158 research outputs found
Superconducting Upper Critical Field Near a 2D Van Hove Singularity
The superconducting upper critical field of a two dimensional BCS
superconductor is calculated in the vicinity of a van-Hove singularity. The
zero temperature upper critical field is strongly enhanced at weak coupling
when the Fermi contour coincides with van-Hove points, scaling as compared to the usual result . The result can be interpreted in terms of the non-Fermi liquid decay
of normal state pair correlations in the vicinity of a van-Hove point.Comment: 4 pages, Latex 2.09 (revtex), 3 postscript figures appended
(tar-compressed and uuencoded using `uufiles'
Huge metastability in high-T_c superconductors induced by parallel magnetic field
We present a study of the temperature-magnetic field phase diagram of
homogeneous and inhomogeneous superconductivity in the case of a
quasi-two-dimensional superconductor with an extended saddle point in the
energy dispersion under a parallel magnetic field. At low temperature, a huge
metastability region appears, limited above by a steep superheating critical
field (H_sh) and below by a strongly reentrant supercooling field (H_sc). We
show that the Pauli limit (H_p) for the upper critical magnetic field is
strongly enhanced due to the presence of the Van Hove singularity in the
density of states. The formation of a non-uniform superconducting state is
predicted to be very unlikely.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; to appear in Phys. Rev.
Upper critical field calculations for the high critical temperature superconductors considering inhomogeneities
We perform calculations to obtain the curve of high temperature
superconductors (HTSC). We consider explicitly the fact that the HTSC possess
intrinsic inhomogeneities by taking into account a non uniform charge density
. The transition to a coherent superconducting phase at a critical
temperature corresponds to a percolation threshold among different
superconducting regions, each one characterized by a given .
Within this model we calculate the upper critical field by means of an
average linearized Ginzburg-Landau (GL) equation to take into account the
distribution of local superconducting temperatures . This
approach explains some of the anomalies associated with and why
several properties like the Meissner and Nernst effects are detected at
temperatures much higher than .Comment: Latex text, add reference
Scaling of the B and D meson spectrum in lattice QCD
We give results for the and the meson spectrum using NRQCD on the
lattice in the quenched approximation. The masses of radially and orbitally
excited states are calculated as well as -wave hyperfine and -wave fine
structure. Radially excited -states are observed for the first time. Radial
and orbital excitation energies match well to experiment, as does the
strange-non-strange -wave splitting. We compare the light and heavy quark
mass dependence of various splittings to experiment. Our -results cover a
range in lattice spacings of more than a factor of two. Our -results are
from a single lattice spacing and we compare them to numbers in the literature
from finer lattices using other methods. We see no significant dependence of
physical results on the lattice spacing.
PACS: 11.15.Ha 12.38.Gc 14.40.Lb 14.40.NdComment: 78 pages, 29 tables, 30 figures Revised version. Minor corrections to
spelling and wordin
Groundwater in the Indo-Gangetic basin: evolution of groundwater typologies
The Indo-Gangetic Basin comprises one of the world’s most important aquifers. The basin is
home to approximately 1 billion people and encompasses northern and eastern India, much
of Bangladesh, parts of southern Nepal and the most populous areas of Pakistan. Despite
the presence of large rivers, much of the basin’s population are dependent on groundwater
for drinking water, and the groundwater resource is highly exploited through an estimated 20
million boreholes to support a globally important agricultural industry. The security of supply
from this aquifer is threatened by environmental change and increased abstraction. In order
to help understand the aquifer and characterise its resilience to change we have developed a
groundwater typology map for the basin
Quantitative PCR tissue expression profiling of the human SGLT2 gene and related family members
SGLT2 (for “Sodium GLucose coTransporter” protein 2) is the major protein responsible for glucose reabsorption in the kidney and its inhibition has been the focus of drug discovery efforts to treat type 2 diabetes. In order to better clarify the human tissue distribution of expression of SGLT2 and related members of this cotransporter class, we performed TaqMan™ (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of SGLT2 and other sodium/glucose transporter genes on RNAs from 72 normal tissues from three different individuals. We consistently observe that SGLT2 is highly kidney specific while SGLT5 is highly kidney abundant; SGLT1, sodium-dependent amino acid transporter (SAAT1), and SGLT4 are highly abundant in small intestine and skeletal muscle; SGLT6 is expressed in the central nervous system; and sodium myoinositol cotransporter is ubiquitously expressed across all human tissues
Determinants of diagnostic investigation sensitivities across the clinical spectrum of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
To validate the provisional findings of a number of smaller studies and explore additional determinants of characteristic diagnostic investigation results across the entire clinical spectrum of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), an international collaborative study was undertaken comprising 2451 pathologically confirmed (definite) patients. We assessed the influence of age at disease onset, illness duration, prion protein gene (PRNP) codon 129 polymorphism (either methionine or valine) and molecular sub-type on the diagnostic sensitivity of EEG, cerebral MRI and the CSF 14-3-3 immunoassay. For EEG and CSF 14-3-3 protein detection, we also assessed the influence of the time point in a patient's illness at which the investigation was performed on the likelihood of a typical or positive result. Analysis included a large subset of patients (n = 743) in whom molecular sub-typing had been performed using a combination of the PRNP codon 129 polymorphism and the form of protease resistant prion protein [type 1 or 2 according to Parchi et al. (Parchi P, Giese A, Capellari S, Brown P, Schulz-Schaeffer W, Windl O, Zerr I, Budka H, Kopp N, Piccardo P, Poser S, Rojiani A, Streichemberger N, Julien J, Vital C, Ghetti B, Gambetti P, Kretzschmar H. Classification of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease based on molecular and phenotypic analysis of 300 subjects. Ann Neurol 1999; 46: 224-233.)] present in the brain. Findings for the whole group paralleled the subset with molecular sub-typing data available, showing that age at disease onset and disease duration were independent determinants of typical changes on EEG, while illness duration significantly influenced positive CSF 14-3-3 protein detection; changes on brain MRI were not influenced by either of these clinical parameters, but overall, imaging data were less complete and consequently conclusions are more tentative. In addition to age at disease onset and illness duration, molecular sub-type was re-affirmed as an important independent determinant of investigation results. In multivariate analyses that included molecular sub-type, time point of the investigation during a patient's illness was found not to influence the occurrence of a typical or positive EEG or CSF 14-3-3 protein result. A typical EEG was most often seen in MM1 patients and was significantly less likely in the MV1, MV2 and VV2 sub-types, whereas VV2 patients had an increased likelihood of a typical brain MRI. Overall, the CSF 14-3-3 immunoassay was the most frequently positive investigation (88.1%) but performed significantly less well in the very uncommon MV2 and MM2 sub-types. Our findings confirm a number of determinants of principal investigation results in sporadic CJD and underscore the importance of recognizing these pre-test limitations before accepting the diagnosis excluded or confirmed. Combinations of investigations offer the best chance of detection, especially for the less common molecular sub-types such as MV2 and MM2
First observation of J/\psi and \psi(2S) decaying to n K^0_S\bar\Lambda +c.c
The decays of \jpsi and \psip to are
observed and measured for the first time, and the perturbative QCD ``12%'' rule
is tested, based on \jpsi and \psip
events collected with BESII detector at the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider.
No obvious enhancement near threshold in \jpsi \to
{n}{K^0_S}\bar{\Lambda}+c.c. is observed, and the upper limit on the branching
ratio of \jpsi \to {K^0_S} X, X \to n \bar \Lambda is determined.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Global maps of soil temperature.
Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km <sup>2</sup> resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km <sup>2</sup> pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications
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