Polarons with a twist

We consider a polaron model where molecular \emph{rotations} are important. Here, the usual hopping between neighboring sites is affected directly by the electron-phonon interaction via a {\em twist-dependent} hopping amplitude. This model may be of relevance for electronic transport in complex molecules and polymers with torsional degrees of freedom, such as DNA, as well as in molecular electronics experiments where molecular twist motion is significant. We use a tight-binding representation and find that very different polaronic properties are already exhibited by a two-site model -- these are due to the nonlinearity of the restoring force of the twist excitations, and of the electron-phonon interaction in the model. In the adiabatic regime, where electrons move in a {\em low}-frequency field of twisting-phonons, the effective splitting of the energy levels increases with coupling strength. The bandwidth in a long chain shows a power-law suppression with coupling, unlike the typical exponential dependence due to linear phonons.Comment: revtex4 source and one eps figur

Common variants near MC4R are associated with fat mass, weight and risk of obesity.

To identify common variants influencing body mass index (BMI), we analyzed genome-wide association data from 16,876 individuals of European descent. After previously reported variants in FTO, the strongest association signal (rs17782313, P = 2.9 x 10(-6)) mapped 188 kb downstream of MC4R (melanocortin-4 receptor), mutations of which are the leading cause of monogenic severe childhood-onset obesity. We confirmed the BMI association in 60,352 adults (per-allele effect = 0.05 Z-score units; P = 2.8 x 10(-15)) and 5,988 children aged 7-11 (0.13 Z-score units; P = 1.5 x 10(-8)). In case-control analyses (n = 10,583), the odds for severe childhood obesity reached 1.30 (P = 8.0 x 10(-11)). Furthermore, we observed overtransmission of the risk allele to obese offspring in 660 families (P (pedigree disequilibrium test average; PDT-avg) = 2.4 x 10(-4)). The SNP location and patterns of phenotypic associations are consistent with effects mediated through altered MC4R function. Our findings establish that common variants near MC4R influence fat mass, weight and obesity risk at the population level and reinforce the need for large-scale data integration to identify variants influencing continuous biomedical traits

Two-electron elastic tunneling in low-dimensional conductors

This article was published in the journal, Physical Review B [© American Physical Society]. It is also available at: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v65/e155209.We solve the Lippmann-Schwinger equation describing one-dimensional elastic scattering of preformed pairs (e.g., bipolarons) off a short-range scattering center, and find the two-particle transmission through a thin potential barrier. While the pair transmission is smaller than the single-electron transmission in the strong-coupling limit, it is remarkably larger in the weak-coupling limit. We also calculate current-voltage characteristics of a molecule-barrier-molecule junction. They show unusual temperature and voltage behaviors which are experimentally verifiable at low temperatures in bulk and nanoscale molecular conductors

First measurement of Ωc0 production in pp collisions at s=13 TeV

The inclusive production of the charm–strange baryon 0 c is measured for the first time via its hadronic √ decay into −π+ at midrapidity (|y| <0.5) in proton–proton (pp) collisions at the centre-of-mass energy s =13 TeV with the ALICE detector at the LHC. The transverse momentum (pT) differential cross section multiplied by the branching ratio is presented in the interval 2 < pT < 12 GeV/c. The pT dependence of the 0 c-baryon production relative to the prompt D0-meson and to the prompt 0 c-baryon production is compared to various models that take different hadronisation mechanisms into consideration. In the measured pT interval, the ratio of the pT-integrated cross sections of 0 c and prompt + c baryons multiplied by the −π+ branching ratio is found to be larger by a factor of about 20 with a significance of about 4σ when compared to e+e− collisions

Elliptic flow of charged particles at midrapidity relative to the spectator plane in Pb–Pb and Xe–Xe collisions

Measurements of the elliptic flow coefficient relative to the collision plane defined by the spectator neutrons v2{ SP} in collisions of Pb ions at center-of-mass energy per nucleon–nucleon pair √ 2.76 TeV and Xe ions at √ sNN = sNN =5.44 TeV are reported. The results are presented for charged particles produced at midrapidity as a function of centrality and transverse momentum for the 5–70% and 0.2–6 GeV/c ranges, respectively. The ratio between v2{ SP} and the elliptic flow coefficient relative to the participant plane v2{4}, estimated using four-particle correlations, deviates by up to 20% from unity depending on centrality. This observation differs strongly from the magnitude of the corresponding eccentricity ratios predicted by the TRENTo and the elliptic power models of initial state fluctuations that are tuned to describe the participant plane anisotropies. The differences can be interpreted as a decorrelation of the neutron spectator plane and the reaction plane because of fragmentation of the remnants from the colliding nuclei, which points to an incompleteness of current models describing the initial state fluctuations. A significant transverse momentum dependence of the ratio v2{ SP}/v2{4} is observed in all but the most central collisions, which may help to understand whether momentum anisotropies at low and intermediate transverse momentum have a common origin in initial state f luctuations. The ratios of v2{ SP} and v2{4} to the corresponding initial state eccentricities for Xe–Xe and Pb–Pb collisions at similar initial entropy density show a difference of (7.0 ±0.9)%with an additional variation of +1.8% when including RHIC data in the TRENTo parameter extraction. These observations provide new experimental constraints for viscous effects in the hydrodynamic modeling of the expanding quark–gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC