Nuclear expansion with excitation

The expansion of an isolated hot spherical nucleus with excitation energy and its caloric curve are studied in a thermodynamic model with the SkM* force as the nuclear effective two-body interaction. The calculated results are shown to compare well with the recent experimental data from energetic nuclear collisions. The fluctuations in temperature and density are also studied. They are seen to build up very rapidly beyond an excitation energy of 9 MeV/u. Volume-conserving quadrupole deformation in addition to expansion indicates, however, nuclear disassembly above an excitation energy of 4 MeV/uComment: 17 pages, 5 figures, revtex4; calculations with deformation adde

Spin polarised nuclear matter and its application to neutron stars

An equation of state(EOS) of nuclear matter with explicit inclusion of a spin-isospin dependent force is constructed from a finite range, momentum and density dependent effective interaction. This EOS is found to be in good agreement with those obtained from more sophisticated models for unpolarised nuclear matter. Introducing spin degrees of freedom, it is found that at density about 2.5 times the density of normal nuclear matter the neutron matter undergoes a ferromagnetic transition. The maximum mass and the radius of the neutron star agree favourably with the observations. Since finding quark matter rather than spin polarised nuclear matter at the core of neutron stars is more probable, the proposed EOS is also applied to the study of hybrid stars. It is found using the bag model picture that one can in principle describe both the mass and size as well as the surface magnetic field of hybrid stars satisfactorily.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures available on reques

Kappa-symmetry for coincident D-branes

A kappa-symmetric action for coincident D-branes is presented. It is valid in the approximation that the additional fermionic variables, used to incorporate the non-abelian degrees of freedom, are treated classically. The action is written as a Bernstein-Leites integral on the supermanifold obtained from the bosonic worldvolume by adjoining the extra fermions. The integrand is a very simple extension of the usual Green-Schwarz action for a single brane; all symmetries, except for kappa, are manifest, and the proof of kappa-symmetry is very similar to the abelian case.Comment: 18 pages. References adde

Shell Corrections of Superheavy Nuclei in Self-Consistent Calculations

Shell corrections to the nuclear binding energy as a measure of shell effects in superheavy nuclei are studied within the self-consistent Skyrme-Hartree-Fock and Relativistic Mean-Field theories. Due to the presence of low-lying proton continuum resulting in a free particle gas, special attention is paid to the treatment of single-particle level density. To cure the pathological behavior of shell correction around the particle threshold, the method based on the Green's function approach has been adopted. It is demonstrated that for the vast majority of Skyrme interactions commonly employed in nuclear structure calculations, the strongest shell stabilization appears for Z=124, and 126, and for N=184. On the other hand, in the relativistic approaches the strongest spherical shell effect appears systematically for Z=120 and N=172. This difference has probably its roots in the spin-orbit potential. We have also shown that, in contrast to shell corrections which are fairly independent on the force, macroscopic energies extracted from self-consistent calculations strongly depend on the actual force parametrisation used. That is, the A and Z dependence of mass surface when extrapolating to unknown superheavy nuclei is prone to significant theoretical uncertainties.Comment: 14 pages REVTeX, 8 eps figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Lorentz and CPT Violation in Neutrinos

A general formalism is presented for violations of Lorentz and CPT symmetry in the neutrino sector. The effective hamiltonian for neutrino propagation in the presence of Lorentz and CPT violation is derived, and its properties are studied. Possible definitive signals in existing and future neutrino-oscillation experiments are discussed. Among the predictions are direction-dependent effects, including neutrino-antineutrino mixing, sidereal and annual variations, and compass asymmetries. Other consequences of Lorentz and CPT violation involve unconventional energy dependences in oscillation lengths and mixing angles. A variety of simple models both with and without neutrino masses are developed to illustrate key physical effects. The attainable sensitivities to coefficients for Lorentz violation in the Standard-Model Extension are estimated for various types of experiments. Many experiments have potential sensitivity to Planck-suppressed effects, comparable to the best tests in other sectors. The lack of existing experimental constraints, the wide range of available coefficient space, and the variety of novel effects imply that some or perhaps even all of the existing data on neutrino oscillations might be due to Lorentz and CPT violation.Comment: 25 pages REVTe

Detecting Microscopic Black Holes with Neutrino Telescopes

If spacetime has more than four dimensions, ultra-high energy cosmic rays may create microscopic black holes. Black holes created by cosmic neutrinos in the Earth will evaporate, and the resulting hadronic showers, muons, and taus may be detected in neutrino telescopes below the Earth's surface. We simulate such events in detail and consider black hole cross sections with and without an exponential suppression factor. We find observable rates in both cases: for conservative cosmogenic neutrino fluxes, several black hole events per year are observable at the IceCube detector; for fluxes at the Waxman-Bahcall bound, tens of events per year are possible. We also present zenith angle and energy distributions for all three channels. The ability of neutrino telescopes to differentiate hadrons, muons, and possibly taus, and to measure these distributions provides a unique opportunity to identify black holes, to experimentally constrain the form of black hole production cross sections, and to study Hawking evaporation.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

Multiethnic meta-analysis identifies ancestry-specific and cross-ancestry loci for pulmonary function

Nearly 100 loci have been identified for pulmonary function, almost exclusively in studies of European ancestry populations. We extend previous research by meta-analyzing genome-wide association studies of 1000 Genomes imputed variants in relation to pulmonary function in a multiethnic population of 90,715 individuals of European (N = 60,552), African (N = 8429), Asian (N = 9959), and Hispanic/Latino (N = 11,775) ethnicities. We identify over 50 additional loci at genome-wide significance in ancestry-specific or multiethnic meta-analyses. Using recent fine-mapping methods incorporating functional annotation, gene expression, and differences in linkage disequilibrium between ethnicities, we further shed light on potential causal variants and genes at known and newly identified loci. Several of the novel genes encode proteins with predicted or established drug targets, including KCNK2 and CDK12. Our study highlights the utility of multiethnic and integrative genomics approaches to extend existing knowledge of the genetics of l