Pseudo-potential treatment of two aligned dipoles under external harmonic confinement

Dipolar Bose and Fermi gases, which are currently being studied extensively experimentally and theoretically, interact through anisotropic, long-range potentials. Here, we replace the long-range potential by a zero-range pseudo-potential that simplifies the theoretical treatment of two dipolar particles in a harmonic trap. Our zero-range pseudo-potential description reproduces the energy spectrum of two dipoles interacting through a shape-dependent potential under external confinement very well, provided that sufficiently many partial waves are included, and readily leads to a classification scheme of the energy spectrum in terms of approximate angular momentum quantum numbers. The results may be directly relevant to the physics of dipolar gases loaded into optical lattices.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Surveying the solar system by measuring angles and times: from the solar density to the gravitational constant

A surprisingly large amount of information on our solar system can be gained from simple measurements of the apparent angular diameters of the sun and the moon. This information includes the average density of the sun, the distance between earth and moon, the radius of the moon, and the gravitational constant. In this note it is described how these and other quantities can be obtained by simple earthbound measurements of angles and times only, without using any explicit information on distances between celestial bodies. The pedagogical and historical aspects of these results are also discussed briefly.Comment: 12 pges, one figur

Potentials for which the Radial Schr\"odinger Equation can be solved

In a previous paper$^1$, submitted to Journal of Physics A -- we presented an infinite class of potentials for which the radial Schr\"odinger equation at zero energy can be solved explicitely. For part of them, the angular momentum must be zero, but for the other part (also infinite), one can have any angular momentum. In the present paper, we study a simple subclass (also infinite) of the whole class for which the solution of the Schr\"odinger equation is simpler than in the general case. This subclass is obtained by combining another approach together with the general approach of the previous paper. Once this is achieved, one can then see that one can in fact combine the two approaches in full generality, and obtain a much larger class of potentials than the class found in ref. $^1$ We mention here that our results are explicit, and when exhibited, one can check in a straightforward manner their validity

The potential therapeutic effects of creatine supplementation on body composition and muscle function in cancer

Low muscle mass in individuals with cancer has a profound impact on quality of life and independence and is associated with greater treatment toxicity and poorer prognosis. Exercise interventions are regularly being investigated as a means to ameliorate treatment-related adverse effects, and nutritional/supplementation strategies to augment adaptations to exercise are highly valuable. Creatine (Cr) is a naturally-occurring substance in the human body that plays a critical role in energy provision during muscle contraction. Given the beneficial effects of Cr supplementation on lean body mass, strength, and physical function in a variety of clinical populations, there is therapeutic potential in individuals with cancer at heightened risk for muscle loss. Here, we provide an overview of Cr physiology, summarize the evidence on the use of Cr supplementation in various aging/clinical populations, explore mechanisms of action, and provide perspectives on the potential therapeutic role of Cr in the exercise oncology setting

A Search for Additional Bodies in the GJ 1132 Planetary System from 21 Ground-based Transits and a 100 Hour Spitzer Campaign

We present the results of a search for additional bodies in the GJ 1132 system through two methods: photometric transits and transit timing variations of the known planet. We collected 21 transit observations of GJ 1132b with the MEarth-South array since 2015. We obtained 100 near-continuous hours of observations with the $Spitzer$ Space Telescope, including two transits of GJ 1132b and spanning 60\% of the orbital phase of the maximum period at which bodies coplanar with GJ 1132b would pass in front of the star. We exclude transits of additional Mars-sized bodies, such as a second planet or a moon, with a confidence of 99.7\%. When we combine the mass estimate of the star (obtained from its parallax and apparent $K_s$ band magnitude) with the stellar density inferred from our high-cadence $Spitzer$ light curve (assuming zero eccentricity), we measure the stellar radius of GJ 1132 to be $0.2105^{+0.0102}_{-0.0085} R_\odot$, and we refine the radius measurement of GJ 1132b to $1.130 \pm 0.056 R_\oplus$. Combined with HARPS RV measurements, we determine the density of GJ 1132b to be $6.2 \pm 2.0$\ g cm$^{-3}$, with the mass determination dominating this uncertainty. We refine the ephemeris of the system and find no evidence for transit timing variations, which would be expected if there was a second planet near an orbital resonance with GJ 1132b.Comment: 29 pages, 4 Tables, 8 Figures, Submitted to ApJ. Comments welcom

Local Projections of Low-Momentum Potentials

Nuclear interactions evolved via renormalization group methods to lower resolution become increasingly non-local (off-diagonal in coordinate space) as they are softened. This inhibits both the development of intuition about the interactions and their use with some methods for solving the quantum many-body problem. By applying "local projections", a softened interaction can be reduced to a local effective interaction plus a non-local residual interaction. At the two-body level, a local projection after similarity renormalization group (SRG) evolution manifests the elimination of short-range repulsive cores and the flow toward universal low-momentum interactions. The SRG residual interaction is found to be relatively weak at low energy, which motivates a perturbative treatment

Helicobacter pylori and cancer among adults in Uganda

Data from Africa on infection with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) are sparse. Therefore, as part of an epidemiological study of cancer in Uganda, we investigated the prevalence and determinants of antibodies against H. pylori among 854 people with different cancer types and benign tumours. Patients were recruited from hospitals in Kampala, Uganda, interviewed about various demographic and lifestyle factors and tested for antibodies against H. pylori. In all patients combined, excluding those with stomach cancer (which has been associated with H. pylori infection), the prevalence of antibodies was 87% (723/833) overall, but declined with increasing age (p = 0.02) and was lower among people who were HIV seropositive compared to seronegative (p <0.001). Otherwise, there were few consistent epidemiological associations. Among those with stomach cancer, 18/21 (86%) had anti-H. pylori antibodies (odds ratio 0.8, 95% confidence intervals 0.2–2.9, p = 0.7; estimated using all other patients as controls, with adjustment for age, sex and HIV serostatus). No other cancer site or type was significantly associated with anti-H. pylori antibodies. The prevalence of H. pylori reported here is broadly in accord with results from other developing countries, although the determinants of infection and its' role in the aetiology of gastric cancer in Uganda remain unclear

A study of Feshbach resonances and the unitary limit in a model of strongly correlated nucleons

A model of strongly interacting and correlated hadrons is developed. The interaction used contains a long range attraction and short range repulsive hard core. Using this interaction and various limiting situations of it, a study of the effect of bound states and Feshbach resonances is given. The limiting situations are a pure square well interaction, a delta-shell potential and a pure hard core potential. The limit of a pure hard core potential are compared with results for a spinless Bose and Fermi gas. The limit of many partial waves for a pure hard core interaction is also considered and result in expressions involving the hard core volume. This feature arises from a scaling relation similar to that for hard sphere scattering with diffractive corrections. The role of underlying isospin symmetries associated with the strong interaction of protons and neutrons in this two component model is investigated. Properties are studied with varying proton fraction. An analytic expression for the Beth Uhlenbeck continuum integral is developed which closely approximates exact results based on the potential model considered. An analysis of features associated with a unitary limit is given. In the unitary limit of very large scattering length, the ratio of effective range to thermal wavelength appears as a limiting scale. Thermodynamic quantities such as the entropy and compressibility are also developed. The effective range corrections to the entropy vary as the cube of this ratio for low temperatures and are therefore considerably reduced compared to the corrections to the interaction energy which varies linearly with this ratio. Effective range corrections to the compressibility are also linear in the ratio.Comment: 39 pages, 15 figures, 2 table

Exactly-solvable coupled-channel potential models of atom-atom magnetic Feshbach resonances from supersymmetric quantum mechanics

Starting from a system of $N$ radial Schr\"odinger equations with a vanishing potential and finite threshold differences between the channels, a coupled $N \times N$ exactly-solvable potential model is obtained with the help of a single non-conservative supersymmetric transformation. The obtained potential matrix, which subsumes a result obtained in the literature, has a compact analytical form, as well as its Jost matrix. It depends on $N (N+1)/2$ unconstrained parameters and on one upper-bounded parameter, the factorization energy. A detailed study of the model is done for the $2\times 2$ case: a geometrical analysis of the zeros of the Jost-matrix determinant shows that the model has 0, 1 or 2 bound states, and 0 or 1 resonance; the potential parameters are explicitly expressed in terms of its bound-state energies, of its resonance energy and width, or of the open-channel scattering length, which solves schematic inverse problems. As a first physical application, exactly-solvable $2\times 2$ atom-atom interaction potentials are constructed, for cases where a magnetic Feshbach resonance interplays with a bound or virtual state close to threshold, which results in a large background scattering length.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figure

The rotation and Galactic kinematics of mid M dwarfs in the Solar Neighborhood

Rotation is a directly-observable stellar property, and drives magnetic field generation and activity through a magnetic dynamo. Main sequence stars with masses below approximately 0.35Msun (mid-to-late M dwarfs) are fully-convective, and are expected to have a different type of dynamo mechanism than solar-type stars. Measurements of their rotation rates provide insights into these mechanisms, but few rotation periods are available for these stars at field ages. Using photometry from the MEarth transit survey, we measure rotation periods for 387 nearby, mid-to-late M dwarfs in the Northern hemisphere, finding periods from 0.1 to 140 days. The typical detected rotator has stable, sinusoidal photometric modulations at a semi-amplitude of 0.5 to 1%. We find no period-amplitude relation for stars below 0.25Msun and an anti-correlation between period and amplitude for higher-mass M dwarfs. We highlight the existence of older, slowly-rotating stars without H{\alpha} emission that nevertheless have strong photometric variability. The Galactic kinematics of our sample is consistent with the local population of G and K dwarfs, and rotators have metallicities characteristic of the Solar Neighborhood. We use the W space velocities and established age-velocity relations to estimate that stars with P<10 days are on average <2 Gyrs, and that those with P>70 days are about 5 Gyrs. The period distribution is mass dependent: as the mass decreases, the slowest rotators at a given mass have longer periods, and the fastest rotators have shorter periods. We find a lack of stars with intermediate rotation periods. [Abridged]Comment: Accepted to ApJ. Machine readable tables and additional figures are available in the published article or on reques