Multiphonon and ``hot''-phonon Isovector Electric-Dipole Excitations

We argue that a substantial increase in the cross section for Coulomb excitation in the region of the Double Giant Dipole Resonance should be expected from Coulomb excitation of excited states involved in the spreading of the one-phonon resonance, in a manifestation of the Brink-Axel phenomenon. This generates an additional fluctuating amplitude and a corresponding new term to be added incoherently to the usual cross-section. The appropriate extension of an applicable reaction calculation is considered in order to estimate this effect.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, 1 figure available on reques

Theoretical treatments of fusion processes in collisions of weakly bound nuclei

We review the theoretical methods to evaluate fusion cross sections in collisions of weakly bound nuclei. We piont out that in such collisions the coupling to the breakup channel leads to the appearance of different fusion processes. The extentsion of the coupled-channel method to coupling with the continuum is the most successful treatment for these collisions. However, evaluating separate cross section for each fusion process remains a very hard task.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Invited talk (LFC) at the IX International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions, Rio de Janeiro, August 28- September 1, 2006. Nuclear Physics A, in pres

Multiple giant resonances in nuclei: their excitation and decay

The excitation of multiphonon giant resonances with heavy ions is discussed. The conventional theory, based on the use of the virtual photon number method in conjunction with the harmonic model is presented and its shortcomings are discussed. The recently developed model that invoke the Brink-Axel mechanism as an important contribution to the cross-section is discussed and compared to the conventional, harmonic model. The decay properties of these multiple giant resonances are also discussed within the same coherent + fluctuation model in conjunction with the hybrid decay model. It is demonstrated that the Brink-Axel mechanism enhances the direct decay of the states, as data seem to require. Comparison of our model with other recent theoretical works is presented.Comment: 12 pages, four figures, two tables. Invited talk at the International Conference on Collective Motion in Nuclei Under Extreme Conditions (COMEX1), Paris, France, 10-13 June 200

CdSe tetrapod synthesis using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and heat transfer fluids

The synthesis of CdSe tetrapod-shaped quantum dots using phenyl-based heat transfer fluids as inexpensive alternatives to octadecene solvent was studied. The CdSe tetrapods were synthesized using the hot-injection method, in which the trioctylphosphine selenide precursor and the shape-inducing cetyltrimethylammonium bromide surfactant were injected into a cadmium oleate-containing solvent at 190 degrees C. At a synthesis temperature of 160 degrees C, the resulting quantum dot particles were found to grow more slowly in heat transfer fluids and pure phenyl-type solvents than in octadecene. With synthesis time, the selectivity to tetrapods increased, and the arms grew proportionally in width and length. The use of heat transfer fluids provides a convenient means to control growth of shaped nanoparticles

Added Value of Computed Tomography Virtual Intravascular Endoscopy in the Evaluation of Coronary Arteries with Stents or Plaques

Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is a widely used imaging modality for diagnosing coronary artery disease (CAD) but is limited by a high false positive rate when evaluating coronary arteries with stents and heavy calcifications. Virtual intravascular endoscopy (VIE) images generated from CCTA can be used to qualitatively assess the vascular lumen and might be helpful for overcoming this challenge. In this study, one hundred subjects with coronary stents underwent both CCTA and invasive coronary angiography (ICA). A total of 902 vessel segments were analyzed using CCTA and VIE. The vessel segments were first analyzed on CCTA alone. Then, using VIE, the segments were classified qualitatively as either negative or positive for in-stent restenosis (ISR) or CAD. These results were compared, using ICA as the reference, to determine the added diagnostic value of VIE. Of the 902 analyzed vessel segments, CCTA/VIE had sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value (shown in %) of 93.9/90.2, 96.2/98.2, 96.0/97.7, 70.0/83.1, and 99.4/99.0, respectively, in diagnosing ISR or CAD, with significantly improved specificity (p = 0.025), accuracy (p = 0.046), and positive predictive value (p = 0.047). VIE can be a helpful addition to CCTA when evaluating coronary arterie

Transverse Fresnel-Fizeau drag effects in strongly dispersive media

A light beam normally incident upon an uniformly moving dielectric medium is in general subject to bendings due to a transverse Fresnel-Fizeau light drag effect. In conventional dielectrics, the magnitude of this bending effect is very small and hard to detect. Yet, it can be dramatically enhanced in strongly dispersive media where slow group velocities in the m/s range have been recently observed taking advantage of the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) effect. In addition to the usual downstream drag that takes place for positive group velocities, we predict a significant anomalous upstream drag to occur for small and negative group velocities. Furthermore, for sufficiently fast speeds of the medium, higher order dispersion terms are found to play an important role and to be responsible for peculiar effects such as light propagation along curved paths and the restoration of the spatial coherence of an incident noisy beam. The physics underlying this new class of slow-light effects is thoroughly discussed

Deterministic and stochastic descriptions of gene expression dynamics

A key goal of systems biology is the predictive mathematical description of gene regulatory circuits. Different approaches are used such as deterministic and stochastic models, models that describe cell growth and division explicitly or implicitly etc. Here we consider simple systems of unregulated (constitutive) gene expression and compare different mathematical descriptions systematically to obtain insight into the errors that are introduced by various common approximations such as describing cell growth and division by an effective protein degradation term. In particular, we show that the population average of protein content of a cell exhibits a subtle dependence on the dynamics of growth and division, the specific model for volume growth and the age structure of the population. Nevertheless, the error made by models with implicit cell growth and division is quite small. Furthermore, we compare various models that are partially stochastic to investigate the impact of different sources of (intrinsic) noise. This comparison indicates that different sources of noise (protein synthesis, partitioning in cell division) contribute comparable amounts of noise if protein synthesis is not or only weakly bursty. If protein synthesis is very bursty, the burstiness is the dominant noise source, independent of other details of the model. Finally, we discuss two sources of extrinsic noise: cell-to-cell variations in protein content due to cells being at different stages in the division cycles, which we show to be small (for the protein concentration and, surprisingly, also for the protein copy number per cell) and fluctuations in the growth rate, which can have a significant impact.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures; Journal of Statistical physics (2012

A measurement of lifetime differences in the neutral D-meson system

Using a high statistics sample of photoproduced charm particles from the FOCUS experiment at Fermilab, we compare the lifetimes of neutral D mesons decaying via D0 to K- pi+ and K- K+ to measure the lifetime differences between CP even and CP odd final states. These measurements bear on the phenomenology of D0 - D0bar mixing. If the D0 to K-pi+ is an equal mixture of CP even and CP odd eigenstates, we measure yCP = 0.0342 \pm 0.0139 \pm 0.0074.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Search for CP violation in D0 and D+ decays

A high statistics sample of photoproduced charm particles from the FOCUS (E831) experiment at Fermilab has been used to search for CP violation in the Cabibbo suppressed decay modes D+ to K-K+pi+, D0 to K-K+ and D0 to pi-pi+. We have measured the following CP asymmetry parameters: A_CP(K-K+pi+) = +0.006 +/- 0.011 +/- 0.005, A_CP(K-K+) = -0.001 +/- 0.022 +/- 0.015 and A_CP(pi-pi+) = +0.048 +/- 0.039 +/- 0.025 where the first error is statistical and the second error is systematic. These asymmetries are consistent with zero with smaller errors than previous measurements.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure