731 research outputs found
The Poker Face of Inelastic Dark Matter: Prospects at Upcoming Direct Detection Experiments
The XENON100 and CRESST experiments will directly test the inelastic dark
matter explanation for DAMA's 8.9? sigma anomaly. This article discusses how
predictions for direct detection experiments depend on uncertainties in
quenching factor measurements, the dark matter interaction with the Standard
Model and the halo velocity distribution. When these uncertainties are
accounted for, an order of magnitude variation is found in the number of
expected events at CRESST and XENON100.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Direct Detection of Dark Matter Debris Flows
Tidal stripping of dark matter from subhalos falling into the Milky Way
produces narrow, cold tidal streams as well as more spatially extended "debris
flows" in the form of shells, sheets, and plumes. Here we focus on the debris
flow in the Via Lactea II simulation, and show that this incompletely
phase-mixed material exhibits distinctive high velocity behavior. Unlike tidal
streams, which may not necessarily intersect the Earth's location, debris flow
is spatially uniform at 8 kpc and thus guaranteed to be present in the dark
matter flux incident on direct detection experiments. At Earth-frame speeds
greater than 450 km/s, debris flow comprises more than half of the dark matter
at the Sun's location, and up to 80% at even higher speeds. Therefore, debris
flow is most important for experiments that are particularly sensitive to the
high speed tail of the dark matter distribution, such as searches for light or
inelastic dark matter or experiments with directional sensitivity. We show that
debris flow yields a distinctive recoil energy spectrum and a broadening of the
distribution of incidence direction.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures; accepted for publication in PR
High Multiplicity Searches at the LHC Using Jet Masses
This article introduces a new class of searches for physics beyond the
Standard Model that improves the sensitivity to signals with high jet
multiplicity. The proposed searches gain access to high multiplicity signals by
reclustering events into large-radius, or "fat," jets and by requiring that
each event has multiple massive jets. This technique is applied to
supersymmetric scenarios in which gluinos are pair-produced and then
subsequently decay to final states with either moderate quantities of missing
energy or final states without missing energy. In each of these scenarios, the
use of jet mass improves the estimated reach in gluino mass by 20 % to 50 %
over current LHC searches.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures; v3 corrects a few small typo
Hypoxia and hyperglycaemia determine why some endometrial tumours fail to respond to metformin
High expression of Ki67, a proliferation marker, is associated with reduced endometrial cancer-specific survival. Pre-surgical metformin reduces tumour Ki-67 expression in some women with endometrial cancer. Metformin's anti-cancer activity may relate to effects on cellular energy metabolism. Since tumour hypoxia and glucose availability are major cellular redox determinants, we evaluated their role in endometrial cancer response to metformin. Endometrial cancer biopsies from women treated with pre-surgical metformin were tested for the hypoxia markers, HIF-1α and CA-9. Endometrial cancer cell lines were treated with metformin in variable glucose concentrations in normoxia or hypoxia and cell viability, mitochondrial biogenesis, function and energy metabolism were assessed. In women treated with metformin (n = 28), Ki-67 response was lower in hypoxic tumours. Metformin showed minimal cytostatic effects towards Ishikawa and HEC1A cells in conventional medium (25 mM glucose). In low glucose (5.5 mM), a dose-dependent cytostatic effect was observed in normoxia but attenuated in hypoxia. Tumours treated with metformin showed increased mitochondrial mass (n = 25), while in cultured cells metformin decreased mitochondrial function. Metformin targets mitochondrial respiration, however, in hypoxic, high glucose conditions, there was a switch to glycolytic metabolism and decreased metformin response. Understanding the metabolic adaptations of endometrial tumours may identify patients likely to derive clinical benefit from metformin
The Dark Matter at the End of the Galaxy
Dark matter density profiles based upon Lambda-CDM cosmology motivate an
ansatz velocity distribution function with fewer high velocity particles than
the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution or proposed variants. The high velocity tail
of the distribution is determined by the outer slope of the dark matter halo,
the large radius behavior of the Galactic dark matter density. N-body
simulations of Galactic halos reproduce the high velocity behavior of this
ansatz. Predictions for direct detection rates are dramatically affected for
models where the threshold scattering velocity is within 30% of the escape
velocity.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
A Keplerian Disk around the Herbig Ae star HD169142
We present Submillimeter Array observations of the Herbig Ae star HD169142 in
1.3 millimeter continuum emission and 12CO J=2-1 line emission at 1.5 arcsecond
resolution that reveal a circumstellar disk. The continuum emission is centered
on the star position and resolved, and provides a mass estimate of about 0.02
solar masses for the disk. The CO images show patterns in position and velocity
that are well matched by a disk in Keplerian rotation with low inclination to
the line-of-sight. We use radiative transfer calculations based on a flared,
passive disk model to constrain the disk parameters by comparison to the
spectral line emission. The derived disk radius is 235 AU, and the inclination
is 13 degrees. The model also necessitates modest depletion of the CO
molecules, similar to that found in Keplerian disks around T Tauri stars.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, accepted by A
Essential role of STAT5a in DCIS formation and invasion following estrogen treatment
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is one of the earliest stages of breast cancer (BCa). The mechanisms by which DCIS lesions progress to an invasive state while others remain indolent are yet to be fully characterized and both diagnosis and treatment of this pre-invasive disease could benefit from better understanding the pathways involved. While a decreased expression of Caveolin-1 (Cav-1) in the tumor microenvironment of patients with DCIS breast cancer was linked to progression to invasive breast cancer (IBC), the downstream effector(s) contributing to this process remain elusive. The current report shows elevated expression of Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 5a (STAT5a) within the DCIS-like lesions in Cav-1 KO mice following estrogen treatment and inhibition of STAT5a expression prevented the formation of these mammary lesions. In addition, STAT5a overexpression in a human DCIS cell line (MCF10DCIS.com) promoted their invasion, a process accelerated by estrogen treatment and associated with increased levels of the matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) precursor. In sum, our results demonstrate a novel regulatory axis (Cav-1♦STAT5a♦MMP-9) in DCIS that is fully activated by the presence of estrogen. Our studies suggest to further study phosphorylated STAT5a (Y694) as a potential biomarker to guide and predict outcome of DCIS patient population
Singlet fermionic dark matter
We propose a renormalizable model of a fermionic dark matter by introducing a
gauge singlet Dirac fermion and a real singlet scalar. The bridges between the
singlet sector and the standard model sector are only the singlet scalar
interaction terms with the standard model Higgs field. The singlet fermion
couples to the standard model particles through the mixing between the standard
model Higgs and singlet scalar and is naturally a weakly interacting massive
particle (WIMP). The measured relic abundance can be explained by the singlet
fermionic dark matter as the WIMP within this model. Collider implication of
the singlet fermionic dark matter is also discussed. Predicted is the elastic
scattering cross section of the singlet fermion into target nuclei for a direct
detection of the dark matter. Search of the direct detection of the dark matter
provides severe constraints on the parameters of our model.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
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