The Many Hats of Sonic Hedgehog Signaling in Nervous System Development and Disease.

Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling occurs concurrently with the many processes that constitute nervous system development. Although Shh is mostly known for its proliferative and morphogenic action through its effects on neural stem cells and progenitors, it also contributes to neuronal differentiation, axonal pathfinding and synapse formation and function. To participate in these diverse events, Shh signaling manifests differently depending on the maturational state of the responsive cell, on the other signaling pathways regulating neural cell function and the environmental cues that surround target cells. Shh signaling is particularly dynamic in the nervous system, ranging from canonical transcription-dependent, to non-canonical and localized to axonal growth cones. Here, we review the variety of Shh functions in the developing nervous system and their consequences for neurodevelopmental diseases and neural regeneration, with particular emphasis on the signaling mechanisms underlying Shh action

An amplitude-phase (Ermakov-Lewis) approach for the Jackiw-Pi model of bilayer graphene

In the context of bilayer graphene we use the simple gauge model of Jackiw and Pi to construct its numerical solutions in powers of the bias potential V according to a general scheme due to Kravchenko. Next, using this numerical solutions, we develop the Ermakov-Lewis approach for the same model. This leads us to numerical calculations of the Lewis-Riesenfeld phases that could be of forthcoming experimental interest for bilayer graphene. We also present a generalization of the Ioffe-Korsch nonlinear Darboux transformationComment: FTC, 11 pp, 5 figure

Blurred Lines Between Competition and Parasitism

Accurately describing the ecological relationships between species is more than mere semantics-doing so has profound practical and applied implications, not the least of which is that inaccurate descriptions can lead to fundamentally incorrect predicted outcomes of community composition and functioning. Accurate ecological classifications are particularly important in the context of global change, where species interactions can change rapidly following shifts in species composition. Here, we argue that many common ecological interactions-particularly competition and parasitism-can be easily confused and that we often lack empirical evidence for the full reciprocal interaction among species. To make our case and to propose a theoretical framework for addressing this problem, we use the interactions between lianas and trees, whose outcomes have myriad implications for the ecology and conservation of tropical forests (e.g., Schnitzer et al. 2015)

Influence of Coulomb and Phonon Interaction on the Exciton Formation Dynamics in Semiconductor Heterostructures

A microscopic theory is developed to analyze the dynamics of exciton formation out of incoherent carriers in semiconductor heterostructures. The carrier Coulomb and phonon interaction is included consistently. A cluster expansion method is used to systematically truncate the hierarchy problem. By including all correlations up to the four-point (i.e. two-particle) level, the fundamental fermionic substructure of excitons is fully included. The analysis shows that the exciton formation is an intricate process where Coulomb correlations rapidly build up on a picosecond time scale while phonon dynamics leads to true exciton formation on a slow nanosecond time scale.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Observation of Coulomb-Assisted Dipole-Forbidden Intraexciton Transitions in Semiconductors

We use terahertz pulses to induce resonant transitions between the eigenstates of optically generated exciton populations in a high-quality semiconductor quantum-well sample. Monitoring the excitonic photoluminescence, we observe transient quenching of the $1s$ exciton emission, which we attribute to the terahertz-induced $1s$-to-$2p$ excitation. Simultaneously, a pronounced enhancement of the $2s$-exciton emission is observed, despite the $1s$-to-$2s$ transition being dipole forbidden. A microscopic many-body theory explains the experimental observations as a Coulomb-scattering mixing of the 2$s$ and 2$p$ states, yielding an effective terahertz transition between the 1$s$ and 2$s$ populations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Dynamics of individual Brownian rods in a microchannel flow

We study the orientational dynamics of heavy silica microrods flowing through a microfluidic channel. Comparing experiments and Brownian dynamics simulations we identify different particle orbits, in particular in-plane tumbling behavior, which cannot be explained by classical Jeffery theory, and we relate this behavior to the rotational diffusion of the rods. By constructing the full, three-dimensional, orientation distribution, we describe the rod trajectories and quantify the persistence of Jeffery orbits using temporal correlation functions of the Jeffery constant. We find that our colloidal rods lose memory of their initial configuration in about a second, corresponding to half a Jeffery period.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

An introduction to the spectrum, symmetries, and dynamics of spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains

Quantum spin chains are prototype quantum many-body systems. They are employed in the description of various complex physical phenomena. The goal of this paper is to provide an introduction to the subject by focusing on the time evolution of a Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain and interpreting the results based on the analysis of the eigenvalues, eigenstates, and symmetries of the system. We make available online all computer codes used to obtain our data.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure