171 research outputs found
N=1* in 5 dimensions: Dijkgraaf-Vafa meets Polchinski-Strassler
One of the powerful techniques to analyze the 5 dimensional Super Yang Mills
theory with a massive hypermultiplet (N=1*) is provided by the AdS/CFT
correspondence. It predicts that, for certain special values of the
hypermultiplet mass, this theory develops nonperturbative branches of the
moduli space as well as new light degrees of freedom.
We use the higher dimensional generalization of the matrix model/gauge theory
correspondence and recover all the prediction of the supergravity analysis. We
construct the map between the four dimensional holomorphic superpotential and
the five dimensional action and explicitly show that the superpotential is flat
along the nonperturbative branches. This is the first instance in which the
Dijkgraaf-Vafa method is used to analyze intrinsically higher dimensional
phenomena.Comment: 28 pages, Late
Concentration Dependence of Superconductivity and Order-Disorder Transition in the Hexagonal Rubidium Tungsten Bronze RbxWO3. Interfacial and bulk properties
We revisited the problem of the stability of the superconducting state in
RbxWO3 and identified the main causes of the contradictory data previously
published. We have shown that the ordering of the Rb vacancies in the
nonstoichiometric compounds have a major detrimental effect on the
superconducting temperature Tc.The order-disorder transition is first order
only near x = 0.25, where it cannot be quenched effectively and Tc is reduced
below 1K. We found that the high Tc's which were sometimes deduced from
resistivity measurements, and attributed to compounds with .25 < x < .30, are
to be ascribed to interfacial superconductivity which generates spectacular
non-linear effects. We also clarified the effect of acid etching and set more
precisely the low-rubidium-content boundary of the hexagonal phase.This work
makes clear that Tc would increase continuously (from 2 K to 5.5 K) as we
approach this boundary (x = 0.20), if no ordering would take place - as its is
approximately the case in CsxWO3. This behaviour is reminiscent of the
tetragonal tungsten bronze NaxWO3 and asks the same question : what mechanism
is responsible for this large increase of Tc despite the considerable
associated reduction of the electron density of state ? By reviewing the other
available data on these bronzes we conclude that the theoretical models which
are able to answer this question are probably those where the instability of
the lattice plays a major role and, particularly, the model which call upon
local structural excitations (LSE), associated with the missing alkali atoms.Comment: To be published in Physical Review
Spinodal Decomposition in a Binary Polymer Mixture: Dynamic Self Consistent Field Theory and Monte Carlo Simulations
We investigate how the dynamics of a single chain influences the kinetics of
early stage phase separation in a symmetric binary polymer mixture. We consider
quenches from the disordered phase into the region of spinodal instability. On
a mean field level we approach this problem with two methods: a dynamical
extension of the self consistent field theory for Gaussian chains, with the
density variables evolving in time, and the method of the external potential
dynamics where the effective external fields are propagated in time. Different
wave vector dependencies of the kinetic coefficient are taken into account.
These early stages of spinodal decomposition are also studied through Monte
Carlo simulations employing the bond fluctuation model that maps the chains --
in our case with 64 effective segments -- on a coarse grained lattice. The
results obtained through self consistent field calculations and Monte Carlo
simulations can be compared because the time, length, and temperature scales
are mapped onto each other through the diffusion constant, the chain extension,
and the energy of mixing. The quantitative comparison of the relaxation rate of
the global structure factor shows that a kinetic coefficient according to the
Rouse model gives a much better agreement than a local, i.e. wave vector
independent, kinetic factor. Including fluctuations in the self consistent
field calculations leads to a shorter time span of spinodal behaviour and a
reduction of the relaxation rate for smaller wave vectors and prevents the
relaxation rate from becoming negative for larger values of the wave vector.
This is also in agreement with the simulation results.Comment: Phys.Rev.E in prin
Genetics of myocardial interstitial fibrosis in the human heart and association with disease
Myocardial interstitial fibrosis is associated with cardiovascular disease and adverse prognosis. Here, to investigate the biological pathways that underlie fibrosis in the human heart, we developed a machine learning model to measure native myocardial T1 time, a marker of myocardial fibrosis, in 41,505 UK Biobank participants who underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. Greater T1 time was associated with diabetes mellitus, renal disease, aortic stenosis, cardiomyopathy, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, conduction disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Genome-wide association analysis identified 11 independent loci associated with T1 time. The identified loci implicated genes involved in glucose transport (SLC2A12), iron homeostasis (HFE, TMPRSS6), tissue repair (ADAMTSL1, VEGFC), oxidative stress (SOD2), cardiac hypertrophy (MYH7B) and calcium signaling (CAMK2D). Using a transforming growth factor ÎČ1-mediated cardiac fibroblast activation assay, we found that 9 of the 11 loci consisted of genes that exhibited temporal changes in expression or open chromatin conformation supporting their biological relevance to myofibroblast cell state acquisition. By harnessing machine learning to perform large-scale quantification of myocardial interstitial fibrosis using cardiac imaging, we validate associations between cardiac fibrosis and disease, and identify new biologically relevant pathways underlying fibrosis.</p
Baryonic Condensates on the Conifold
We provide new evidence for the gauge/string duality between the baryonic
branch of the cascading SU(k(M+1)) \times SU(kM) gauge theory and a family of
type IIB flux backgrounds based on warped products of the deformed conifold and
R^{3,1}. We show that a Euclidean D5-brane wrapping all six deformed conifold
directions can be used to measure the baryon expectation values, and present
arguments based on kappa-symmetry and the equations of motion that identify the
gauge bundles required to ensure worldvolume supersymmetry of this object.
Furthermore, we investigate its coupling to the pseudoscalar and scalar modes
associated with the phase and magnitude, respectively, of the baryon
expectation value. We find that these massless modes perturb the
Dirac-Born-Infeld and Chern-Simons terms of the D5-brane action in a way
consistent with our identification of the baryonic condensates. We match the
scaling dimension of the baryon operators computed from the D5-brane action
with that found in the cascading gauge theory. We also derive and numerically
evaluate an expression that describes the variation of the baryon expectation
values along the supergravity dual of the baryonic branch.Comment: 34 pages, 1 figure; v2 typos corrected, references added; v3 added
comment on \kappa-symmetry of Euclidean D5-brane, published in JHE
Gene-gene Interaction Analyses for Atrial Fibrillation
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a heritable disease that affects more than thirty million individuals worldwide. Extensive efforts have been devoted to the study of genetic determinants of AF. The objective of our study is to examine the effect of gene-gene interaction on AF susceptibility. We performed a large-scale association analysis of gene-gene interactions with AF in 8,173 AF cases, and 65,237 AF-free referents collected from 15 studies for discovery. We examined putative interactions between genome-wide SNPs and 17 known AF-related SNPs. The top interactions were then tested for association in a
Genetic Interactions with Age, Sex, Body Mass Index, and Hypertension in Relation to Atrial Fibrillation: The AFGen Consortium
It is unclear whether genetic markers interact with risk factors to influence atrial fibrillation (AF) risk. We performed genome-wide interaction analyses between genetic variants and age, sex, hypertension, and body mass index in the AFGen Consortium. Study-specific results were combined using meta-analysis (88,383 individuals of European descent, including 7,292 with AF). Variants with nominal interaction associations in the discovery analysis were tested for association in four independent studies (131,441 individuals, including 5,722 with AF). In the discovery analysis, the AF risk associated with the minor rs6817105 allele (at the PITX2 locus) was greater among subjects †65 years of age than among those > 65 years (interaction p-value = 4.0 à 10-5). The interaction p-value exceeded genome-wide significance in combined discovery and replication analyses (interaction p-value = 1.7 à 10-8). We observed one genome-wide significant interaction with body mass index and several suggestive interactions with age, sex, and body mass index in the discovery analysis. However, none was replicated in the independent sample. Our findings suggest that the pathogenesis of AF may differ according to age in individuals of European descent, but we did not observe evidence of statistically significant genetic interactions with sex, body mass index, or hypertension on AF risk
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