Coreless vortex formation in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate

Coreless vortices were phase-imprinted in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. The three-component order parameter of F=1 sodium condensates held in a Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap was manipulated by adiabatically reducing the magnetic bias field along the trap axis to zero. This distributed the condensate population across its three spin states and created a spin texture. Each spin state acquired a different phase winding which caused the spin components to separate radially.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Rattus Model Utilizing Selective Pulmonary Ischemia Induces Bronchiolitis Obliterans Organizing Pneumonia

Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP), a morbid condition when associated with lung transplant and chronic lung disease, is believed to be a complication of ischemia. Our goal was to develop a simple and reliable model of lung ischemia in the Sprague-Dawley rat that would produce BOOP. Unilateral ischemia without airway occlusion was produced by an occlusive slipknot placed around the left main pulmonary artery. Studies were performed 7 days later. Relative pulmonary and systemic flow to each lung was measured by injection of technetium Tc 99m macroaggregated albumin. Histological sections were examined for structure and necrosis and scored for BOOP. Apoptosis was detected by immunohistochemistry with an antibody against cleaved caspase 3. Pulmonary artery blood flow to left lungs was less than 0.1% of the cardiac output, and bronchial artery circulation was ~2% of aortic artery flow. Histological sections from ischemic left lungs consistently showed Masson bodies, inflammation, and young fibroblasts filling the distal airways and alveoli, consistent with BOOP. In quantitative evaluation of BOOP using epithelial changes, inflammation and fibrosis were higher in ischemic left lungs than right or sham-operated left lungs. Apoptosis was increased in areas exhibiting histological BOOP, but there was no histological evidence of necrosis. Toll-like receptor 4 expression was increased in ischemic left lungs over right. An occlusive slipknot around the main left pulmonary artery in rats produces BOOP, providing direct evidence that ischemia without immunomodulation or coinfection is sufficient to initiate this injury. It also affords an excellent model to study signaling and genetic mechanisms underlying BOOP

Topological vortex formation in a Bose-Einstein condensate

Vortices were imprinted in a Bose-Einstein condensate using topological phases. Sodium condensates held in a Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap were transformed from a non-rotating state to one with quantized circulation by adiabatically inverting the magnetic bias field along the trap axis. Using surface wave spectroscopy, the axial angular momentum per particle of the vortex states was found to be consistent with $2\hbar$ or $4\hbar$, depending on the hyperfine state of the condensate.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

CPT and Lorentz Tests in Hydrogen and Antihydrogen

Signals for CPT and Lorentz violation at the Planck scale may arise in hydrogen and antihydrogen spectroscopy. We show that certain 1S-2S and hyperfine transitions can exhibit theoretically detectable effects unsuppressed by any power of the fine-structure constant.Comment: 4 pages REVTeX, submitted for publicatio

Single nucleotide polymorphisms to discriminate different classes of hybrid between wild Atlantic salmon and aquaculture escapees

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Comparative analysis of the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients with Wilms tumor in the United Kingdom and Japan

BACKGROUND: Wilms tumor (WT) demonstrates epidemiological differences by world region and ethnicity. To enhance understanding of these differences, we retrospectively analyzed clinical trial data sets from the UK and Japan over a 20-year period. PROCEDURE: We used data from three consecutive clinical trials in the UK and a single study in Japan that enrolled patients diagnosed during 1996-2015, to compare clinical characteristics and outcomes between countries. RESULTS: During 1996-2015, 1395 patients in the UK and 537 in Japan were included. Japanese patients have a significantly younger median age at diagnosis than those in the UK (28 months vs 39 months). The proportion of patients with stage IV, large tumors, and anaplastic histology appears to be higher in the UK than in Japan (18% vs 11%, 62% vs 49%, 8% vs 3%, respectively). During 2005-2015, 77 hospitals treated WT in Japan compared with only 20 hospitals in the UK. Five-year overall survival of patients with WT was over 90% in both countries, but five-year event-free survival of patients with stage IV was significantly lower in Japan than in the UK (50.0% vs 76.2%, P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Differences in age of onset, tumor size at diagnosis, and histology may reflect differences in the genetic background of patients with WT between countries, but population-based phenotype-genotype data are lacking. The difference in survival probability for stage IV patients may be due to different diagnostic criteria or different treatment strategies. Prospective, international clinical studies including genomic analyses are needed to confirm these findings and improve clinical practice

Is a Classical Language Adequate in Assessing the Detectability of the Redshifted 21cm Signal from the Early Universe?

The classical radiometer equation is commonly used to calculate the detectability of the 21cm emission by diffuse cosmic hydrogen at high redshifts. However, the classical description is only valid in the regime where the occupation number of the photons in phase space is much larger than unity and they collectively behave as a classical electromagnetic field. At redshifts z<20, the spin temperature of the intergalactic gas is dictated by the radiation from galaxies and the brightness temperature of the emitting gas is in the range of mK, independently from the existence of the cosmic microwave background. In regions where the observed brightness temperature of the 21cm signal is smaller than the observed photon energy, of 68/(1+z) mK, the occupation number of the signal photons is smaller than unity. Neverethless, the radiometer equation can still be used in this regime because the weak signal is accompanied by a flood of foreground photons with a high occupation number (involving the synchrotron Galactic emission and the cosmic microwave background). As the signal photons are not individually distinguishable, the combined signal+foreground population of photons has a high occupation number, thus justifying the use of the radiometer equation.Comment: 4 pages, Accepted for publication in JCA

Gas-to-Dust mass ratios in local galaxies over a 2 dex metallicity range

This paper analyses the behaviour of the gas-to-dust mass ratio (G/D) of local Universe galaxies over a large metallicity range. We combine three samples: the Dwarf Galaxy Survey, the KINGFISH survey and a subsample from Galametz et al. (2011) totalling 126 galaxies, covering a 2 dex metallicity range, with 30% of the sample with 12+log(O/H) < 8.0. The dust masses are homogeneously determined with a semi-empirical dust model, including submm constraints. The atomic and molecular gas masses are compiled from the literature. Two XCO are used to estimate molecular gas masses: the Galactic XCO, and a XCO depending on the metallicity (as Z^{-2}). Correlations with morphological types, stellar masses, star formation rates and specific star formation rates are discussed. The trend between G/D and metallicity is empirically modelled using power-laws (slope of -1 and free) and a broken power-law. We compare the evolution of the G/D with predictions from chemical evolution models. We find that out of the five tested galactic parameters, metallicity is the galactic property driving the observed G/D. The G/D versus metallicity relation cannot be represented by a power-law with a slope of -1 over the whole metallicity range. The observed trend is steeper for metallicities lower than ~ 8.0. A large scatter is observed in the G/D for a given metallicity, with a dispersion of 0.37 dex in metallicity bins of ~0.1 dex. The broken power-law reproduces best the observed G/D and provides estimates of the G/D that are accurate to a factor of 1.6. The good agreement of the G/D and its scatter with the three tested chemical evolution models shows that the scatter is intrinsic to galactic properties, reflecting the different star formation histories, dust destruction efficiencies, dust grain size distributions and chemical compositions across the sample. (abriged)Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures, accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysic