243 research outputs found
Graviton production in anti-de Sitter braneworld cosmology: A fully consistent treatment of the boundary condition
In recent work by two of us, [Durrer & Ruser, PRL 99, 071601 (2007); Ruser &
Durrer PRD 76, 104014 (2007)], graviton production due to a moving spacetime
boundary (braneworld) in a five dimensional bulk has been considered. In the
same way as the presence of a conducting plate modifies the electromagnetic
vacuum, the presence of a brane modifies the graviton vacuum. As the brane
moves, the time dependence of the vacuum leads to particle creation via the so
called 'dynamical Casimir effect'. In our previous work a term in the boundary
condition which is linear in the brane velocity has been neglected. In this
work we develop a new approach which overcomes this approximation. We show that
the previous results are not modified if the brane velocity is low.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, added a clarifying paragraph about the setup,
the brane motion adapted w.r.t the version published in PR
Diagnostic performance of CT with Valsalva maneuver for the diagnosis and characterization of inguinal hernias
PURPOSE
Inguinal hernias are mainly diagnosed clinically, but imaging can aid in equivocal cases or for treatment planning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of CT with Valsalva maneuver for the diagnosis and characterization of inguinal hernias.
METHODS
This single-center retrospective study reviewed all consecutive Valsalva-CT studies between 2018 and 2019. A composite clinical reference standard including surgery was used. Three blinded, independent readers (readers 1-3) reviewed the CT images and scored the presence and type of inguinal hernia. A fourth reader measured hernia size. Interreader agreement was quantified with Krippendorff's α coefficients. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of Valsalva-CT for the detection of inguinal hernias was computed for each reader.
RESULTS
The final study population included 351 patients (99 women) with median age 52.2 years (interquartile range (IQR), 47.2, 68.9). A total of 381 inguinal hernias were present in 221 patients. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 85.8%, 98.1%, and 91.5% for reader 1, 72.7%, 92.5%, and 81.8% for reader 2, and 68.2%, 96.3%, and 81.1% for reader 3. Hernia neck size was significantly larger in cases correctly detected by all three readers (19.0 mm, IQR 13, 25), compared to those missed by all readers (7.0 mm, IQR, 5, 9; p < 0.001). Interreader agreement was substantial (α = 0.723) for the diagnosis of hernia and moderate (α = 0.522) for the type of hernia.
CONCLUSION
Valsalva-CT shows very high specificity and high accuracy for the diagnosis of inguinal hernia. Sensitivity is only moderate which is associated with missed smaller hernias
Charge dynamics and "ferromagnetism" of A1-xLaxB6 (A=Ca and Sr)
Ferromagnetism has been reported recently in La-doped alkaline-earth
hexaborides, A1-xLaxB6 (A=Ca, Sr, and Ba). We have performed the reflectivity,
Hall resistivity, and magnetization measurements of A1-xLaxB6. The results
indicate that A1-xLaxB6 can be regarded as a simple doped semimetal, with no
signature of an excitonic state as suggested by several theories. It is also
found that the surface of as-grown samples (10 micrometer in thickness) has a
different electronic structure from a bulk one, and a fairly large number of
paramagnetic moments are confined in this region. After eliminating these
paramagnetic moments at the surface, we could not find any evidence of an
intrinsic ferromagnetic moment in our samples, implying the possibility that
the ferromagnetism of A1-xLaxB6 reported so far is neither intrinsic.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
Point defects, ferromagnetism and transport in calcium hexaboride
The formation energy and local magnetic moment of a series of point defects
in CaB are computed using a supercell approach within the generalized
gradient approximation to density functional theory. Based on these results,
speculations are made as to the influence of these defects on electrical
transport. It is found that the substitution of Ca by La does not lead to the
formation of a local moment, while a neutral B vacancy carries a moment of
2.4 Bohr magnetons, mostly distributed over the six nearest-neighbour B atoms.
A plausible mechanism for the ferromagnetic ordering of these moments is
suggested. Since the same broken B-B bonds appear on the preferred (100)
cleavage planes of the CaB structure, it is argued that internal surfaces
in polycrystals as well as external surfaces in general will make a large
contribution to the observed magnetization.Comment: Calculated defect formation energies had to be corrected, due to the
use of a wrong reference energy for the perfect crystal in the original pape
Origin for the enhanced copper spin echo decay rate in the pseudogap regime of the multilayer high-T_c cuprates
We report measurements of the anisotropy of the spin echo decay for the inner
layer Cu site of the triple layer cuprate, Hg_0.8Re_0.2Ba_2Ca_2Cu_3O_8 (T_c=126
K) in the pseudogap T regime below T_pg ~ 170 K and the corresponding analysis
for their interpretation. As the field alignment is varied, the shape of the
decay curve changes from Gaussian (H_0 \parallel c) to single exponential (H_0
\perp c). The latter characterizes the decay caused by the fluctuations of
adjacent Cu nuclear spins caused by their interactions with electron spins. The
angular dependence of the second moment (T_{2M}^{-2} \equiv )
deduced from the decay curves indicates that T_{2M}^{-2} for H_0 \parallel c,
which is identical to T_{2G}^{-2} (T_{2G} is the Gaussian component), is
substantially enhanced, as seen in the pseudogap regime of the bilayer systems.
Comparison of T_{2M}^{-2} between H_0 \parallel c and H_0 \perp c indicates
that this enhancement is caused by electron spin correlations between the inner
and the outer CuO_2 layers. These results provide the answer to the
long-standing controversy regarding the opposite T dependences of (T_1T)^{-1}
and T_{2G}^{-2} in the pseudogap regime of bi- and trilayer systems.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Theory of High \tc Ferromagnetism in family: A case of Doped Spin-1 Mott insulator in a Valence Bond Solid Phase
Doped divalent hexaborides such as exhibit high \tc
ferromagnetism. We isolate a degenerate pair of -orbitals of boron with two
valence electrons, invoke electron correlation and Hund coupling, to suggest
that the undoped state is better viewed as a spin-1 Mott insulator; it is
predicted to be a type of 3d Haldane gap phase with a spin gap ,
much smaller than the charge gap of seen in ARPES. The
experimentally seen high \tc `ferromagnetism' is argued to be a complex
magnetic order in disguise - either a canted 6-sublattice AFM ()
order or its quantum melted version, a chiral spin liquid state, arising from a
type of double exchange mechanism.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; minor corrections, references adde
CaB_6: a new semiconducting material for spin electronics
Ferromagnetism was recently observed at unexpectedly high temperatures in
La-doped CaB_6. The starting point of all theoretical proposals to explain this
observation is a semimetallic electronic structure calculated for CaB_6 within
the local density approximation. Here we report the results of parameter-free
quasiparticle calculations of the single-particle excitation spectrum which
show that CaB_6 is not a semimetal but a semiconductor with a band gap of 0.8
eV. Magnetism in La_xCa_{1-x}B_6 occurs just on the metallic side of a Mott
transition in the La-induced impurity band.Comment: 4 pages, 1 postscript figur
High Magnetic Field NMR Studies of LiVGeO, a quasi 1-D Spin System
We report Li pulsed NMR measurements in polycrystalline and single
crystal samples of the quasi one-dimensional S=1 antiferromagnet
LiVGeO, whose AF transition temperature is K.
The field () and temperature () ranges covered were 9-44.5 T and
1.7-300 K respectively. The measurements included NMR spectra, the spin-lattice
relaxation rate (), and the spin-phase relaxation rate (),
often as a function of the orientation of the field relative to the crystal
axes. The spectra indicate an AF magnetic structure consistent with that
obtained from neutron diffraction measurements, but with the moments aligned
parallel to the c-axis. The spectra also provide the -dependence of the AF
order parameter and show that the transition is either second order or weakly
first order. Both the spectra and the data show that has at
most a small effect on the alignment of the AF moment. There is no spin-flop
transition up to 44.5 T. These features indicate a very large magnetic
anisotropy energy in LiVGeO with orbital degrees of freedom playing an
important role. Below 8 K, varies substantially with the orientation
of in the plane perpendicular to the c-axis, suggesting a small energy
gap for magnetic fluctuations that is very anisotropic.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.
The first spectral line surveys searching for signals from the Dark Ages
Our aim is to observationally investigate the cosmic Dark Ages in order to
constrain star and structure formation models, as well as the chemical
evolution in the early Universe. Spectral lines from atoms and molecules in
primordial perturbations at high redshifts can give information about the
conditions in the early universe before and during the formation of the first
stars in addition to the epoch of reionisation. The lines may arise from moving
primordial perturbations before the formation of the first stars (resonant
scattering lines), or could be thermal absorption or emission lines at lower
redshifts. The difficulties in these searches are that the source redshift and
evolutionary state, as well as molecular species and transition are unknown,
which implies that an observed line can fall within a wide range of
frequencies. The lines are also expected to be very weak. Observations from
space have the advantages of stability and the lack of atmospheric features
which is important in such observations. We have therefore, as a first step in
our searches, used the Odin satellite to perform two sets of spectral line
surveys towards several positions. The first survey covered the band 547-578
GHz towards two positions, and the second one covered the bands 542.0-547.5 GHz
and 486.5-492.0 GHz towards six positions selected to test different sizes of
the primordial clouds. Two deep searches centred at 543.250 and 543.100 GHz
with 1 GHz bandwidth were also performed towards one position. The two lowest
rotational transitions of H2 will be redshifted to these frequencies from
z~20-30, which is the predicted epoch of the first star formation. No lines are
detected at an rms level of 14-90 and 5-35 mK for the two surveys,
respectively, and 2-7 mK in the deep searches with a channel spacing of 1-16
MHz. The broad bandwidth covered allows a wide range of redshifts to be
explored for a number of atomic and molecular species and transitions. From the
theoretical side, our sensitivity analysis show that the largest possible
amplitudes of the resonant lines are about 1 mK at frequencies <200 GHz, and a
few micro K around 500-600 GHz, assuming optically thick lines and no
beam-dilution. However, if existing, thermal absorption lines have the
potential to be orders of magnitude stronger than the resonant lines. We make a
simple estimation of the sizes and masses of the primordial perturbations at
their turn-around epochs, which previously has been identified as the most
favourable epoch for a detection. This work may be considered as an important
pilot study for our forthcoming observations with the Herschel Space
Observatory.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, 3 on-line pages. Accepted for publication in
Astronomy & Astrophysics 8 March 2010
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