1,105 research outputs found
Wilson Loops in N=2 Super-Yang-Mills from Matrix Model
We compute the expectation value of the circular Wilson loop in N=2
supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with N_f=2N hypermultiplets. Our results
indicate that the string tension in the dual string theory scales as the
logarithm of the 't Hooft coupling.Comment: 37 pages, 9 figures; v2: Numerical factors corrected, simple
derivation of Wilson loop and discussion of continuation to complex lambda
added; v3: instanton partition function re-analyzed in order to take into
account a contribution of the hypermultiplet
Characterization of cucumber mosaic virus isolated from yam (Dioscorea spp.) in West Africa
Millions of people in the West African sub-region depend on yam for food and income. In 2008, cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), one of the most economically important plant viruses was detected in yam fields in Ghana, Benin and Togo, three of the five topmost yam producing countries in the world. Some strains of CMV are reportedly more virulent than others thus the need to characterise the strain isolated from yam. Sap inoculation of the yam strain induced systemic mosaic on Cucumis sativus and systemic chlorosis, necrotic lesions and leaf distortion on Nicotiana glutinosa. Sequence analysis of the 3' end of the coat protein gene and C-terminal noncoding region revealed 98 to 99, 93 to 98 and 78 to 79% nucleotide homology with members of the subgroups IA, IB and II, respectively. This analysis further revealed the absence of the EcoR1 restriction site characteristic of subgroup II strains and the presence of 15 nucleotide deletions dispersed along the C-terminal noncoding region of subgroup IA strains. At the amino acid level, the virus had 99 to 100% homology with subgroup I strains and 89% homology with subgroup II strains. Phylogenetic analysis of the amino acid confirms that the yam strain of CMV belongs to subgroup I while nucleotide sequence phylogeny confirms its placement in subgroup IA.Keywords: Yam viruses, cucumber mosaic virus, sequence analysisAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(22), pp. 3472-348
Multiple Stellar Populations in the Globular Cluster omega Centauri as Tracers of a Merger Event
The discovery of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, which is being tidally
disrupted by and merging with the Milky Way, supports the view that the halo of
the Galaxy has been built up at least partially by the accretion of similar
dwarf systems. The Sagittarius dwarf contains several distinct populations of
stars, and includes M54 as its nucleus, which is the second most massive
globular cluster associated with the Milky Way. The most massive globular
cluster is omega Centauri, and here we report that omega Centauri also has
several distinct stellar populations, as traced by red-giant-branch stars. The
most metal-rich red-giant-branch stars are about 2 Gyr younger than the
dominant metal-poor component, indicating that omega Centauri was enriched over
this timescale. The presence of more than one epoch of star formation in a
globular cluster is quite surprising, and suggests that omega Centauri was once
part of a more massive system that merged with the Milky Way, as the
Sagittarius dwarf galaxy is in the process of doing now. Mergers probably were
much more frequent in the early history of the Galaxy and omega Centauri
appears to be a relict of this era.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, Latex+nature.sty (included), To appear in
November 4th issue of Natur
Wilson-loop formalism for Reggeon exchange in soft high-energy scattering
We derive a nonperturbative expression for the non-vacuum,
qqbar-Reggeon-exchange contribution to the meson-meson elastic scattering
amplitude at high energy and low momentum transfer, in the framework of QCD.
Describing the mesons in terms of colourless qqbar dipoles, the problem is
reduced to the two-fermion-exchange contribution to the dipole-dipole
scattering amplitudes, which is expressed as a path integral, over the
trajectories of the exchanged fermions, of the expectation value of a certain
Wilson loop. We also show how the resulting expression can be reconstructed
from a corresponding quantity in the Euclidean theory, by means of analytic
continuation. Finally, we make contact with previous work on Reggeon exchange
in the gauge/gravity duality approach.Comment: A few misprints in the expressions for the relevant Wilson loops have
been corrected. 55 pages, 7 figure
Canrightiopsis, a new Early Cretaceous fossil with Clavatipollenites-type pollen bridge the gap between extinct Canrightia and extant Chloranthaceae
Canrightiopsis with three species (C. intermedia, C. crassitesta, C. dinisii) is described from the Early Cretaceous of Portugal based on small, one-seeded berries. The fruits are derived from bisexual flowers with three stamens borne on one side of the ovary. There are no traces of a perianth. Pollen is of the Clavatipollenites-type, monocolpate, semitectate, reticulate-columellate with heterobrochate reticulum and muri with beaded supratectal ornamentation. The ovary is unilocular with a single pendant, orthotropous and bitegmic ovule. The seed is endotestal. The endotesta consists of one layer of palisade-shaped crystal cells with fibrous infillings. The fruit wall has resin bodies or cavities from presumed ethereal oil cells sometimes seen as stomata-like structures on the fruit surface. A phylogenetic analysis resolves Canrightiopsis as a close relative of extant Chloranthaceae, particularly close to extant Chloranthus and Sarcandra. All three taxa share the one-sided position of the stamens on the ovary. An evolutionary sequence from fossil Canrightia to fossil Canrightiopsis and extant Chloranthus and Sarcandra is suggested by loss of perianth, reduction in number of ovules and stamens and displacement of stamens to one side of the ovary. Canrightiopsis also shares several critical features with extant Ascarina including monoaperturate pollen and beaded supratectal ornamentation of the pollen wall.Swiss Light Source (European Union) [20110963, 20130185]; Swedish Research Council [621-2011-5431]; CretaCarbo project [PTDC/CTE-GIX/113983/2009]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Magnetic effects in a holographic Fermi-like liquid
We explore the magnetic properties of the Fermi-like liquid represented by
the D3-D7' system. The system exhibits interesting magnetic properties such as
ferromagnetism and an anomalous Hall effect, which are due to the Chern-Simons
term in the effective gravitational action. We investigate the spectrum of
quasi-normal modes in the presence of a magnetic field and show that the
magnetic field mitigates the instability towards a striped phase. In addition,
we find a critical magnetic field above which the zero sound mode becomes
massive.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figure
Occurrence of testicular microlithiasis in androgen insensitive hypogonadal mice
<b>Background</b>: Testicular microliths are calcifications found within the seminiferous tubules. In humans, testicular microlithiasis (TM) has an unknown etiology but may be significantly associated with testicular germ cell tumors. Factors inducing microlith development may also, therefore, act as susceptibility factors for malignant testicular conditions. Studies to identify the mechanisms of microlith development have been hampered by the lack of suitable animal models for TM.<BR/>
<b>Methods</b>: This was an observational study of the testicular phenotype of different mouse models. The mouse models were: cryptorchid mice, mice lacking androgen receptors (ARs) on the Sertoli cells (SCARKO), mice with a ubiquitous loss of androgen ARs (ARKO), hypogonadal (hpg) mice which lack circulating gonadotrophins, and hpg mice crossed with SCARKO (hpg.SCARKO) and ARKO (hpg.ARKO) mice.<BR/>
<b>Results</b>: Microscopic TM was seen in 94% of hpg.ARKO mice (n=16) and the mean number of microliths per testis was 81 +/- 54. Occasional small microliths were seen in 36% (n=11) of hpg testes (mean 2 +/- 0.5 per testis) and 30% (n=10) of hpg.SCARKO testes (mean 8 +/- 6 per testis). No microliths were seen in cryptorchid, ARKO or SCARKO mice. There was no significant effect of FSH or androgen on TM in hpg.ARKO mice.<BR/>
<b>Conclusions</b>: We have identified a mouse model of TM and show that lack of endocrine stimulation is a cause of TM. Importantly, this model will provide a means with which to identify the mechanisms of TM development and the underlying changes in protein and gene expression
High Energy Bounds on Soft N=4 SYM Amplitudes from AdS/CFT
Using the AdS/CFT correspondence, we study the high-energy behavior of
colorless dipole elastic scattering amplitudes in N=4 SYM gauge theory through
the Wilson loop correlator formalism and Euclidean to Minkowskian analytic
continuation. The purely elastic behavior obtained at large impact-parameter L,
through duality from disconnected AdS_5 minimal surfaces beyond the
Gross-Ooguri transition point, is combined with unitarity and analyticity
constraints in the central region. In this way we obtain an absolute bound on
the high-energy behavior of the forward scattering amplitude due to the
graviton interaction between minimal surfaces in the bulk. The dominant
"Pomeron" intercept is bounded by alpha less than or equal to 11/7 using the
AdS/CFT constraint of a weak gravitational field in the bulk. Assuming the
elastic eikonal approximation in a larger impact-parameter range gives alpha
between 4/3 and 11/7. The actual intercept becomes 4/3 if one assumes the
elastic eikonal approximation within its maximally allowed range L larger than
exp{Y/3}, where Y is the total rapidity. Subleading AdS/CFT contributions at
large impact-parameter due to the other d=10 supergravity fields are obtained.
A divergence in the real part of the tachyonic KK scalar is cured by
analyticity but signals the need for a theoretical completion of the AdS/CFT
scheme.Comment: 25 pages, 3 eps figure
Evaluation of two interaction techniques for visualization of dynamic graphs
Several techniques for visualization of dynamic graphs are based on different
spatial arrangements of a temporal sequence of node-link diagrams. Many studies
in the literature have investigated the importance of maintaining the user's
mental map across this temporal sequence, but usually each layout is considered
as a static graph drawing and the effect of user interaction is disregarded. We
conducted a task-based controlled experiment to assess the effectiveness of two
basic interaction techniques: the adjustment of the layout stability and the
highlighting of adjacent nodes and edges. We found that generally both
interaction techniques increase accuracy, sometimes at the cost of longer
completion times, and that the highlighting outclasses the stability adjustment
for many tasks except the most complex ones.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 24th International Symposium on
Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2016
Reggeon exchange from gauge/gravity duality
We perform the analysis of quark-antiquark Reggeon exchange in meson-meson
scattering, in the framework of the gauge/gravity correspondence in a confining
background. On the gauge theory side, Reggeon exchange is described as
quark-antiquark exchange in the t channel between fast projectiles. The
corresponding amplitude is represented in terms of Wilson loops running along
the trajectories of the constituent quarks and antiquarks. The paths of the
exchanged fermions are integrated over, while the "spectator" fermions are
dealt with in an eikonal approximation. On the gravity side, we follow a
previously proposed approach, and we evaluate the Wilson-loop expectation value
by making use of gauge/gravity duality for a generic confining gauge theory.
The amplitude is obtained in a saddle-point approximation through the
determination near the confining horizon of a Euclidean "minimal surface with
floating boundaries", i.e., by fixing the trajectories of the exchanged quark
and antiquark by means of a minimisation procedure, which involves both area
and length terms. After discussing, as a warm-up exercise, a simpler problem on
a plane involving a soap film with floating boundaries, we solve the
variational problem relevant to Reggeon exchange, in which the basic geometry
is that of a helicoid. A compact expression for the Reggeon-exchange amplitude,
including the effects of a small fermion mass, is then obtained through
analytic continuation from Euclidean to Minkowski space-time. We find in
particular a linear Regge trajectory, corresponding to a Regge-pole singularity
supplemented by a logarithmic cut induced by the non-zero quark mass. The
analytic continuation leads also to companion contributions, corresponding to
the convolution of the same Reggeon-exchange amplitude with multiple elastic
rescattering interactions between the colliding mesons.Comment: 60+1 pages, 14 figure
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