Fiber depolymerization

Depolymerization is, by definition, a crucial process in the reversible assembly of various biopolymers. It may also be an important factor in the pathology of sickle cell disease. If sickle hemoglobin fibers fail to depolymerize fully during passage through the lungs then they will reintroduce aggregates into the systemic circulation and eliminate or shorten the protective delay (nucleation) time for the subsequent growth of fibers. We study how depolymerization depends on the rates of end- and side-depolymerization, kend and kside, which are, respectively, the rates at which fiber length is lost at each end and the rate at which new breaks appear per unit fiber length. We present both an analytic mean field theory and supporting simulations showing that the characteristic fiber depolymerization time View the MathML source depends on both rates, but not on the fiber length L, in a large intermediate regime 1 much less-than ksideL2/kend much less-than (L/d)2, with d the fiber diameter. We present new experimental data which confirms that both mechanisms are important and shows how the rate of side depolymerization depends strongly on the concentration of CO, acting as a proxy for oxygen. Our theory remains rather general and could be applied to the depolymerization of an entire class of linear aggregates, not just sickle hemoglobin fibers

Aspects of χ\chi and ψ\psi Production in Polarized Proton-Proton Collisions

Several topics of relevance to low transverse momentum $\psi$ and $\chi_{1,2}(c\overline{c})$ production in polarized proton-proton collisions are discussed. The leading ${\cal O}(\alpha_S^3)$ contributions to the low $p_T$ $\chi_1$ production cross-sections via $gg$, $qg$, and $q\overline{q}$ initial states are calculated as well as the corresponding spin-spin asymmetries. We find that $\chi_1$ production increases relative to direct $\psi$ and $\chi_2$ production, providing up to $25\%$ of the observable $e^+e^-$ pairs arising from $\psi$ decays in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 500\,GeV$. The spin-dependence of $\chi_1$ production, however, is much smaller than for either direct $\psi$ or $\chi_2$ production and so will likely be far less useful than either process in probing the polarized gluon structure function of the proton. A subset of the ${\cal O}(\alpha_S^3)$ radiative corrections to $\chi_2$ production involving initial state quarks are also performed and compared to leading order $gg \rightarrow \chi_2$ predictions.Comment: 21 pages + 5 postscript figures (included), OCIP/C-94-

Confining QCD Strings, Casimir Scaling, and a Euclidean Approach to High-Energy Scattering

We compute the chromo-field distributions of static color-dipoles in the fundamental and adjoint representation of SU(Nc) in the loop-loop correlation model and find Casimir scaling in agreement with recent lattice results. Our model combines perturbative gluon exchange with the non-perturbative stochastic vacuum model which leads to confinement of the color-charges in the dipole via a string of color-fields. We compute the energy stored in the confining string and use low-energy theorems to show consistency with the static quark-antiquark potential. We generalize Meggiolaro's analytic continuation from parton-parton to gauge-invariant dipole-dipole scattering and obtain a Euclidean approach to high-energy scattering that allows us in principle to calculate S-matrix elements directly in lattice simulations of QCD. We apply this approach and compute the S-matrix element for high-energy dipole-dipole scattering with the presented Euclidean loop-loop correlation model. The result confirms the analytic continuation of the gluon field strength correlator used in all earlier applications of the stochastic vacuum model to high-energy scattering.Comment: 65 pages, 13 figures, extended and revised version to be published in Phys. Rev. D (results unchanged, 2 new figures, 1 new table, additional discussions in Sec.2.3 and Sec.5, new appendix on the non-Abelian Stokes theorem, old Appendix A -> Sec.3, several references added