192 research outputs found
Hard x-ray spectroscopy in NaxCoO2 and superconducting NaxCoO2 - yH2O: A view on the bulk Co electronic properties
The electronic properties of Co in bulk Na0.7CoO2 and the superconducting
hydrated compound Na0.35CoO2 - y H2O have been investigated by x-ray absorption
spectroscopy (XAS) and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) using hard
x-rays. The XAS spectra at the Co K-edge were measured in both compounds with
two different polarization directions. The changes in the XAS spectra upon
hydration and their polarization dependence are well accounted for by linear
muffin- tin orbital calculations in the local density approximation. The
underlying electronic structure indicates the strong hybridization between the
Co 3d and O 2p states in both compounds, while the electron localization is
enhanced in the hydrated compound due to the increase of the Co-Co interplanar
distance. The Co K pre-edge further highlights the splitting of the d band as a
result of the crystal field effect and demonstrates the Co valency increase
when Na0.7CoO2 is hydrated. The RIXS spectra measured at the Co K-edge show an
energy loss feature around 10 eV in both compounds in fair agreement with the
calculated dynamical structure factor. The RIXS feature is associated to a
damped plasmon excitation.Comment: 8 page
RIPK3-mediated cell death is involved in DUX4-mediated toxicity in facioscapulohumeral dystrophy
BACKGROUND: Facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD) is caused by mutations leading to the aberrant expression of the DUX4 transcription factor in muscles. DUX4 was proposed to induce cell death, but the involvement of different death pathways is still discussed. A possible pro-apoptotic role of DUX4 was proposed, but as FSHD muscles are characterized by necrosis and inflammatory infiltrates, non-apoptotic pathways may be also involved. METHODS: We explored DUX4-mediated cell death by focusing on the role of one regulated necrosis pathway called necroptosis, which is regulated by RIPK3. We investigated the effect of necroptosis on cell death in vitro and in vivo experiments using RIPK3 inhibitors and a RIPK3-deficient transgenic mouse model. RESULTS: We showed in vitro that DUX4 expression causes a caspase-independent and RIPK3-mediated cell death in both myoblasts and myotubes. In vivo, RIPK3-deficient animals present improved body and muscle weights, a reduction of the aberrant activation of the DUX4 network genes, and an improvement of muscle histology. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide evidence for a role of RIPK3 in DUX4-mediated cell death and open new avenues of research
On the Papapetrou field in vacuum
In this paper we study the electromagnetic fields generated by a Killing
vector field in vacuum space-times (Papapetrou fields). The motivation of this
work is to provide new tools for the resolution of Maxwell's equations as well
as for the search, characterization, and study of exact solutions of Einstein's
equations. The first part of this paper is devoted to an algebraic study in
which we give an explicit and covariant procedure to construct the principal
null directions of a Papapetrou field. In the second part, we focus on the main
differential properties of the principal directions, studying when they are
geodesic, and in that case we compute their associated optical scalars. With
this information we get the conditions that a principal direction of the
Papapetrou field must satisfy in order to be aligned with a multiple principal
direction of the Weyl tensor in the case of algebraically special vacuum
space-times. Finally, we illustrate this study using the Kerr, Kasner and pp
waves space-times.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX2e, IOP style. To appear in Classical and Quantum
Gravit
Spinor classification of the Weyl tensor in five dimensions
We investigate the spinor classification of the Weyl tensor in five
dimensions due to De Smet. We show that a previously overlooked reality
condition reduces the number of possible types in the classification. We
classify all vacuum solutions belonging to the most special algebraic type. The
connection between this spinor and the tensor classification due to Coley,
Milson, Pravda and Pravdov\'a is investigated and the relation between most of
the types in each of the classifications is given. We show that the black ring
is algebraically general in the spinor classification.Comment: 40 page
Observation of magnetic circular dichroism in Fe L_{2,3} x-ray-fluorescence spectra
We report experiments demonstrating circular dichroism in the x-ray-fluorescence spectra of magnetic systems, as predicted by a recent theory. The data, on the L_{2,3} edges of ferromagnetic iron, are compared with fully relativistic local spin density functional calculations, and the relationship between the dichroic spectra and the spin-resolved local density of occupied states is discussed
Dichroism in X-ray Fluorescence
We discuss circular dichroism in the x-ray fluorescence spectra of magnetic systems in the light of a recent theory [1]. Fully relativistic local spin density calculations on the L2,3 edges of ferromagnetic iron are compared with very recent experimental data, and the relationship between the dichroism spectra and the spin-resolved local density of occupied states is discussed
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