Covariant Linear Perturbations in a Concordance Model

We present the complete solution of the first order metric and density perturbation equations in a spatially flat (K=0), Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe filled with pressureless ideal fluid, in the presence of cosmological constant. We use covariant linear perturbation formalism and the comoving gauge condition to obtain the field and conservation equations. The solution contains all modes of the perturbations, i.e. scalar, vector and tensor modes, and we show that our results are in agreement with the Sachs & Wolfe metric perturbation formalism.Comment: 8 page

Near-Miss Symmetric Polyhedral Cages

Following the experimental discovery of several nearly symmetric protein cages, we define the concept of homogeneous symmetric congruent equivalent near-miss polyhedral cages made out of P-gons. We use group theory to parameterize the possible configurations and we minimize the irregularity of the P-gons numerically to construct all such polyhedral cages for =6 to =20 with deformation of up to 10%

Negative radiation pressure exerted on kinks

The interaction of a kink and a monochromatic plane wave in one dimensional scalar field theories is studied. It is shown that in a large class of models the radiation pressure exerted on the kink is negative, i.e. the kink is {\sl pulled} towards the source of the radiation. This effect has been observed by numerical simulations in the $\phi^4$ model, and it is explained by a perturbative calculation assuming that the amplitude of the incoming wave is small. Quite importantly the effect is shown to be robust against small perturbations of the $\phi^4$ model. In the sine-Gordon (sG) model the time averaged radiation pressure acting on the kink turns out to be zero. The results of the perturbative computations in the sG model are shown to be in full agreement with an analytical solution corresponding to the superposition of a sG kink with a cnoidal wave. It is also demonstrated that the acceleration of the kink satisfies Newton's law.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX/RevTe

Impact of non-Poisson activity patterns on spreading processes

Halting a computer or biological virus outbreak requires a detailed understanding of the timing of the interactions between susceptible and infected individuals. While current spreading models assume that users interact uniformly in time, following a Poisson process, a series of recent measurements indicate that the inter-contact time distribution is heavy tailed, corresponding to a temporally inhomogeneous bursty contact process. Here we show that the non-Poisson nature of the contact dynamics results in prevalence decay times significantly larger than predicted by the standard Poisson process based models. Our predictions are in agreement with the detailed time resolved prevalence data of computer viruses, which, according to virus bulletins, show a decay time close to a year, in contrast with the one day decay predicted by the standard Poisson process based models.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Instabilities of Twisted Strings

A linear stability analysis of twisted flux-tubes (strings) in an SU(2) semilocal theory -- an Abelian-Higgs model with two charged scalar fields with a global SU(2) symmetry -- is carried out. Here the twist refers to a relative phase between the two complex scalars (with linear dependence on, say, the $z$ coordinate), and importantly it leads to a global current flowing along the the string. Such twisted strings bifurcate with the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen (ANO) solution embedded in the semilocal theory. Our numerical investigations of the small fluctuation spectrum confirm previous results that twisted strings exhibit instabilities whose amplitudes grow exponentially in time. More precisely twisted strings with a single magnetic flux quantum admit a continuous family of unstable eigenmodes with harmonic $z$ dependence, indexed by a wavenumber $k\in[-k_{\rm m},k_{\rm m}]$. Carrying out a perturbative semi-analytic analysis of the bifurcation, it is found that the purely numerical results are very well reproduced. This way one obtains not only a good qualitative description of the twisted solutions themselves as well as of their instabilities, but also a quantitative description of the numerical results. Our semi-analytic results indicate that in close analogy to the known instability of the embedded ANO vortex a twisted string is also likely to expand in size caused by the spreading out of its magnetic flux.Comment: 27 pages, 18 figures. Typos corrected, references adde

A chloride channel in rat and human axons

Current recordings from single chloride channels were obtained from excised and cell-attached patches of rat and human axons. In rat axons the channels showed an outwardly rectifying current-voltage relationship with a slope conductance of 33 pS at negative membrane potentials and 65 pS at positive potentials (symmetrical 150 mM CsCl). They were measurably for cations (PNa/PCs/PCl=0.1/0.2/1). Channel currents were independent of cytoplasmatic calcium concentration. Inactivation was not observed and gating was weakly voltage dependent. Cl− channels in human axons showed similar gating behavior but had a lower conductance

Simple solutions of fireball hydrodynamics for self-similar elliptic flows

Simple, self-similar, elliptic solutions of non-relativistic fireball hydrodynamics are presented, generalizing earlier results for spherically symmetric fireballs with Hubble flows and homogeneous temperature profiles. The transition from one dimensional to three dimensional expansions is investigated in an efficient manner.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures in 8 .eps files, references to recent data added, accepted in Physics Letters