Potential relativistic dispersion in material medium

Lorentz space-time transformation has been applied to the phase factor of a plane electromagnetic wave in linear material medium. The derivation shows in the limiting case for v = c, the phase velocity converges to its monochromatic value implying no such dispersion effect can exist in free space. However in linear material medium, wave speed may exceed the monochromatic phase velocity by a factor purely due to the relativistic consideration of the phase factor invariant under Lorentz transformation. The equation suggests such speed dispersion factor will be higher in the denser medium to its monochromatic material phase velocity. A critical cut-off number for the refractive index may exist to excite such mode in the material. The results can be interesting particularly for materials with high refractive index as well as for anisotropic space-time metric formulations in Transformation Optics. Keywords: Lorentz transformation, Phase factor, Refractive index, Dispersion facto

Morphological and Genetical Variability among Rhizoctonia solani Isolates Causing Sheath Blight Disease of Rice

Eighteen isolates of Rhizoctonia solani collected from infected rice plants in four different locations of Bangladesh were studied by using morphological characters and molecular markers. Anastomosis study with a reference isolate confirmed that all the isolates belonged to R. solani. Significant variation was observed in sclerotial size, shape and distribution. Un-weighted pair group method with arithmetic mean dendrogram constructed based on the Gower's general similarity coefficient showed that these isolates were grouped into four clusters at the 0.68 similarity coefficent according to morphological characters. Cluster I was a major cluster consisting of 13 isolates, while clusters II to IV consisted of 1 or 2 isolates. Analyses by variable number of tandem repeat and amplified fragment length polymorphism markers showed that the isolates were grouped into five and three clusters at a similarity coefficient of 0.64 and 0.69, respectively. Although most of the variability was found between isolates from different regions as expected, significant variation was observed within the isolates collected from similar agro-ecological regions. Our results suggest the presence of different races of R. solani within the same local geographic regions