Cyclosporin A inhibits PGE2 release from vascular smooth muscle cells

The influence of the fungoid undecapeptide cyclosporin A (CyA) on PGE2 release from cultured rat aortic smooth muscle cells was investigated in this study. We found that CyA time and concentration dependently (ED50:500 ng/ml) inhibited PGE2 release from the cells. CyA attenuated both basal and PGE2 release evoked by angiotensin II (10(-10)-10(-6) M), arginine vasopressin (10(-10)-10(-6) M) and ionomycin (10(-9)-10(-6) M). CyA (1 microgram/ml) did not affect the conversion of exogenous arachidonic acid (1 microM) into PGE2. The inhibitory effect of CyA was neutralized by high concentrations of the calcium ionophore ionomycin (greater than 3 X 10(-6) M). Taken together our results indicate that CyA inhibits both basal and vasoconstrictor evoked PGE2 release from vascular smooth muscle by impairing the availability of free arachidonic acid rather than by inhibiting the conversion of arachidonic acid into PGE2

A machine learning study to identify spinodal clumping in high energy nuclear collisions

The coordinate and momentum space configurations of the net baryon number in heavy ion collisions that undergo spinodal decomposition, due to a first-order phase transition, are investigated using state-of-the-art machine-learning methods. Coordinate space clumping, which appears in the spinodal decomposition, leaves strong characteristic imprints on the spatial net density distribution in nearly every event which can be detected by modern machine learning techniques. On the other hand, the corresponding features in the momentum distributions cannot clearly be detected, by the same machine learning methods, in individual events. Only a small subset of events can be systematically differ- entiated if only the momentum space information is available. This is due to the strong similarity of the two event classes, with and without spinodal decomposition. In such sce- narios, conventional event-averaged observables like the baryon number cumulants signal a spinodal non-equilibrium phase transition. Indeed the third-order cumulant, the skewness, does exhibit a peak at the beam energy (Elab = 3–4 A GeV), where the transient hot and dense system created in the heavy ion collision reaches the first-order phase transition

Resonance Production on Nuclei at High Energies: Nuclear-Medium Effects and Space-Time Picture

The influence of nuclear matter on the properties of coherently produced resonances is discussed. It is shown that, in general, the mass distribution of resonance decay products has a two-component structure corresponding to decay outside and inside the nucleus. The first (narrow) component of the amplitude has a Breit-Wigner form determined by the vacuum values of mass and width of the resonance. The second (broad) component corresponds to interactions of the resonance with the nuclear medium. It can be also described by a Breit-Wigner shape with parameters depending e.g. on the nuclear density and on the cross section of the resonance-nucleon interaction. The resonance production is examined both at intermediate energies, where interactions with the nucleus can be considered as a series of successive local rescatterings, and at high energies, $E>E_{crit}$, where a change of interaction picture occurs. This change of mechanisms of the interactions with the nucleus is typical for the description within the Regge theory approach and is connected with the nonlocal nature of the reggeon interaction.Comment: 22 pages LaTeX, 1 Postscript file containing 7 figures; addition in beginning of Ch. 2; Nucl. Phys. A, to be publishe

High-Accuracy Calculations of the Critical Exponents of Dyson's Hierarchical Model

We calculate the critical exponent gamma of Dyson's hierarchical model by direct fits of the zero momentum two-point function, calculated with an Ising and a Landau-Ginzburg measure, and by linearization about the Koch-Wittwer fixed point. We find gamma= 1.299140730159 plus or minus 10^(-12). We extract three types of subleading corrections (in other words, a parametrization of the way the two-point function depends on the cutoff) from the fits and check the value of the first subleading exponent from the linearized procedure. We suggest that all the non-universal quantities entering the subleading corrections can be calculated systematically from the non-linear contributions about the fixed point and that this procedure would provide an alternative way to introduce the bare parameters in a field theory model.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, uses revte

The luminosity function of Palomar 5 and its tidal tails

We present the main sequence luminosity function of the tidally disrupted globular cluster Palomar 5 and its tidal tails. For this work we analyzed imaging data obtained with the Wide Field Camera at the INT (La Palma) and data from the Wide Field Imager at the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope at La Silla down to a limiting magnitude of approximately 24.5 mag in B. Our results indicate that preferentially fainter stars were removed from the cluster so that the LF of the cluster's main body exhibits a significant degree of flattening compared to other GCs. This is attributed to its advanced dynamical evolution. The LF of the tails is, in turn, enhanced with faint, low-mass stars, which we interpret as a consequence of mass segregation in the cluster.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in the proceedings of the conference "Satellites and tidal streams" held at La Palma, Canary Islands, May 26 - 30, 200

Interaction-assisted propagation of Coulomb-correlated electron-hole pairs in disordered semiconductors

A two-band model of a disordered semiconductor is used to analyze dynamical interaction induced weakening of localization in a system that is accessible to experimental verification. The results show a dependence on the sign of the two-particle interaction and on the optical excitation energy of the Coulomb-correlated electron-hole pair.Comment: 4 pages and 3 ps figure

On Renormalization Group Flows and Polymer Algebras

In this talk methods for a rigorous control of the renormalization group (RG) flow of field theories are discussed. The RG equations involve the flow of an infinite number of local partition functions. By the method of exact beta-function the RG equations are reduced to flow equations of a finite number of coupling constants. Generating functions of Greens functions are expressed by polymer activities. Polymer activities are useful for solving the large volume and large field problem in field theory. The RG flow of the polymer activities is studied by the introduction of polymer algebras. The definition of products and recursive functions replaces cluster expansion techniques. Norms of these products and recursive functions are basic tools and simplify a RG analysis for field theories. The methods will be discussed at examples of the $\Phi^4$-model, the $O(N)$ $\sigma$-model and hierarchical scalar field theory (infrared fixed points).Comment: 32 pages, LaTeX, MS-TPI-94-12, Talk presented at the conference ``Constructive Results in Field Theory, Statistical Mechanics and Condensed Matter Physics'', 25-27 July 1994, Palaiseau, Franc

Robustness of high-fidelity Rydberg gates with single-site addressability

Controlled phase (CPHASE) gates can in principle be realized with trapped neutral atoms by making use of the Rydberg blockade. Achieving the ultra-high fidelities required for quantum computation with such Rydberg gates is however compromised by experimental inaccuracies in pulse amplitudes and timings, as well as by stray fields that cause fluctuations of the Rydberg levels. We report here a comparative study of analytic and numerical pulse sequences for the Rydberg CPHASE gate that specifically examines the robustness of the gate fidelity with respect to such experimental perturbations. Analytical pulse sequences of both simultaneous and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) are found to be at best moderately robust under these perturbations. In contrast, optimal control theory is seen to allow generation of numerical pulses that are inherently robust within a predefined tolerance window. The resulting numerical pulse shapes display simple modulation patterns and their spectra contain only one additional frequency beyond the basic resonant Rydberg gate frequencies. Pulses of such low complexity should be experimentally feasible, allowing gate fidelities of order 99.90 - 99.99% to be achievable under realistic experimental conditions.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figure

A Guide to Precision Calculations in Dyson's Hierarchical Scalar Field Theory

The goal of this article is to provide a practical method to calculate, in a scalar theory, accurate numerical values of the renormalized quantities which could be used to test any kind of approximate calculation. We use finite truncations of the Fourier transform of the recursion formula for Dyson's hierarchical model in the symmetric phase to perform high-precision calculations of the unsubtracted Green's functions at zero momentum in dimension 3, 4, and 5. We use the well-known correspondence between statistical mechanics and field theory in which the large cut-off limit is obtained by letting beta reach a critical value beta_c (with up to 16 significant digits in our actual calculations). We show that the round-off errors on the magnetic susceptibility grow like (beta_c -beta)^{-1} near criticality. We show that the systematic errors (finite truncations and volume) can be controlled with an exponential precision and reduced to a level lower than the numerical errors. We justify the use of the truncation for calculations of the high-temperature expansion. We calculate the dimensionless renormalized coupling constant corresponding to the 4-point function and show that when beta -> beta_c, this quantity tends to a fixed value which can be determined accurately when D=3 (hyperscaling holds), and goes to zero like (Ln(beta_c -beta))^{-1} when D=4.Comment: Uses revtex with psfig, 31 pages including 15 figure