a permanent electric dipole.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, v2 includes contact informatio

Factorization and Unitarity in Superstring Theory

The overall coefficient of the two-loop 4-particle amplitude in superstring theory is determined by making use of the factorization and unitarity. To accomplish this we computed in detail all the relevant tree and one-loop amplitudes involved and determined their overall coefficients in a consistent way.Comment: LaTex file, 19 pages, 4 figures; v2, minor corrections and figures corrected; v3, minor corrections with the English, to be published in JHE

Factorization of the Two Loop Four-Particle Amplitude in Superstring Theory Revisited

We study in detail the factorization of the newly obtained two-loop four-particle amplitude in superstring theory. In particular some missing factors from the scalar correlators are obtained correctly, in comparing with a previous study of the factorization in two-loop superstring theory. Some details for the calculation of the factorization of the kinematic factor are also presented.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure; v2, minor corrections and references update

Multiloop divergences in the closed bosonic string theory

The structure of the divergences in the multiloop vacuum diagrams for the closed bosonic strings in the framework of the Polyakov covariant formalism is discussed. It is found, by an explicit computation, that all the divergences in the theory may be interpreted as due to tadpole diagrams in which the dilaton goes into the vacuum

Edge Tunneling of Vortices in Superconducting Thin Films

We investigate the phenomenon of the decay of a supercurrent due to the zero-temperature quantum tunneling of vortices from the edge in a thin superconducting film in the absence of an external magnetic field. An explicit formula is derived for the tunneling rate of vortices, which are subject to the Magnus force induced by the supercurrent, through the Coulomb-like potential barrier binding them to the film's edge. Our approach ensues from the non-relativistic version of a Schwinger-type calculation for the decay of the 2D vacuum previously employed for describing vortex-antivortex pair-nucleation in the bulk of the sample. In the dissipation-dominated limit, our explicit edge-tunneling formula yields numerical estimates which are compared with those obtained for bulk-nucleation to show that both mechanisms are possible for the decay of a supercurrent.Comment: REVTeX file, 15 pages, 1 Postscript figure; to appear in Phys.Rev.

String Form Factors

We compute the cross section for scattering of light string probes by randomly excited closed strings. For high energy probes, the cross section factorizes and can be used to define effective form factors for the excited targets. These form factors are well defined without the need for infinite subtractions and contain information about the shape and size of typical strings. For highly excited strings the elastic form factor can be written in terms of the `plasma dispersion function', which describes charge screening in high temperature plasmas.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures. Typos corrected, 1 footnote (in Section 4) and 1 reference adde