Fidelity as a marker of topological phase transitions in 2D Dirac materials

L

Interaction and Concerted Diffusion of Lithium in a (5,5) Carbon Nanotube

The interaction and diffusion of lithium atoms in a (5,5) carbon nanotube is studied using density-functional theory. The Li-nanotube interaction perpendicular to the tube axis for a single Li inside and outside the tube is calculated and compared with the Li-graphene interaction obtained using the same technique. Both interactions are similar in the repulsive region but exhibit differences in their attractive part. Nevertheless, they can be described using a common parametrization. The Li-Li interaction is calculated as a function of their separation inside the tube. This interaction is similar to a screened repulsive Coulomb potential at small separations. However, at larger separations, the Li-Li interaction does not vanish and shows residual oscillations. This repulsive long-ranged interaction favors concerted diffusion of many Li atoms compared to the independent diffusion of individual Li inside the tube

High PM10 concentrations in the city of Buenos Aires and their relationship with meteorological conditions

In this work, the first long-term (eight years) record of hourly concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter with diameter less than 10 μm (PM10) from three sites in the city of Buenos Aires is analysed. Considering the short-term guidelines suggested by the WHO, the daily mean PM10 concentrations present a relatively large number of exceedances at the three sites. Different statistical techniques are combined to study the relationship between these relatively high PM10 concentrations and relevant surface meteorological variables. For all pollutants and sites, wind speed shows the largest differences between the lowest and highest concentration quartiles. To further explore its role on daily mean PM10 concentration, a k-means algorithm is applied, grouping days with similar surface 1h-wind sequences. Five wind sequence clusters are found, presenting distinctive air quality data features. Two clusters (1 and 2) show that PM10 exceedances occurring with winds entering the city from the river represent between 10 and 21% of total events at the three sites. The frequency of exceedance under these conditions decreases with the distance to the coast. For cluster 1, the hourly PM10 concentration profile and its associated daily wind sequence suggest an important contribution to exceedance events from the city's southernmost power plant. Two clusters (3 and 4), exhibiting continental winds, account for 49–59% of the exceedances and co-occur with relatively drier air conditions. The correlation between CO and PM10 for days belonging to cluster 3 supports the hypothesis of a potential remote or distributed source contribution with SW winds. For cluster 4, differences among sites in the number of events under NNW winds suggest an important contribution from the city's widest avenue to the PM10 levels at the most coastal site. A large contribution coming from urban sources is also indicated for these winds. Finally, cluster 5, exhibiting low wind speed sequences, accounts for 23–33% of the exceedances at the three sites. The average PM10 concentration increases with persistence of this cluster, which could be a driver for exceedances. These results contribute to show the importance of simple methods such as clustering analysis to obtain insights into air quality features such as exceedances and their potential drivers. They also suggest that further efforts in monitoring, modelling and emission estimates may help to better understand local, urban and regional source contributions to these events in the city of Buenos Aires.Fil: Pineda Rojas, Andrea Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; ArgentinaFil: Borge, Rafael. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; EspañaFil: Mazzeo, Nicolás A.. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Avellaneda; ArgentinaFil: Saurral, Ramiro Ignacio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; ArgentinaFil: Matarazzo, Bruno Nicolas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias de la Atmósfera y los Océanos; ArgentinaFil: Cordero, Jose M.. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; EspañaFil: Kropff, Emilio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Lensing and dynamics of ultracompact bosonic stars

Spherically symmetric bosonic stars are one of the few examples of gravitating solitons that are known to form dynamically, via a classical process of (incomplete) gravitational collapse. As stationary solutions of the Einstein-Klein-Gordon or the Einstein-Proca theory, bosonic stars may also become sufficiently compact to develop light rings and hence mimic, in principle, gravitational-wave observational signatures of black holes (BHs). In this paper, we discuss how these horizonless ultracompact objects (UCOs) are actually distinct from BHs, both phenomenologically and dynamically. In the electromagnetic channel, the light ring associated phenomenology reveals remarkable lensing patterns, quite distinct from a standard BH shadow, with an infinite number of Einstein rings accumulating in the vicinity of the light ring, both inside and outside the latter. The strong lensing region, moreover, can be considerably smaller than the shadow of a BH with a comparable mass. Dynamically, we investigate the fate of such UCOs under perturbations, via fully nonlinear numerical simulations and observe that, in all cases, they decay into a Schwarzschild BH within a time scale of O(M), where M is the mass of the bosonic star. Both these studies reinforce how difficult it is for horizonless UCOs to mimic BH phenomenology and dynamics, in all its aspects

Dynamical formation of a Reissner-Nordström black hole with scalar hair in a cavity

In a recent Letter [Sanchis-Gual et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 141101 (2016)], we presented numerical relativity simulations, solving the full Einstein-Maxwell-Klein-Gordon equations, of superradiantly unstable Reissner-Nordstrom black holes (BHs), enclosed in a cavity. Low frequency, spherical perturbations of a charged scalar field trigger this instability. The system's evolution was followed into the nonlinear regime, until it relaxed into an equilibrium configuration, found to be a hairy BH: a charged horizon in equilibrium with a scalar field condensate, whose phase is oscillating at the (final) critical frequency. Here, we investigate the impact of adding self-interactions to the scalar field. In particular, we find sufficiently large self-interactions suppress the exponential growth phase, known from linear theory, and promote a nonmonotonic behavior of the scalar field energy. Furthermore, we discuss in detail the influence of the various parameters in this model: the initial BH charge, the initial scalar perturbation, the scalar field charge, the mass, and the position of the cavity's boundary (mirror). We also investigate the "explosive" nonlinear regime previously reported to be akin to a bosenova. A mode analysis shows that the "explosions" can be interpreted as the decay into the BH of modes that exit the superradiant regime

Numerical evolutions of spherical Proca stars

Vector boson stars, or Proca stars, have been recently obtained as fully nonlinear numerical solutions of the Einstein-(complex)-Proca system [1]. These are self-gravitating, everywhere nonsingular, horizonless Bose-Einstein condensates of a massive vector field, which resemble in many ways, but not all, their scalar cousins, the well-known (scalar) boson stars. In this paper we report fully nonlinear numerical evolutions of Proca stars, focusing on the spherically symmetric case, with the goal of assessing their stability and the end point of the evolution of the unstable stars. Previous results from linear perturbation theory indicate that the separation between stable and unstable configurations occurs at the solution with maximal ADM mass. Our simulations confirm this result. Evolving numerically unstable solutions, we find, depending on the sign of the binding energy of the solution and on the perturbation, three different outcomes: (i) migration to the stable branch, (ii) total dispersion of the scalar field, or (iii) collapse to a Schwarzschild black hole. In the latter case, a long-lived Proca field remnant-a Proca wig-composed by quasibound states, may be seen outside the horizon after its formation, with a lifetime that scales inversely with the Proca mass. We comment on the similarities/differences with the scalar case as well as with neutron stars

Violence-related PTSD and neural activation when seeing emotionally charged male-female interactions.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a disorder that involves impaired regulation of the fear response to traumatic reminders. This study tested how women with male-perpetrated interpersonal violence-related PTSD (IPV-PTSD) differed in their brain activation from healthy controls (HC) when exposed to scenes of male-female interaction of differing emotional content. Sixteen women with symptoms of IPV-PTSD and 19 HC participated in this study. During magnetic resonance imaging, participants watched a stimulus protocol of 23 different 20 s silent epochs of male-female interactions taken from feature films, which were neutral, menacing or prosocial. IPV-PTSD participants compared with HC showed (i) greater dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activation in response to menacing vs prosocial scenes and (ii) greater anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), right hippocampus activation and lower ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activty in response to emotional vs neutral scenes. The fact that IPV-PTSD participants compared with HC showed lower activity of the ventral ACC during emotionally charged scenes regardless of the valence of the scenes suggests that impaired social perception among IPV-PTSD patients transcends menacing contexts and generalizes to a wider variety of emotionally charged male-female interactions

Drug sensitivity of single cancer cells is predicted by changes in mass accumulation rate

Assays that can determine the response of tumor cells to cancer therapeutics could greatly aid the selection of drug regimens for individual patients. However, the utility of current functional assays is limited, and predictive genetic biomarkers are available for only a small fraction of cancer therapies. We found that the single-cell mass accumulation rate (MAR), profiled over many hours with a suspended microchannel resonator, accurately defined the drug sensitivity or resistance of glioblastoma and B-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia cells. MAR revealed heterogeneity in drug sensitivity not only between different tumors, but also within individual tumors and tumor-derived cell lines. MAR measurement predicted drug response using samples as small as 25 μl of peripheral blood while maintaining cell viability and compatibility with downstream characterization. MAR measurement is a promising approach for directly assaying single-cell therapeutic responses and for identifying cellular subpopulations with phenotypic resistance in heterogeneous tumors.United States. National Institutes of Health (R01 CA170592)United States. National Institutes of Health (R33 CA191143)National Cancer Institute (U.S.) (U54 CA143874)United States. National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIGMS T32 GM008334

Observation of flat Γ\Gamma moir\'e bands in twisted bilayer WSe2_2

The recent observation of correlated phases in transition metal dichalcogenide moir\'e systems at integer and fractional filling promises new insight into metal-insulator transitions and the unusual states of matter that can emerge near such transitions. Here, we combine real- and momentum-space mapping techniques to study moir\'e superlattice effects in 57.4$^{\circ}$ twisted WSe$_2$ (tWSe$_2$). Our data reveal a split-off flat band that derives from the monolayer $\Gamma$ states. Using advanced data analysis, we directly quantify the moir\'e potential from our data. We further demonstrate that the global valence band maximum in tWSe$_2$ is close in energy to this flat band but derives from the monolayer K-states which show weaker superlattice effects. These results constrain theoretical models and open the perspective that $\Gamma$-valley flat bands might be involved in the correlated physics of twisted WSe$_2$

Chronic Delivery of Antibody Fragments Using Immunoisolated Cell Implants as a Passive Vaccination Tool

BACKGROUND: Monoclonal antibodies and antibody fragments are powerful biotherapeutics for various debilitating diseases. However, high production costs, functional limitations such as inadequate pharmacokinetics and tissue accessibility are the current principal disadvantages for broadening their use in clinic. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We report a novel method for the long-term delivery of antibody fragments. We designed an allogenous immunoisolated implant consisting of polymer encapsulated myoblasts engineered to chronically release scFv antibodies targeted against the N-terminus of the Aβ peptide. Following a 6-month intracerebral therapy we observed a significant reduction of the production and aggregation of the Aβ peptide in the APP23 transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. In addition, functional assessment showed prevention of behavioral deficits related to anxiety and memory traits. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: The chronic local release of antibodies using immunoisolated polymer cell implants represents an alternative passive vaccination strategy in Alzheimer's disease. This novel technique could potentially benefit other diseases presently treated by local and systemic antibody administration