1,173 research outputs found
Tachyonic preheating using 2PI-1/N dynamics and the classical approximation
We study the process of tachyonic preheating using approximative quantum
equations of motion derived from the 2PI effective action. The O(N) scalar
(Higgs) field is assumed to experience a fast quench which is represented by an
instantaneous flip of the sign of the mass parameter. The equations of motion
are solved numerically on the lattice, and the Hartree and 1/N-NLO
approximations are compared to the classical approximation. Classical dynamics
is expected to be valid, since the occupation numbers can rise to large values
during tachyonic preheating. We find that the classical approximation performs
excellently at short and intermediate times, even for couplings in the larger
region currently allowed for the SM Higgs. This is reassuring, since all
previous numerical studies of tachyonic preheating and baryogenesis during
tachyonic preheating have used classical dynamics. We also compare different
initializations for the classical simulations.Comment: 32 pages, 21 figures. Published version: Some details added, section
added, references added, conclusions unchange
Employment Expectations and Gross Flows by Type of Work Contract
There is growing interest in understanding firms’ temporary and permanent employment practices and how institutional changes shape them. Using data on Spanish establishments, we examine: (a) how employers adjust temporary and permanent job and worker flows to prior employment expectations, and (b) how the 1994 and 1997 labour reforms promoting permanent employment affected establishments’ employment practices. Generally, establishments’ prior employment expectations are realized through changes in all job and worker flows. However, establishments uniquely rely on temporary hires as a buffer to confront diminishing long-run employment expectations. None of the reforms significantly affected establishments’ net temporary or permanent employment flows.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40032/3/wp646.pd
The generating function for a particular class of characters of SU(n)
We compute the generating function for the characters of the irreducible
representations of SU(n) whose associated Young diagrams have only two rows
with the same number of boxes. The result is a rational determinantal
expression in which both the numerator and the denominator have a simple
structure when expressed in terms of Schur polynomials.Comment: 7 pages, no figure
Systemic Effects Induced by Hyperoxia in a Preclinical Model of Intra-abdominal Sepsis
Supplemental oxygen is a supportive treatment in patients with sepsis to balance tissue oxygen delivery and demand in the tissues. However, hyperoxia may induce some pathological effects. We sought to assess organ damage associated with hyperoxia and its correlation with the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in a preclinical model of intra-abdominal sepsis. For this purpose, sepsis was induced in male, Sprague-Dawley rats by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). We randomly assigned experimental animals to three groups: control (healthy animals), septic (CLP), and sham-septic (surgical intervention without CLP). At 18 h after CLP, septic (n = 39), sham-septic (n = 16), and healthy (n = 24) animals were placed within a sealed Plexiglas cage and randomly distributed into four groups for continuous treatment with 21%, 40%, 60%, or 100% oxygen for 24 h. At the end of the experimental period, we evaluated serum levels of cytokines, organ damage biomarkers, histological examination of brain and lung tissue, and ROS production in each surviving animal. We found that high oxygen concentrations increased IL-6 and biomarkers of organ damage levels in septic animals, although no relevant histopathological lung or brain damage was observed. Healthy rats had an increase in IL-6 and aspartate aminotransferase at high oxygen concentration. IL-6 levels, but not ROS levels, are correlated with markers of organ damage. In our study, the use of high oxygen concentrations in a clinically relevant model of intra-abdominal sepsis was associated with enhanced inflammation and organ damage. These findings were unrelated to ROS release into circulation. Hyperoxia could exacerbate sepsis-induced inflammation, and it could be by itself detrimental. Our study highlights the need of developing safer thresholds for oxygen therapy
Probing highly obscured, self-absorbed galaxy nuclei with vibrationally excited HCN
We present high resolution (0."4) IRAM PdBI and ALMA mm and submm
observations of the (ultra) luminous infrared galaxies ((U)LIRGs)
IRAS17208-0014, Arp220, IC860 and Zw049.057 that reveal intense line emission
from vibrationally excited (=1) J=3-2 and 4-3 HCN. The emission is
emerging from buried, compact (r<17-70 pc) nuclei that have very high implied
mid-infrared surface brightness L kpc.
These nuclei are likely powered by accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs)
and/or hot (>200 K) extreme starbursts. Vibrational, =1, lines of HCN
are excited by intense 14 micron mid-infrared emission and are excellent probes
of the dynamics, masses, and physical conditions of (U)LIRG nuclei when H
column densities exceed cm. It is clear that these lines open
up a new interesting avenue to gain access to the most obscured AGNs and
starbursts. Vibrationally excited HCN acts as a proxy for the absorbed
mid-infrared emission from the embedded nuclei, which allows for reconstruction
of the intrinsic, hotter dust SED. In contrast, we show strong evidence that
the ground vibrational state (=0), J=3-2 and 4-3 rotational lines of HCN
and HCO fail to probe the highly enshrouded, compact nuclear regions owing
to strong self- and continuum absorption. The HCN and HCO line profiles are
double-peaked because of the absorption and show evidence of non-circular
motions - possibly in the form of in- or outflows. Detections of vibrationally
excited HCN in external galaxies are so far limited to ULIRGs and early-type
spiral LIRGs, and we discuss possible causes for this. We tentatively suggest
that the peak of vibrationally excited HCN emission is connected to a rapid
stage of nuclear growth, before the phase of strong feedback.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Causal Relationship: a new tool for the causal characterization of Lorentzian manifolds
We define and study a new kind of relation between two diffeomorphic
Lorentzian manifolds called {\em causal relation}, which is any diffeomorphism
characterized by mapping every causal vector of the first manifold onto a
causal vector of the second. We perform a thorough study of the mathematical
properties of causal relations and prove in particular that two given
Lorentzian manifolds (say and ) may be causally related only in one
direction (say from to , but not from to ). This leads us to the
concept of causally equivalent (or {\em isocausal} in short) Lorentzian
manifolds as those mutually causally related. This concept is more general and
of a more basic nature than the conformal relationship, because we prove the
remarkable result that a conformal relation \f is characterized by the fact
of being a causal relation of the {\em particular} kind in which both \f and
\f^{-1} are causal relations. For isocausal Lorentzian manifolds there are
one-to-one correspondences, which sometimes are non-trivial, between several
classes of their respective future (and past) objects. A more important feature
of isocausal Lorentzian manifolds is that they satisfy the same causality
constraints. This indicates that the causal equivalence provides a possible
characterization of the {\it basic causal structure}, in the sense of mutual
causal compatibility, for Lorentzian manifolds. Thus, we introduce a partial
order for the equivalence classes of isocausal Lorentzian manifolds providing a
classification of spacetimes in terms of their causal properties, and a
classification of all the causal structures that a given fixed manifold can
have. A full abstract inside the paper.Comment: 47 pages, 10 figures. Version to appear in Classical and Quantum
Gravit
Quantum Pair Creation of Soliton Domain Walls
A large body of experimental evidence suggests that the decay of the false
vacuum, accompanied by quantum pair creation of soliton domain walls, can occur
in a variety of condensed matter systems. Examples include nucleation of charge
soliton pairs in density waves [eg. J. H. Miller, Jr. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.
84, 1555 (2000)] and flux soliton pairs in long Josephon junctions. Recently,
Dias and Lemos [J. Math. Phys. 42, 3292 (2001)] have argued that the mass
of the soliton should be interpreted as a line density and a surface density,
respectively, for (2+1)-D and (3+1)-D systems in the expression for the pair
production rate. As the transverse dimensions are increased and the total mass
(energy) becomes large, thermal activation becomes suppressed, so quantum
processes can dominate even at relatively high temperatures. This paper will
discuss both experimental evidence and theoretical arguments for the existence
of high-temperature collective quantum phenomena
Unveiling Far-Infrared Counterparts of Bright Submillimeter Galaxies Using PACS Imaging
We present a search for Herschel-PACS counterparts of dust-obscured,
high-redshift objects previously selected at submillimeter and millimeter
wavelengths in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey North field. We
detect 22 of 56 submillimeter galaxies (39%) with a SNR of >=3 at 100 micron
down to 3.0 mJy, and/or at 160 micron down to 5.7 mJy. The fraction of SMGs
seen at 160 micron is higher than that at 100 micron. About 50% of
radio-identified SMGs are associated with PACS sources. We find a trend between
the SCUBA/PACS flux ratio and redshift, suggesting that these flux ratios could
be used as a coarse redshift indicator. PACS undetected submm/mm selected
sources tend to lie at higher redshifts than the PACS detected ones. A total of
12 sources (21% of our SMG sample) remain unidentified and the fact that they
are blank fields at Herschel-PACS and VLA 20 cm wavelength may imply higher
redshifts for them than for the average SMG population (e.g., z>3-4). The
Herschel-PACS imaging of these dust-obscured starbursts at high-redshifts
suggests that their far-infrared spectral energy distributions have
significantly different shapes than template libraries of local infrared
galaxies.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. ApJ Letters in pres
PhytAMP: a database dedicated to antimicrobial plant peptides
Plants produce small cysteine-rich antimicrobial peptides as an innate defense against pathogens. Based on amino acid sequence homology, these peptides were classified mostly as α-defensins, thionins, lipid transfer proteins, cyclotides, snakins and hevein-like. Although many antimicrobial plant peptides are now well characterized, much information is still missing or is unavailable to potential users. The compilation of such information in one centralized resource, such as a database would therefore facilitate the study of the potential these peptide structures represent, for example, as alternatives in response to increasing antibiotic resistance or for increasing plant resistance to pathogens by genetic engineering. To achieve this goal, we developed a new database, PhytAMP, which contains valuable information on antimicrobial plant peptides, including taxonomic, microbiological and physicochemical data. Information is very easy to extract from this database and allows rapid prediction of structure/function relationships and target organisms and hence better exploitation of plant peptide biological activities in both the pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors. PhytAMP may be accessed free of charge at http://phytamp.pfba-lab.org
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