Spectrum of the Dirac Operator and Multigrid Algorithm with Dynamical Staggered Fermions

Complete spectra of the staggered Dirac operator \Dirac are determined in quenched four-dimensional $SU(2)$ gauge fields, and also in the presence of dynamical fermions. Periodic as well as antiperiodic boundary conditions are used. An attempt is made to relate the performance of multigrid (MG) and conjugate gradient (CG) algorithms for propagators with the distribution of the eigenvalues of~\Dirac. The convergence of the CG algorithm is determined only by the condition number~$\kappa$ and by the lattice size. Since~$\kappa$'s do not vary significantly when quarks become dynamic, CG convergence in unquenched fields can be predicted from quenched simulations. On the other hand, MG convergence is not affected by~$\kappa$ but depends on the spectrum in a more subtle way.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, HUB-IEP-94/12 and KL-TH 19/94; comes as a uuencoded tar-compressed .ps-fil

The Local Velocity Anomaly

There is a velocity discontinuity at about 7 Mpc between the galaxies of the Local Sheet that are moving together with low internal velocity dispersion and the adjacent structures. The Local Sheet bounds the Local Void. The Local Sheet is determined to have a peculiar velocity of 260 km/s away from the center of the void. In order for this large velocity to be generated by an absence of gravity, the Local Void must be at least 45 Mpc in diameter and be very empty.Comment: Invited review, "Galaxies in the Local Volume", Sydney, 8-13 July, 2007. eds. B. Koribalski & H. Jerjen, Astrophys. & Space Sci. Proceed. 10 pages with 7 figure

Detection of Synaptic Proteins in Microglia by Flow Cytometry.

A growing body of evidence indicates that microglia actively remove synapses in vivo, thereby playing a key role in synaptic refinement and modulation of brain connectivity. This phenomenon was mainly investigated in immunofluorescence staining and confocal microscopy. However, a quantification of synaptic material in microglia using these techniques is extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive. To address this issue, we aimed to quantify synaptic proteins in microglia using flow cytometry. With this approach, we first showed that microglia from the healthy adult mouse brain contain a detectable level of VGLUT1 protein. Next, we found more than two-fold increased VGLUT1 immunoreactivity in microglia from the developing brain (P15) as compared to adult microglia. These data indicate that microglia-mediated synaptic pruning mostly occurs during the brain developmental period. We then quantified the VGLUT1 staining in microglia in two transgenic models characterized by pathological microglia-mediated synaptic pruning. In the 5xFAD mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) microglia exhibited a significant increase in VGLUT1 immunoreactivity before the onset of amyloid pathology. Moreover, conditional deletion of TDP-43 in microglia, which causes a hyper-phagocytic phenotype associated with synaptic loss, also resulted in increased VGLUT1 immunoreactivity within microglia. This work provides a quantitative assessment of synaptic proteins in microglia, under homeostasis, and in mouse models of disease

Transgenerational modification of dopaminergic dysfunctions induced by maternal immune activation

Prenatal exposure to infectious and/or inflammatory insults is increasingly recognized to contribute to the etiology of psychiatric disorders with neurodevelopmental components. Recent research using animal models suggests that maternal immune activation (MIA) can induce transgenerational effects on brain and behavior, possibly through epigenetic mechanisms. Using a mouse model of MIA that is based on gestational treatment with the viral mimeticpoly(I:C) (=polyriboinosinic-polyribocytidilicacid), the present study explored whether the transgenerational effects of MIA are extendable to dopaminergic dysfunctions. We show that the direct descendants born to poly(I:C)-treated mothers display signs of hyperdopaminergia, as manifested by a potentiated sensitivity to the locomotor-stimulating effects of amphetamine (Amph) and increased expression of tyrosine hydroxylase (Th) in the adult ventral midbrain. In stark contrast, second- and third-generation offspring of MIA-exposed ancestors displayed blunted locomotor responses to Amph and reduced expression ofTh. Furthermore, we found increased DNA methylation at the promoter region of the dopamine-specifying factor, nuclear receptor-related 1 protein (Nurr1), in the sperm of first-generation MIA offspring and in the ventral midbrain of second-generation offspring of MIA-exposed ancestors. The latter effect was further accompanied by reduced mRNA levels of Nurr1 in this brain region. Together, our results suggest that MIA has the potential to modify dopaminergic functions across multiple generations with opposite effects in the direct descendants and their progeny. The presence of altered DNA methylation in the sperm of MIA-exposed offspring highlights the possibility that epigenetic processes in the male germline play a role in the transgenerational effects of MIA.Therapeutic cell differentiatio

Tensor Polarized Deuteron Capture by the Hydrogen Isotopes

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 87-1440

Tensor Polarized Deuteron Capture by the Hydrogen Isotopes

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 87-1440

Transport Properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma -- A Lattice QCD Perspective

Transport properties of a thermal medium determine how its conserved charge densities (for instance the electric charge, energy or momentum) evolve as a function of time and eventually relax back to their equilibrium values. Here the transport properties of the quark-gluon plasma are reviewed from a theoretical perspective. The latter play a key role in the description of heavy-ion collisions, and are an important ingredient in constraining particle production processes in the early universe. We place particular emphasis on lattice QCD calculations of conserved current correlators. These Euclidean correlators are related by an integral transform to spectral functions, whose small-frequency form determines the transport properties via Kubo formulae. The universal hydrodynamic predictions for the small-frequency pole structure of spectral functions are summarized. The viability of a quasiparticle description implies the presence of additional characteristic features in the spectral functions. These features are in stark contrast with the functional form that is found in strongly coupled plasmas via the gauge/gravity duality. A central goal is therefore to determine which of these dynamical regimes the quark-gluon plasma is qualitatively closer to as a function of temperature. We review the analysis of lattice correlators in relation to transport properties, and tentatively estimate what computational effort is required to make decisive progress in this field.Comment: 54 pages, 37 figures, review written for EPJA and APPN; one parag. added end of section 3.4, and one at the end of section 3.2.2; some Refs. added, and some other minor change

Reperfusion in acute myocardial infarction

Studies of the pathophysiology of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have shown that in most pa- tients a thrombus forms over a ruptured ather- oma in the infarct-related coronary artery and obstructs the artery

Resonant nonstationary amplification of polychromatic laser pulses and conical emission in an optically dense ensemble of neon metastable atoms

Experimental and numerical investigation of single-beam and pump-probe interaction with a resonantly absorbing dense extended medium under strong and weak field-matter coupling is presented. Significant probe beam amplification and conical emission were observed. Under relatively weak pumping and high medium density, when the condition of strong coupling between field and resonant matter is fulfilled, the probe amplification spectrum has a form of spectral doublet. Stronger pumping leads to the appearance of a single peak of the probe beam amplification at the transition frequency. The greater probe intensity results in an asymmetrical transmission spectrum with amplification at the blue wing of the absorption line and attenuation at the red one. Under high medium density, a broad band of amplification appears. Theoretical model is based on the solution of the Maxwell-Bloch equations for a two-level system. Different types of probe transmission spectra obtained are attributed to complex dynamics of a coherent medium response to broadband polychromatic radiation of a multimode dye laser.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures, corrected, Fig.8 was changed, to be published in Phys. Rev.

AdS/CFT with Flavour in Electric and Magnetic Kalb-Ramond Fields

We investigate gauge/gravity duals with flavour for which pure-gauge Kalb-Ramond B fields are turned on in the background, into which a D7 brane probe is embedded. First we consider the case of a magnetic field in two of the spatial boundary directions. We show that at finite temperature, i.e. in the AdS-Schwarzschild background, the B field has a stabilizing effect on the mesons and chiral symmetry breaking occurs for a sufficiently large value of the B field. Then we turn to the electric case of a B field in the temporal direction and one spatial boundary direction. In this case, there is a singular region in which it is necessary to turn on a gauge field on the brane in order to ensure reality of the brane action. We find that the brane embeddings are attracted towards this region. Far away from this region, in the weak field case at zero temperature, we investigate the meson spectrum and find a mass shift similar to the Stark effect.Comment: 34 pages, 18 figures, v2: added references and comments on mode decoupling, on thermodynamics and holographic renormalisation, JHEP style, v3: Final published versio