4,960 research outputs found
Transition from sea to land: olfactory function and constraints in the terrestrial hermit crab Coenobita clypeatus
The ability to identify chemical cues in the environment is essential to most animals. Apart from marine larval stages, anomuran land hermit crabs (Coenobita) have evolved different degrees of terrestriality, and thus represent an excellent opportunity to investigate adaptations of the olfactory system needed for a successful transition from aquatic to terrestrial life. Although superb processing capacities of the central olfactory system have been indicated in Coenobita and their olfactory system evidently is functional on land, virtually nothing was known about what type of odourants are detected. Here, we used electroantennogram (EAG) recordings in Coenobita clypeatus and established the olfactory response spectrum. Interestingly, different chemical groups elicited EAG responses of opposite polarity, which also appeared for Coenobita compressus and the closely related marine hermit crab Pagurus bernhardus. Furthermore, in a two-choice bioassay with C. clypeatus, we found that water vapour was critical for natural and synthetic odourants to induce attraction or repulsion. Strikingly, also the physiological response was found much greater at higher humidity in C. clypeatus, whereas no such effect appeared in the terrestrial vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster. In conclusion, our results reveal that the Coenobita olfactory system is restricted to a limited number of water-soluble odourants, and that high humidity is most critical for its function
Quantum Hall quasielectron operators in conformal field theory
In the conformal field theory (CFT) approach to the quantum Hall effect, the
multi-electron wave functions are expressed as correlation functions in certain
rational CFTs. While this approach has led to a well-understood description of
the fractionally charged quasihole excitations, the quasielectrons have turned
out to be much harder to handle. In particular, forming quasielectron states
requires non-local operators, in sharp contrast to quasiholes that can be
created by local chiral vertex operators. In both cases, the operators are
strongly constrained by general requirements of symmetry, braiding and fusion.
Here we construct a quasielectron operator satisfying these demands and show
that it reproduces known good quasiparticle wave functions, as well as predicts
new ones. In particular we propose explicit wave functions for quasielectron
excitations of the Moore-Read Pfaffian state. Further, this operator allows us
to explicitly express the composite fermion wave functions in the positive Jain
series in hierarchical form, thus settling a longtime controversy. We also
critically discuss the status of the fractional statistics of quasiparticles in
the Abelian hierarchical quantum Hall states, and argue that our construction
of localized quasielectron states sheds new light on their statistics. At the
technical level we introduce a generalized normal ordering, that allows us to
"fuse" an electron operator with the inverse of an hole operator, and also an
alternative approach to the background charge needed to neutralize CFT
correlators. As a result we get a fully holomorphic CFT representation of a
large set of quantum Hall wave functions.Comment: minor changes, publishe
Exclusion Statistics in a trapped two-dimensional Bose gas
We study the statistical mechanics of a two-dimensional gas with a repulsive
delta function interaction, using a mean field approximation. By a direct
counting of states we establish that this model obeys exclusion statistics and
is equivalent to an ideal exclusion statistics gas.Comment: 3 pages; minor changes in notation; typos correcte
Composite fermion wave functions as conformal field theory correlators
It is known that a subset of fractional quantum Hall wave functions has been
expressed as conformal field theory (CFT) correlators, notably the Laughlin
wave function at filling factor ( odd) and its quasiholes, and the
Pfaffian wave function at and its quasiholes. We develop a general
scheme for constructing composite-fermion (CF) wave functions from conformal
field theory. Quasiparticles at are created by inserting anyonic
vertex operators, , that replace a subset of the electron
operators in the correlator. The one-quasiparticle wave function is identical
to the corresponding CF wave function, and the two-quasiparticle wave function
has correct fractional charge and statistics and is numerically almost
identical to the corresponding CF wave function. We further show how to exactly
represent the CF wavefunctions in the Jain series as the CFT
correlators of a new type of fermionic vertex operators, ,
constructed from free compactified bosons; these operators provide the CFT
representation of composite fermions carrying flux quanta in the CF Landau level. We also construct the corresponding quasiparticle- and
quasihole operators and argue that they have the expected fractional charge and
statistics. For filling fractions 2/5 and 3/7 we show that the chiral CFTs that
describe the bulk wave functions are identical to those given by Wen's general
classification of quantum Hall states in terms of -matrices and - and
-vectors, and we propose that to be generally true. Our results suggest a
general procedure for constructing quasiparticle wave functions for other
fractional Hall states, as well as for constructing ground states at filling
fractions not contained in the principal Jain series.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figure
Hierarchy wave functions--from conformal correlators to Tao-Thouless states
Laughlin's wave functions, describing the fractional quantum Hall effect at
filling factors , can be obtained as correlation functions in
conformal field theory, and recently this construction was extended to Jain's
composite fermion wave functions at filling factors . Here we
generalize this latter construction and present ground state wave functions for
all quantum Hall hierarchy states that are obtained by successive condensation
of quasielectrons (as opposed to quasiholes) in the original hierarchy
construction. By considering these wave functions on a cylinder, we show that
they approach the exact ground states, the Tao-Thouless states, when the
cylinder becomes thin. We also present wave functions for the multi-hole
states, make the connection to Wen's general classification of abelian quantum
Hall fluids, and discuss whether the fractional statistics of the
quasiparticles can be analytically determined. Finally we discuss to what
extent our wave functions can be described in the language of composite
fermions.Comment: 9 page
Aspirin and risk for gastric cancer: a population-based case–control study in Sweden
While aspirin and other non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are associated with gastric mucosal damage, they might reduce the risk for gastric cancer. In a population-based case–control study in 5 Swedish counties, we interviewed 567 incident cases of gastric cancer and 1165 controls about their use of pain relievers. The cases were uniformly classified to subsite (cardia/non-cardia) and histological type and information collected on other known risk factors for gastric cancer. Helicobacter pylori serology was tested in a subset of 542 individuals. Users of aspirin had a moderately reduced risk of gastric cancer compared to never users; odds ratio (OR) adjusted for age, gender and socioeconomic status was 0.7 (95% CI = 0.6–1.0). Gastric cancer risk fell with increasing frequency of aspirin use (P for trend = 0.02). The risk reduction was apparent for both cardia and non-cardia tumours but was uncertain for the diffuse histologic type. No clear association was observed between gastric cancer risk and non-aspirin NSAIDs or other studied pain relievers. Our finding lends support to the hypothesis that use of aspirin reduces the risk for gastric cancer. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co
Moduli-Space Dynamics of Noncommutative Abelian Sigma-Model Solitons
In the noncommutative (Moyal) plane, we relate exact U(1) sigma-model
solitons to generic scalar-field solitons for an infinitely stiff potential.
The static k-lump moduli space C^k/S_k features a natural K"ahler metric
induced from an embedding Grassmannian. The moduli-space dynamics is blind
against adding a WZW-like term to the sigma-model action and thus also applies
to the integrable U(1) Ward model. For the latter's two-soliton motion we
compare the exact field configurations with their supposed moduli-space
approximations. Surprisingly, the two do not match, which questions the
adiabatic method for noncommutative solitons.Comment: 1+15 pages, 2 figures; v2: reference added, to appear in JHE
Laughlin Wave Function and One-Dimensional Free Fermions
Making use of the well-known phase space reduction in the lowest Landau
level(LLL), we show that the Laughlin wave function for the
case can be obtained exactly as a coherent state representation of an one
dimensional wave function. The system consists of copies of
free fermions associated with each of the electrons, confined in a common
harmonic well potential. Interestingly, the condition for this exact
correspondence is found to incorporate Jain's parton picture. We argue that,
this correspondence between the free fermions and quantum Hall effect is due to
the mapping of the system under consideration, to the Gaussian unitary
ensemble in the random matrix theory.Comment: 7 pages, Latex , no figure
Postglacial Colonisation Patterns and the Role of Isolation and Expansion in Driving Diversification in a Passerine Bird
Pleistocene glacial cycles play a major role in diversification and speciation, although the relative importance of isolation and expansion in driving diversification remains debated. We analysed mitochondrial DNA sequence data from 15 great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) populations distributed over the vast Eurasian breeding range of the species, and revealed unexpected postglacial expansion patterns from two glacial refugia. There were 58 different haplotypes forming two major clades, A and B. Clade A dominated in Western Europe with declining frequencies towards Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but showed a surprising increase in frequency in Western and Central Asia. Clade B dominated in the Middle East, with declining frequencies towards north in Central and Eastern Europe and was absent from Western Europe and Central Asia. A parsimonious explanation for these patterns is independent postglacial expansions from two isolated refugia, and mismatch distribution analyses confirmed this suggestion. Gene flow analyses showed that clade A colonised both Europe and Asia from a refugium in Europe, and that clade B expanded much later and colonised parts of Europe from a refugium in the Middle East. Great reed warblers in the eastern parts of the range have slightly paler plumage than western birds (sometimes treated as separate subspecies; A. a. zarudnyi and A. a. arundinaceus, respectively) and our results suggest that the plumage diversification took place during the easterly expansion of clade A. This supports the postglacial expansion hypothesis proposing that postglacial expansions drive diversification in comparatively short time periods. However, there is no indication of any (strong) reproductive isolation between clades and our data show that the refugia populations became separated during the last glaciation. This is in line with the Pleistocene speciation hypothesis invoking that much longer periods of time in isolation are needed for speciation to occur
- …