468 research outputs found
Massless Black Holes as Black Diholes and Quadruholes
Massless black holes can be understood as bound states of a (positive mass)
extreme a=\sqrt{3} black hole and a singular object with opposite (i.e.
negative) mass with vanishing ADM (total) mass but non-vanishing gravitational
field. Supersymmetric balance of forces is crucial for the existence of this
kind of bound states and explains why the system does not move at the speed of
light. We also explain how supersymmetry allows for negative mass as long as it
is never isolated but in bound states of total non-negative mass.Comment: Version to be published in Physical Review Letters. Latex2e fil
Duality Versus Supersymmetry and Compactification
We study the interplay between T-duality, compactification and supersymmetry.
We prove that when the original configuration has unbroken space-time
supersymmetries, the dual configuration also does if a special condition is
met: the Killing spinors of the original configuration have to be independent
on the coordinate which corresponds to the isometry direction of the bosonic
fields used for duality. Examples of ``losers" (T-duals are not supersymmetric)
and ``winners" (T-duals are supersymmetric) are given.Comment: LaTeX file, 19 pages, U. of Groningen Report UG-8/94, Stanford U.
Report SU-ITP-94-19, QMW College Report QMW-PH-94-1
Anomalous Roughening of Viscous Fluid Fronts in Spontaneous Imbibition
We report experiments on spontaneous imbibition of a viscous fluid by a model
porous medium in the absence of gravity. The average position of the interface
satisfies Washburn's law. Scaling of the interface fluctuations provides a
dynamic exponent z \simeq 3, indicative of global dynamics driven by capillary
forces. The complete set of exponents clearly shows that interfaces are not
self-affine, exhibiting distinct local and global scaling, both for time
(b=0.64\pm 0.02, b* =0.33 \pm 0.03) and space (a=1.94 \pm 0.20, a_loc=0.94 \pm
0.10). These values are compatible with an intrinsic anomalous scaling
scenario.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
An unbiased genetic screen reveals the polygenic nature of the influenza virus anti-interferon response.
Influenza A viruses counteract the cellular innate immune response at several steps, including blocking RIG I-dependent activation of interferon (IFN) transcription, interferon (IFN)-dependent upregulation of IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs), and the activity of various ISG products; the multifunctional NS1 protein is responsible for most of these activities. To determine the importance of other viral genes in the interplay between the virus and the host IFN response, we characterized populations and selected mutants of wild-type viruses selected by passage through non-IFN-responsive cells. We reasoned that, by allowing replication to occur in the absence of the selection pressure exerted by IFN, the virus could mutate at positions that would normally be restricted and could thus find new optimal sequence solutions. Deep sequencing of selected virus populations and individual virus mutants indicated that nonsynonymous mutations occurred at many phylogenetically conserved positions in nearly all virus genes. Most individual mutants selected for further characterization induced IFN and ISGs and were unable to counteract the effects of exogenous IFN, yet only one contained a mutation in NS1. The relevance of these mutations for the virus phenotype was verified by reverse genetics. Of note, several virus mutants expressing intact NS1 proteins exhibited alterations in the M1/M2 proteins and accumulated large amounts of deleted genomic RNAs but nonetheless replicated to high titers. This suggests that the overproduction of IFN inducers by these viruses can override NS1-mediated IFN modulation. Altogether, the results suggest that influenza viruses replicating in IFN-competent cells have tuned their complete genomes to evade the cellular innate immune system and that serial replication in non-IFN-responsive cells allows the virus to relax from these constraints and find a new genome consensus within its sequence space.
IMPORTANCE In natural virus infections, the production of interferons leads to an antiviral state in cells that effectively limits virus replication. The interferon response places considerable selection pressure on viruses, and they have evolved a variety of ways to evade it. Although the influenza virus NS1 protein is a powerful interferon antagonist, the contributions of other viral genes to interferon evasion have not been well characterized. Here, we examined the effects of alleviating the selection pressure exerted by interferon by serially passaging influenza viruses in cells unable to respond to interferon. Viruses that grew to high titers had mutations at many normally conserved positions in nearly all genes and were not restricted to the NS1 gene. Our results demonstrate that influenza viruses have fine-tuned their entire genomes to evade the interferon response, and by removing interferon-mediated constraints, viruses can mutate at genome positions normally restricted by the interferon response
Multifractal intermittency in granular flow through bottlenecks
We experimentally analyze the intermittent nature of granular silo flow when the discharge is controlled by an extracting belt at the bottom. We discover the existence of four different scenarios. For low extraction rates, the system is characterized by an on-off intermittency. When the extraction rate is increased the structure functions of the grains velocity increments, calculated for different lag times, reveal the emergence of multifractal intermittency. Finally, for very high extraction rates that approach the purely gravitational discharge, we observe that the dynamics become dependent on the outlet size. For large orifices the behavior is monofractal, whereas for small ones, the fluctuations of the velocity increments deviate from Gaussianity even for very large time lags
Geometric Properties of Static EMdL Horizons
We study non-degenerate and degenerate (extremal) Killing horizons of
arbitrary geometry and topology within the Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton model with
a Liouville potential (the EMdL model) in d-dimensional (d>=4) static
space-times. Using Israel's description of a static space-time, we construct
the EMdL equations and the space-time curvature invariants: the Ricci scalar,
the square of the Ricci tensor, and the Kretschmann scalar. Assuming that
space-time metric functions and the model fields are real analytic functions in
the vicinity of a space-time horizon, we study behavior of the space-time
metric and the fields near the horizon and derive relations between the
space-time curvature invariants calculated on the horizon and geometric
invariants of the horizon surface. The derived relations generalize the similar
relations known for horizons of static four and 5-dimensional vacuum and
4-dimensional electrovacuum space-times. Our analysis shows that all the
extremal horizon surfaces are Einstein spaces. We present necessary conditions
for existence of static extremal horizons within the EMdL model.Comment: 10 page
Electric Charge in Interaction with Magnetically Charged Black Holes
We examine the angular momentum of an electric charge e placed at rest
outside a dilaton black hole with magnetic charge Q. The electromagnetic
angular momentum which is stored in the electromagnetic field outside the black
hole shows several common features regardless of the dilaton coupling strength,
though the dilaton black holes are drastically different in their spacetime
structure depending on it. First, the electromagnetic angular momentum depends
on the separation distance between the two objects and changes monotonically
from eQ to 0 as the charge goes down from infinity to the horizon, if
rotational effects of the black hole are discarded. Next, as the black hole
approaches extremality, however, the electromagnetic angular momentum tends to
be independent of the distance between the two objects. It is then precisely
as in the electric charge and monopole system in flat spacetime. We
discuss why these effects are exhibited and argue that the above features are
to hold in widely generic settings including black hole solutions in theories
with more complicated field contents, by addressing the no hair theorem for
black holes and the phenomenon of field expulsion exhibited by extremal black
holes.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures ; Typos are corrected and a reference is adde
The FGK formalism for black p-branes in d dimensions
We present a generalization to an arbitrary number of spacetime (d) and
worldvolume (p+1) dimensions of the formalism proposed by Ferrara, Gibbons and
Kallosh to study black holes (p=0) in d=4 dimensions. We include the special
cases in which there can be dyonic and self- or anti-self-dual black branes.
Most of the results valid for 4-dimensional black holes (relations between
temperature, entropy and non-extremality parameter, and between entropy and
black-hole potential on the horizon) are straightforwardly generalized.
We apply the formalism to the case of black strings in N=2,d=5 supergravity
coupled to vector multiplets, in which the black-string potential can be
expressed in terms of the dual central charge and work out an explicit example
with one vector multiplet, determining supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric
attractors and constructing the non-extremal black-string solutions that
interpolate between them.Comment: 28 pages no figures; v2: some references adde
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