Quantum-ionic features in the absorption spectra of homonuclear diatomic molecules

Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 (CC-BY).We show that additional features can emerge in the linear absorption spectra of homonuclear diatomic molecules when the ions are described quantum mechanically. In particular, the widths and energies of the peaks in the optical spectra change with the initial configuration, mass, and charge of the molecule. We introduce a model that can describe these features and we provide a quantitative analysis of the resulting peak energy shifts and width broadenings as a function of the mass.We acknowledge financial support from the European Research Council Advanced Grant DYNamo (Grant No. ERC-2010-AdG-267374), Spanish Grants No. FIS2013-46159-C3-1-P and No. PIB2010US-00652, and Grupo Consolidado UPV/EHU del Gobierno Vasco (Grant No. IT578-13). A.C.-U. acknowledges financial support from the Departamento de Educacion, Universidades e Investigacion del Gobierno Vasco (Reference No. BFI-2011-26).Peer Reviewe

Mucosal delivery of tuberculosis vaccines: a review of current approaches and challenges.

Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major health threat and it is now clear that the current vaccine, BCG, is unable to arrest the global TB epidemic. A new vaccine is needed to either replace or boost BCG so that a better level of protection could be achieved. The route of entry of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative organism, is via inhalation making TB primarily a respiratory disease. There is therefore good reason to hypothesize that a mucosally delivered vaccine against TB could be more effective than one delivered via the systemic route.Areas covered: This review summarizes the progress that has been made in the area of TB mucosal vaccines in the last few years. It highlights some of the strengths and shortcomings of the published evidence and aims to discuss immunological and practical considerations in the development of mucosal vaccines.Expert opinion: There is a growing body of evidence that the mucosal approach to vaccination against TB is feasible and should be pursued. However, further key studies are necessary to both improve our understanding of the protective immune mechanisms operating in the mucosa and the technical aspects of aerosolized delivery, before such a vaccine could become a feasible, deployable strategy

M5-brane geometries, T-duality and fluxes

We describe a duality relation between configurations of M5-branes in M-theory and type IIB theory on Taub-NUT geometries with NSNS and RR 3-form field strength fluxes. The flux parameters are controlled by the angles between the M5-brane and the (T)duality directions. For one M5-brane, the duality leads to a family of supersymmetric flux configurations which interpolates between imaginary self-dual fluxes and fluxes similar to the Polchinski-Strassler kind. For multiple M5-branes, the IIB configurations are related to fluxes for twisted sector fields in orbifolds. The dual M5-brane picture also provides a geometric interpretation for several properties of flux configurations (like the supersymmetry conditions, their contribution to tadpoles, etc), and for many non-trivial effects in the IIB side. Among the latter, the dielectric effect for probe D3-branes is dual to the recombination of probe M5-branes with background ones; also, a picture of a decay channel for non-supersymmetric fluxes is suggested.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figure

Supersymmetric Kaluza-Klein reductions of M-waves and MKK-monopoles

We investigate the Kaluza-Klein reductions to ten dimensions of the purely gravitational half-BPS M-theory backgrounds: the M-wave and the Kaluza-Klein monopole. We determine the moduli space of smooth (supersymmetric) Kaluza-Klein reductions by classifying the freely-acting spacelike Killing vectors which preserve some Killing spinor. As a consequence we find a wealth of new supersymmetric IIA configurations involving composite and/or bound-state configurations of waves, D0 and D6-branes, Kaluza-Klein monopoles in type IIA and flux/nullbranes, and some other new configurations. Some new features raised by the geometry of the Taub-NUT space are discussed, namely the existence of reductions with no continuous moduli. We also propose an interpretation of the flux 5-brane in terms of the local description (close to the branes) of a bound state of D6-branes and ten-dimensional Kaluza-Klein monopoles.Comment: 36 pages (v2: Reference added, "draft" mode disabled; v3: two singular reductions discarded, appendix on spin structures added, references updated

Comments on orientifold projection in the conifold and SO x USp duality cascade

We study the O3-plane in the conifold. On the D3-brane world-volume we obtain SO x USp gauge theory that exhibits a duality cascade phenomenon. The orientifold projection is determined on the type IIB string side, and corresponds to that of O4-plane on the dual type IIA side. We show that SUGRA solutions of Klebanov-Tseytlin and Klebanov-Strassler survive under the projection. We also investigate the orientifold projection in the generalized conifolds, and verify desired features of the O4-projection in the type IIA picture.Comment: 1+27 pages, 9 figures, references added; version to appear in Phys. Rev.

A class of non-supersymmetric orientifolds

We study type IIB orientifolds on T^{2d}/Z_N with supersymmetry broken by the compactification. We determine tadpole cancellation conditions including anti-branes and considering different actions for the parity Omega. Using these conditions we then obtain the spectrum of tachyons and massless states. Various examples with N even correspond to type 0B orientifolds.Comment: 49 pages, Late

Higher Dimensional Recombination of Intersecting D-branes

We study recombinations of D-brane systems intersecting at more than one angle using super Yang-Mills theory. We find the condensation of an off-diagonal tachyon mode relates to the recombination, as was clarified for branes at one angle in hep-th/0303204. For branes at two angles, after the tachyon mode between two D2-branes condensed, D2-brane charge is distributed in the bulk near the intersection point. We also find that, when two intersection angles are equal, the off-diagonal lowest mode is massless, and a new stable non-abelian configuration, which is supersymmetric up to a quadratic order in the fluctuations, is obtained by the deformation by this mode.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, JHEP style. v3:references added, minor corrections, English improve

Stepwise Projection: Toward Brane Setups for Generic Orbifold Singularities

The construction of brane setups for the exceptional series E6,E7,E8 of SU(2) orbifolds remains an ever-haunting conundrum. Motivated by techniques in some works by Muto on non-Abelian SU(3) orbifolds, we here provide an algorithmic outlook, a method which we call stepwise projection, that may shed some light on this puzzle. We exemplify this method, consisting of transformation rules for obtaining complex quivers and brane setups from more elementary ones, to the cases of the D-series and E6 finite subgroups of SU(2). Furthermore, we demonstrate the generality of the stepwise procedure by appealing to Frobenius' theory of Induced Representations. Our algorithm suggests the existence of generalisations of the orientifold plane in string theory.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure

VHF band-pass filter based on a single CMOS-MEMS doubleended tuning fork resonator

AbstractThis paper presents a single Double-Ended Tuning Fork (DETF) MEMS resonator-based band-pass filter fabricated on a commercial standard CMOS technology. The accurate design of this resonator demonstrates the ability to perform filtering without the need of coupling multiple resonators. The main characteristic is to define the out-of-phase mode resonance frequency of the DETF smaller than the in-phase mode frequency. The electrical characterization shows that this stand-alone band-pass filter presents a 44.4MHz central frequency with a 0.6% bandwidth in air