High nuclear polarization of helium-3 at low and high pressure by metastability exchange optical pumping at 1.5 Tesla

We perform metastability exchange optical pumping of helium-3 in a strong magnetic field of 1.5 T. The achieved nuclear polarization, from 80% at 1.33 mbar to 25% at 67 mbar, shows a substantial improvement at high pressures with respect to standard low-field optical pumping. The specific mechanisms of metastability exchange optical pumping at high field are investigated, advantages and intrinsic limitations are discussed. From a practical point of view, our results open the way to alternative technological solutions for polarized helium-3 applications and in particular for magnetic resonance imaging of human lungs.Comment: accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter

Clues to the nature of the Delta^*(1700) resonance from pion- and photon-induced reactions

We make a study of the (pi^- p --> K^0 pi^0 Lambda), (pi^+ p --> K^+ pi^+ Lambda), (K^+\bar{K}^0 p), (K^+ pi^+ Sigma^0), (K^+ pi^0 Sigma^+), and (eta pi^+ p) reactions, in which the basic dynamics is given by the excitation of the Delta^*(1700) resonance which subsequently decays into (K Sigma^*(1385)) or (Delta(1232) eta). In a similar way we also study the (gamma p --> K^0 pi^+ Lambda), (K^+ pi^- Sigma^+), (K^+ pi^+ Sigma^-), (K^0 pi^0 Sigma^+), and (eta pi^0 p) related reactions. The cross sections are proportional to the square of the coupling of Delta^*(1700) to (Sigma^*K), (Delta eta) for which there is no experimental information but which is provided in the context of coupled channels chiral unitary theory where the Delta^*(1700) is dynamically generated. Within present theoretical and experimental uncertainties one can claim a global qualitative agreement between theory and experiment. We provide a list of items which need to be improved in order to make further progress along these lines.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

π\piNN coupling and two-pion photoproduction on the nucleon

Effects of non-resonant photoproductions arising from two different $\pi NN$ couplings are investigated in the $\gamma N\to\pi\pi N$ reaction. We find that the pseudoscalar (PS) $\pi NN$ coupling is generally preferable to the pseudovector (PV) $\pi NN$ coupling and particularly the total cross sections are successfully described by the model with the PS $\pi NN$ coupling. In order to see the difference between the two couplings, we also show the results of invariant mass spectra and helicity-dependent cross sections in various isospin channels calculated with the PS and PV couplings.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures, minor changes and version to be published in Phys.Rev.

Concurrent Helminthic Infection Protects Schoolchildren with Plasmodium vivax from Anemia

malaria in rural areas in the municipality of Careiro, in the Western Brazilian Amazon. (n = 9). In children without intestinal helminthes, a significant decrease in the hemoglobin during the malarial attack was seen as compared to the baseline concentration. In the survival analysis, no difference was seen in the time (in days) from the baseline cross-sectional to the first malarial infection, between parasitized and non-parasitized children.

Flexible construction of hierarchical scale-free networks with general exponent

Extensive studies have been done to understand the principles behind architectures of real networks. Recently, evidences for hierarchical organization in many real networks have also been reported. Here, we present a new hierarchical model which reproduces the main experimental properties observed in real networks: scale-free of degree distribution $P(k)$ (frequency of the nodes that are connected to $k$ other nodes decays as a power-law $P(k)\sim k^{-\gamma}$) and power-law scaling of the clustering coefficient $C(k)\sim k^{-1}$. The major novelties of our model can be summarized as follows: {\it (a)} The model generates networks with scale-free distribution for the degree of nodes with general exponent $\gamma > 2$, and arbitrarily close to any specified value, being able to reproduce most of the observed hierarchical scale-free topologies. In contrast, previous models can not obtain values of $\gamma > 2.58$. {\it (b)} Our model has structural flexibility because {\it (i)} it can incorporate various types of basic building blocks (e.g., triangles, tetrahedrons and, in general, fully connected clusters of $n$ nodes) and {\it (ii)} it allows a large variety of configurations (i.e., the model can use more than $n-1$ copies of basic blocks of $n$ nodes). The structural features of our proposed model might lead to a better understanding of architectures of biological and non-biological networks.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages, 4 figure

Analysis of CLAS data on double charge pion electroproduction

Recent developments in phenomenological analysis of the CLAS data on 2$\pi$ electroproduction are presented. The contributions from isobar channels and $P_{11}(1440)$, $D_{13}(1520)$ electrocouplings at $Q^{2}$ from 0.25 to 0.6 GeV$^2$ were determined from the analysis of comprehensive data on differential and fully integrated 2$\pi$ cross sections. Experiment Numbers: E94-005 Group: Hall BComment: Paper compiled for NSTAR2007 meetin