270 research outputs found
Elementary immunology: Na(+) as a regulator of immunity
The skin can serve as an interstitial Na(+) reservoir. Local tissue Na(+) accumulation increases with age, inflammation and infection. This increased local Na(+) availability favors pro-inflammatory immune cell function and dampens their anti-inflammatory capacity. In this review, we summarize available data on how NaCl affects various immune cells. We particularly focus on how salt promotes pro-inflammatory macrophage and T cell function and simultaneously curtails their regulatory and anti-inflammatory potential. Overall, these findings demonstrate that local Na(+) availability is a promising novel regulator of immunity. Hence, the modulation of tissue Na(+) levels bears broad therapeutic potential: increasing local Na(+) availability may help in treating infections, while lowering tissue Na(+) levels may be used to treat, for example, autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases
Quantum Field Theory of Meson Mixing
We have developed a quantum field theoretic framework for scalar and
pseudoscalar meson mixing and oscillations in time. The unitary inequivalence
of the Fock space of base (unmixed) eigenstates and the physical mixed
eigenstates is proven and shown to lead to a rich condensate structure. This is
exploited to develop formulas for two flavor boson oscillations in systems of
arbitrary boson occupation number. The mixing and oscillation can be understood
in terms of vacuum condensate which interacts with the bare particles to induce
non-trivial effects. We apply these formulas to analyze the mixing of
with and comment on the system. In addition, we consider the
mixing of boson coherent states, which may have future applications in the
construction of meson lasers.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; Eqs.(10-12) corrected, leading to new physical
insights; added paragraph under Eq.(24) explaining physical interpretation of
mixing in terms of vacuum condensation; references added and minor typo
correcte
The General Theory of Quantum Field Mixing
We present a general theory of mixing for an arbitrary number of fields with
integer or half-integer spin. The time dynamics of the interacting fields is
solved and the Fock space for interacting fields is explicitly constructed. The
unitary inequivalence of the Fock space of base (unmixed) eigenstates and the
physical mixed eigenstates is shown by a straightforward algebraic method for
any number of flavors in boson or fermion statistics. The oscillation formulas
based on the nonperturbative vacuum are derived in a unified general
formulation and then applied to both two and three flavor cases. Especially,
the mixing of spin-1 (vector) mesons and the CKM mixing phenomena in the
Standard Model are discussed emphasizing the nonperturbative vacuum effect in
quantum field theory
Electroweak pinch technique to all orders
The generalization of the pinch technique to all orders in the electroweak
sector of the Standard Model within the class of the renormalizable 't Hooft
gauges, is presented. In particular, both the all-order PT gauge-boson-- and
scalar--fermions vertices, as well as the diagonal and mixed gauge-boson and
scalar self-energies are explicitly constructed. This is achieved through the
generalization to the Standard Model of the procedure recently applied to the
QCD case, which consist of two steps: (i) the identification of special Green's
functions, which serve as a common kernel to all self-energy and vertex
diagrams, and (ii) the study of the (on-shell) Slavnov-Taylor identities they
satisfy. It is then shown that the ghost, scalar and scalar--gauge-boson
Green's functions appearing in these identities capture precisely the result of
the pinching action at arbitrary order. It turns out that the aforementioned
Green's functions play a crucial role, their net effect being the non-trivial
modification of the ghost, scalar and scalar--gauge-boson diagrams of the
gauge-boson-- or scalar--fermions vertex we have started from, in such a way as
to dynamically generate the characteristic ghost and scalar sector of the
background field method. The pinch technique gauge-boson and scalar
self-energies are also explicitly constructed by resorting to the method of the
background-quantum identities.Comment: 48 pages, 8 figures; v2: typos correcte
Renormalization-Scale-Invariant PQCD Predictions for R_e+e- and the Bjorken Sum Rule at Next-to-Leading Order
We discuss application of the physical QCD effective charge ,
defined via the heavy-quark potential, in perturbative calculations at
next-to-leading order. When coupled with the Brodsky-Lepage-Mackenzie
prescription for fixing the renormalization scales, the resulting series are
automatically and naturally scale and scheme independent, and represent
unambiguous predictions of perturbative QCD. We consider in detail such
commensurate scale relations for the annihilation ratio
and the Bjorken sum rule. In both cases the improved predictions are in
excellent agreement with experiment.Comment: 13 Latex pages with 5 figures; to be published in Physical Review
Neutrino oscillations from relativistic flavor currents
By resorting to recent results on the relativistic currents for mixed
(flavor) fields, we calculate a space-time dependent neutrino oscillation
formula in Quantum Field Theory. Our formulation provides an alternative to
existing approaches for the derivation of space dependent oscillation formulas
and it also accounts for the corrections due to the non-trivial nature of the
flavor vacuum. By exploring different limits of our formula, we recover already
known results. We study in detail the case of one-dimensional propagation with
gaussian wavepackets both in the relativistic and in the non-relativistic
regions: in the last case, numerical evaluations of our result show significant
deviations from the standard formula.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, RevTe
Higgs Boson Mass in Low Scale Gauge Mediation Models
We consider low scale gauge mediation models with a very light gravitino
m_{3/2}~16 eV, in the light of recent experimental hints on the Higgs boson
mass. The light gravitino is very interesting since there is no gravitino
over-production problem, but it seems difficult to explain the Higgs boson mass
of ~125 GeV. This is because of the conflict between the light gravitino mass
and heavy SUSY particle masses needed for producing the relatively heavy Higgs
boson mass. We consider two possible extensions in this paper: a singlet
extension of the Higgs sector, and strongly coupled gauge mediation. We show
that there is a large parameter space, in both scenarios, where the Higgs boson
mass of ~125 GeV is explained without any conflict with such a very light
gravitino.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure
How large could the R-parity violating couplings be?
We investigate in detail the predictions coming from the d=4 operators for
proton decay. We find the most general constraints for the R-parity violating
couplings coming from proton decay, taking into account all fermion mixing and
in different supersymmetric scenarios.Comment: 8 pages, several corrections, to appear in J.Phys.G (2005
High salt reduces the activation of IL-4- and IL-13-stimulated macrophages
A high intake of dietary salt (NaCl) has been implicated in the development of hypertension, chronic inflammation, and autoimmune diseases. We have recently shown that salt has a proinflammatory effect and boosts the activation of Th17 cells and the activation of classical, LPS-induced macrophages (M1). Here, we examined how the activation of alternative (M2) macrophages is affected by salt. In stark contrast to Th17 cells and M1 macrophages, high salt blunted the alternative activation of BM-derived mouse macrophages stimulated with IL-4 and IL-13, M(IL-4+IL-13) macrophages. Salt-induced reduction of M(IL-4+IL-13) activation was not associated with increased polarization toward a proinflammatory M1 phenotype. In vitro, high salt decreased the ability of M(IL-4+IL-13) macrophages to suppress effector T cell proliferation. Moreover, mice fed a high salt diet exhibited reduced M2 activation following chitin injection and delayed wound healing compared with control animals. We further identified a high salt-induced reduction in glycolysis and mitochondrial metabolic output, coupled with blunted AKT and mTOR signaling, which indicates a mechanism by which NaCl inhibits full M2 macrophage activation. Collectively, this study provides evidence that high salt reduces noninflammatory innate immune cell activation and may thus lead to an overall imbalance in immune homeostasis
Can we distinguish between h^{SM} and h^0 in split supersymmetry?
We investigate the possibility to distinguish between the Standard Model
Higgs boson and the lightest Higgs boson in Split Supersymmetry. We point out
that the best way to distinguish between these two Higgs bosons is through the
decay into two photons. It is shown that there are large differences of several
percent between the predictions for \Gamma(h\to\gamma\gamma) in the two models,
making possible the discrimination at future photon-photon colliders. Once the
charginos are discovered at the next generation of collider experiments, the
well defined predictions for the Higgs decay into two photons will become a
cross check to identify the light Higgs boson in Split Supersymmetry.Comment: 8 pages, 3 Figures, typos fixed, version published in J.Phys. G31
(2005) 563-56
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