Geographical distribution and aspects of the ecology of the hemiparasitic angiosperm Striga asiatica (L) Kuntze: A herbarium study

Striga asiatica (Scrophulariaceae) is an obligate root hemiparasite of mainly C-4 grasses (including cereals). It is the most widespread of the 42 Striga species occurring in many semi-tropical, semi-arid regions of mainly the Old World. Examination of herbaria specimens revealed that S. asiatica has a wider geographical distribution, is present at higher altitudes and occurs in a more diverse range of habitats than previously reported. The host range is also larger than previously reported and is likely to include a large number of C-3 plants. Morphology of examined specimens revealed variation in size and corolla colour suggesting the existence of ecotypes. Climate may exert a significant influence on the distribution of S. asiatica given the diversity of potential host plants and their distribution beyond the current recorded range of S. asiatica

Long- and short-term induction of defences in seedlings of Shorea leprosula (Dipterocarpaceae): support for the carbon: nutrient balance hypothesis

The induction of carbon-based secondary metabolites in leaves following damage has been proposed to be a result of a shift in the carbon:nutrient balance, when growth is limited by nutrients in relation to carbon. Here we test this hypothesis using seedlings of a tropical tree, Shorea leprosula (Dipterocarpaceae). In the short term, we analysed the phenolic content of leaves 7 d after damage on seedlings grown under differing light and nutrient treatments. In the long term, we examined the effect of nutrients, over 12 mo, on leaf phenolic concentration and seedling growth. In both the long and short term, levels of phenolics increased in damaged leaves under low nutrient treatments. No changes in leaf phenolics were detected under high nutrient regimes, or in the short term under low light. In addition, it was found that defoliation of seedlings in high-nutrient environments led to greater rates of leaf production than in undamaged seedlings, suggesting compensation

Static spectroscopy of a dense superfluid

Dense Bose superfluids, as HeII, differ from dilute ones by the existence of a roton minimum in their excitation spectrum. It is known that this roton minimum is qualitatively responsible for density oscillations close to any singularity, such as vortex cores, or close to solid boundaries. We show that the period of these oscillations, and their exponential decrease with the distance to the singularity, are fully determined by the position and the width of the roton minimum. Only an overall amplitude factor and a phase shift are shown to depend on the details of the interaction potential. Reciprocally, it allows for determining the characteristics of this roton minimum from static "observations" of a disturbed ground state, in cases where the dynamics is not easily accessible. We focus on the vortex example. Our analysis further shows why the energy of these oscillations is negligible compared to the kinetic energy, which limits their influence on the vortex dynamics, except for high curvatures.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, extended version, published in J. Low Temp. Phy

Theory of periodic swarming of bacteria: application to Proteus mirabilis

The periodic swarming of bacteria is one of the simplest examples for pattern formation produced by the self-organized collective behavior of a large number of organisms. In the spectacular colonies of Proteus mirabilis (the most common species exhibiting this type of growth) a series of concentric rings are developed as the bacteria multiply and swarm following a scenario periodically repeating itself. We have developed a theoretical description for this process in order to get a deeper insight into some of the typical processes governing the phenomena in systems of many interacting living units. All of our theoretical results are in excellent quantitative agreement with the complete set of available observations.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

Acceleration Schemes for Ab-Initio Molecular Dynamics and Electronic Structure Calculations

We study the convergence and the stability of fictitious dynamical methods for electrons. First, we show that a particular damped second-order dynamics has a much faster rate of convergence to the ground-state than first-order steepest descent algorithms while retaining their numerical cost per time step. Our damped dynamics has efficiency comparable to that of conjugate gradient methods in typical electronic minimization problems. Then, we analyse the factors that limit the size of the integration time step in approaches based on plane-wave expansions. The maximum allowed time step is dictated by the highest frequency components of the fictitious electronic dynamics. These can result either from the large wavevector components of the kinetic energy or from the small wavevector components of the Coulomb potential giving rise to the so called {\it charge sloshing} problem. We show how to eliminate large wavevector instabilities by adopting a preconditioning scheme that is implemented here for the first-time in the context of Car-Parrinello ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations of the ionic motion. We also show how to solve the charge-sloshing problem when this is present. We substantiate our theoretical analysis with numerical tests on a number of different silicon and carbon systems having both insulating and metallic character.Comment: RevTex, 9 figures available upon request, to appear in Phys. Rev.

One-way multigrid method in electronic structure calculations

We propose a simple and efficient one-way multigrid method for self-consistent electronic structure calculations based on iterative diagonalization. Total energy calculations are performed on several different levels of grids starting from the coarsest grid, with wave functions transferred to each finer level. The only changes compared to a single grid calculation are interpolation and orthonormalization steps outside the original total energy calculation and required only for transferring between grids. This feature results in a minimal amount of code change, and enables us to employ a sophisticated interpolation method and noninteger ratio of grid spacings. Calculations employing a preconditioned conjugate gradient method are presented for two examples, a quantum dot and a charged molecular system. Use of three grid levels with grid spacings 2h, 1.5h, and h decreases the computer time by about a factor of 5 compared to single level calculations.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B, Rapid Communication

Extrapolating SMBH correlations down the mass scale: the case for IMBHs in globular clusters

Empirical evidence for both stellar mass black holes M_bh<10^2 M_sun) and supermassive black holes (SMBHs, M_bh>10^5 M_sun) is well established. Moreover, every galaxy with a bulge appears to host a SMBH, whose mass is correlated with the bulge mass, and even more strongly with the central stellar velocity dispersion sigma_c, the `M-sigma' relation. On the other hand, evidence for "intermediate-mass" black holes (IMBHs, with masses in the range 1^2 - 10^5 M_sun) is relatively sparse, with only a few mass measurements reported in globular clusters (GCs), dwarf galaxies and low-mass AGNs. We explore the question of whether globular clusters extend the M-sigma relationship for galaxies to lower black hole masses and find that available data for globular clusters are consistent with the extrapolation of this relationship. We use this extrapolated M-sigma relationship to predict the putative black hole masses of those globular clusters where existence of central IMBH was proposed. We discuss how globular clusters can be used as a constraint on theories making specific predictions for the low-mass end of the M-sigma relation.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Science; fixed typos and a quote in Sec.

Basis Functions for Linear-Scaling First-Principles Calculations

In the framework of a recently reported linear-scaling method for density-functional-pseudopotential calculations, we investigate the use of localized basis functions for such work. We propose a basis set in which each local orbital is represented in terms of an array of `blip functions'' on the points of a grid. We analyze the relation between blip-function basis sets and the plane-wave basis used in standard pseudopotential methods, derive criteria for the approximate equivalence of the two, and describe practical tests of these criteria. Techniques are presented for using blip-function basis sets in linear-scaling calculations, and numerical tests of these techniques are reported for Si crystal using both local and non-local pseudopotentials. We find rapid convergence of the total energy to the values given by standard plane-wave calculations as the radius of the linear-scaling localized orbitals is increased.Comment: revtex file, with two encapsulated postscript figures, uses epsf.sty, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Confocal microscopy of colloidal particles: towards reliable, optimum coordinates

Over the last decade, the light microscope has become increasingly useful as a quantitative tool for studying colloidal systems. The ability to obtain particle coordinates in bulk samples from micrographs is particularly appealing. In this paper we review and extend methods for optimal image formation of colloidal samples, which is vital for particle coordinates of the highest accuracy, and for extracting the most reliable coordinates from these images. We discuss in depth the accuracy of the coordinates, which is sensitive to the details of the colloidal system and the imaging system. Moreover, this accuracy can vary between particles, particularly in dense systems. We introduce a previously unreported error estimate and use it to develop an iterative method for finding particle coordinates. This individual-particle accuracy assessment also allows comparison between particle locations obtained from different experiments. Though aimed primarily at confocal microscopy studies of colloidal systems, the methods outlined here should transfer readily to many other feature extraction problems, especially where features may overlap one another.Comment: Accepted by Advances in Colloid and Interface Scienc

Propagation and Structure of Planar Streamer Fronts

Streamers often constitute the first stage of dielectric breakdown in strong electric fields: a nonlinear ionization wave transforms a non-ionized medium into a weakly ionized nonequilibrium plasma. New understanding of this old phenomenon can be gained through modern concepts of (interfacial) pattern formation. As a first step towards an effective interface description, we determine the front width, solve the selection problem for planar fronts and calculate their properties. Our results are in good agreement with many features of recent three-dimensional numerical simulations. In the present long paper, you find the physics of the model and the interfacial approach further explained. As a first ingredient of this approach, we here analyze planar fronts, their profile and velocity. We encounter a selection problem, recall some knowledge about such problems and apply it to planar streamer fronts. We make analytical predictions on the selected front profile and velocity and confirm them numerically. (abbreviated abstract)Comment: 23 pages, revtex, 14 ps file