Altered functional brain network connectivity and glutamate system function in transgenic mice expressing truncated Disrupted-in-Schizophrenia 1

Considerable evidence implicates DISC1 as a susceptibility gene for multiple psychiatric diseases. DISC1 has been intensively studied at the molecular, cellular and behavioral level, but its role in regulating brain connectivity and brain network function remains unknown. Here, we utilize a set of complementary approaches to assess the functional brain network abnormalities present in mice expressing a truncated Disc1 gene (Disc1tr Hemi mice). Disc1tr Hemi mice exhibited hypometabolism in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and reticular thalamus along with a reorganization of functional brain network connectivity that included compromised hippocampal–PFC connectivity. Altered hippocampal–PFC connectivity in Disc1tr Hemi mice was confirmed by electrophysiological analysis, with Disc1tr Hemi mice showing a reduced probability of presynaptic neurotransmitter release in the monosynaptic glutamatergic hippocampal CA1–PFC projection. Glutamate system dysfunction in Disc1tr Hemi mice was further supported by the attenuated cerebral metabolic response to the NMDA receptor (NMDAR) antagonist ketamine and decreased hippocampal expression of NMDAR subunits 2A and 2B in these animals. These data show that the Disc1 truncation in Disc1tr Hemi mice induces a range of translationally relevant endophenotypes underpinned by glutamate system dysfunction and altered brain connectivity

Higher dimensional inhomogeneous dust collapse and cosmic censorship

We investigate the occurrence and nature of a naked singularity in the gravitational collapse of an inhomogeneous dust cloud described by higher dimensional Tolman-Bondi space-times. The naked singularities are found to be gravitationally strong in the sense of Tipler. Higher dimensions seem to favour black holes rather than naked singularities.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure, 2 table

Gravity, p-branes and a spacetime counterpart of the Higgs effect

We point out that the worldvolume coordinate functions $\hat{x}^\mu(\xi)$ of a $p$-brane, treated as an independent object interacting with dynamical gravity, are Goldstone fields for spacetime diffeomorphisms gauge symmetry. The presence of this gauge invariance is exhibited by its associated Noether identity, which expresses that the source equations follow from the gravitational equations. We discuss the spacetime counterpart of the Higgs effect and show that a $p$-brane does not carry any local degrees of freedom, extending early known general relativity features. Our considerations are also relevant for brane world scenarios.Comment: 5 pages, RevTeX. v2 (30-IV-03) with additional text and reference

Casimir Effect, Achucarro-Ortiz Black Hole and the Cosmological Constant

We treat the two-dimensional Achucarro-Ortiz black hole (also known as (1+1) dilatonic black hole) as a Casimir-type system. The stress tensor of a massless scalar field satisfying Dirichlet boundary conditions on two one-dimensional "walls" ("Dirichlet walls") is explicitly calculated in three different vacua. Without employing known regularization techniques, the expression in each vacuum for the stress tensor is reached by using the Wald's axioms. Finally, within this asymptotically non-flat gravitational background, it is shown that the equilibrium of the configurations, obtained by setting Casimir force to zero, is controlled by the cosmological constant.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX, minor corrections, comments and clarifications added, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Minimum black hole mass from colliding Gaussian packets

We study the formation of a black hole in the collision of two Gaussian packets. Rather than following their dynamical evolution in details, we assume a horizon forms when the mass function for the two packets becomes larger than half the flat areal radius, as it would occur in a spherically symmetric geometry. This simple approximation allows us to determine the existence of a minimum black hole mass solely related to the width of the packets. We then comment on the possible physical implications, both in classical and quantum physics, and models with extra spatial dimensions.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

A solution of the coincidence problem based on the recent galactic core black hole mass density increase

A mechanism capable to provide a natural solution to two major cosmological problems, i.e. the cosmic acceleration and the coincidence problem, is proposed. A specific brane-bulk energy exchange mechanism produces a total dark pressure, arising when adding all normal to the brane negative pressures in the interior of galactic core black holes. This astrophysically produced negative dark pressure explains cosmic acceleration and why the dark energy today is of the same order to the matter density for a wide range of the involved parameters. An exciting result of the analysis is that the recent rise of the galactic core black hole mass density causes the recent passage from cosmic deceleration to acceleration. Finally, it is worth mentioning that this work corrects a wide spread fallacy among brane cosmologists, i.e. that escaping gravitons result to positive dark pressure.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Black Hole Production at LHC: String Balls and Black Holes from pp and Lead-lead Collisions

If the fundamental planck scale is near a TeV, then parton collisions with high enough center-of-mass energy should produce black holes. The production rate for such black holes at LHC has been extensively studied for the case of a proton-proton collision. In this paper, we extend this analysis to a lead-lead collision at LHC. We find that the cross section for small black holes which may in principle be produced in such a collision is either enhanced or suppressed, depending upon the black hole mass. For example, for black holes with a mass around 3 TeV we find that the differential black hole production cross section, d\sigma/dM, in a typical lead-lead collision is up to 90 times larger than that for black holes produced in a typical proton-proton collision. We also discuss the cross-sections for `string ball' production in these collisions. For string balls of mass about 1 (2) TeV, we find that the differential production cross section in a typical lead-lead collision may be enhanced by a factor up to 3300 (850) times that of a proton-proton collision at LHC.Comment: Added some discussion, final version to appear in Phys. Rev. D (rapid communications

Defect Conformal Field Theory and Locally Localized Gravity

Gravity may be "locally localized" over a wide range of length scales on a d-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) brane living inside AdS_{d+1}. In this paper we examine this phenomenon from the point of view of the holographic dual "defect conformal field theory". The mode expansion of bulk fields on the gravity side is shown to be precisely dual to the "boundary operator product expansion" of operators as they approach the defect. From the field theory point of view, the condition for localization is that a "reduced operator" appearing in this expansion acquires negative anomalous dimension. In particular, a very light localized graviton exists when a mode arising from the reduction of the ambient stress-energy tensor to the defect has conformal dimension Delta ~ d-1. The part of the stress tensor containing the defect dynamics has dimension Delta = d-1 in the free theory, but we argue that it acquires an anomalous dimension in the interacting theory, and hence does not participate in localization in the regime of small backreaction of the brane. We demonstrate that such an anomalous dimension is consistent with the conservation of the full stress-energy tensor. Finally, we analyze how to compute the anomalous dimensions of reduced operators from gravity at leading order in the interactions with the brane.Comment: 38 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures. v2: typos fixe

Quantum Radiation from a 5-Dimensional Rotating Black Hole

We study a massless scalar field propagating in the background of a five-dimensional rotating black hole. We showed that in the Myers-Perry metric describing such a black hole the massless field equation allows the separation of variables. The obtained angular equation is a generalization of the equation for spheroidal functions. The radial equation is similar to the radial Teukolsky equation for the 4-dimensional Kerr metric. We use these results to quantize the massless scalar field in the space-time of the 5-dimensional rotating black hole and to derive expressions for energy and angular momentum fluxes from such a black hole.Comment: references added, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Small localized black holes in a braneworld: Formulation and numerical method

No realistic black holes localized on a 3-brane in the Randall-Sundrum infinite braneworld have been found so far. The problem of finding a static black hole solution is reduced to a boundary value problem. We solve it by means of a numerical method, and show numerical examples of a localized black hole whose horizon radius is small compared to the bulk curvature scale. The sequence of small localized black holes exhibits a smooth transition from a five-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole, which is a solution in the limit of small horizon radius. The localized black hole tends to flatten as its horizon radius increases. However, it becomes difficult to find black hole solutions as its horizon radius increases.Comment: RevTeX, 13 pages, 6 figures, references corrected, typos corrected; to appear in Phys.Rev.