210 research outputs found
On Low-Energy Effective Actions in N = 2, 4 Superconformal Theories in Four Dimensions
We study some aspects of low-energy effective actions in 4-d superconformal
gauge theories on the Coulomb branch. We describe superconformal invariants
constructed in terms of N=2 abelian vector multiplet which play the role of
building blocks for the N=2,4 supersymmetric low-energy effective actions. We
compute the one-loop effective actions in constant N=2 field strength
background in N=4 SYM theory and in N=2 SU(2) SYM theory with four
hypermultiplets in fundamental representation. Using the classification of
superconformal invariants we then find the manifestly N=2 superconformal form
of these effective actions. While our explicit computations are done in the
one-loop approximation, our conclusions about the structure of the effective
actions in N=2 superconformal theories are general. We comment on some
applications to supergravity - gauge theory duality in the description of
D-brane interactions.Comment: 18 pages, latex, comments/reference adde
Nonlinear Realization of N=2 Superconformal Symmetry and Brane Effective Actions
Due to the incompatibility of the nonlinear realization of superconformal
symmetry and dilatation symmetry with the dilaton as the compensator field, in
the present paper it shows an alternative mechanism of spontaneous breaking the
N=2 superconformal symmetry to the N=0 case. By using the approach of nonlinear
transformations it is found that it leads to a space-filling brane theory with
Weyl scale W(1,3) symmetry. The dynamics of the resulting Weyl scale invariant
brane, along with that of other Nambu-Goldstone fields, is derived in terms of
the building blocks of the vierbein and the covariant derivative from the
Maurer-Cartan oneforms. A general coupling of the matter fields localized on
the brane world volume to these NG fields is also constructed.Comment: 22 pages, more references and comments are adde
Background field formalism and construction of effective action for N=2, d=3 supersymmetric gauge theories
We review the background field method for three-dimensional Yang-Mills and
Chern-Simons models in N=2 superspace. Superfield proper time (heat kernel)
techniques are developed and exact expressions of heat kernels for constant
backgrounds are presented. The background field method and heat kernel
techniques are applied for evaluating the low-energy effective actions in N=2
supersymmetric Yang-Mills and Chern-Simons models as well as in N=4 and N=8 SYM
theories.Comment: 1+30 pages, dedicated to the 60 year Jubilee of Professor D.I.
Kazakov; references added. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1010.496
ABJM models in N=3 harmonic superspace
We construct the classical action of the Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena
(ABJM) model in the N=3, d=3 harmonic superspace. In such a formulation three
out of six supersymmetries are realized off shell while the other three mix the
superfields and close on shell. The superfield action involves two
hypermultiplet superfields in the bifundamental representation of the gauge
group and two Chern-Simons gauge superfields corresponding to the left and
right gauge groups. The N=3 superconformal invariance allows only for a minimal
gauge interaction of the hypermultiplets. Amazingly, the correct sextic scalar
potential of ABJM emerges after the elimination of auxiliary fields. Besides
the original U(N)xU(N) ABJM model, we also construct N=3 superfield
formulations of some generalizations. For the SU(2)xSU(2) case we give a simple
superfield proof of its enhanced N=8 supersymmetry and SO(8) R-symmetry.Comment: 1+35 pages, minor changes, a reference added, published versio
On the Background Field Method Beyond One Loop: A manifestly covariant derivative expansion in super Yang-Mills theories
There are currently many string inspired conjectures about the structure of
the low-energy effective action for super Yang-Mills theories which require
explicit multi-loop calculations. In this paper, we develop a manifestly
covariant derivative expansion of superspace heat kernels and present a scheme
to evaluate multi-loop contributions to the effective action in the framework
of the background field method. The crucial ingredient of the construction is a
detailed analysis of the properties of the parallel displacement propagators
associated with Yang-Mills supermultiples in N-extended superspace.Comment: 32 pages, latex, 7 EPS figures. v2: references, comments added, typos
corrected, incorrect `skeleton' conjecture in sect. 3 replaced by a more
careful treatment. v3: typos corrected, final version published in JHE
On Low-Energy Effective Action in N=2 Super Yang-Mills Theories on Non-Abelian Background
We compute the non-holomorphic corrections to low-energy effective action
(higher derivative terms) in N=2, SU(2) SYM theory coupled to hypermultiplets
on a non-abelian background for a class of gauge fixing conditions. A general
procedure for calculating the gauge parameters depending contributions to
one-loop superfield effective action is developed. The one-loop non-holomorphic
effective potential is exactly found in terms of Euler dilogarithm function for
specific choice of gauge parameters.Comment: LaTeX, 21 pages, typos corrected and references adde
Circular Permutation of Red Fluorescent Proteins
Circular permutation of fluorescent proteins provides a substrate for the design of molecular sensors. Here we describe a systematic exploration of permutation sites for mCherry and mKate using a tandem fusion template approach. Circular permutants retaining more than 60% (mCherry) and 90% (mKate) brightness of the parent molecules are reported, as well as a quantitative evaluation of the fluorescence from neighboring mutations. Truncations of circular permutants indicated essential N- and C- terminal segments and substantial flexibility in the use of these molecules. Structural evaluation of two cp-mKate variants indicated no major conformational changes from the previously reported wild-type structure, and cis conformation of the chromophores. Four cp-mKates were identified with over 80% of native fluorescence, providing important new building blocks for sensor and complementation experiments
Multiscale photoacoustic tomography using reversibly switchable bacterial phytochrome as a near-infrared photochromic probe
Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) of genetically encoded probes allows for imaging of targeted biological processes deep in tissues with high spatial resolution; however, high background signals from blood can limit the achievable detection sensitivity. Here we describe a reversibly switchable nonfluorescent bacterial phytochrome for use in multiscale photoacoustic imaging, BphP1, with the most red-shifted absorption among genetically encoded probes. BphP1 binds a heme-derived biliverdin chromophore and is reversibly photoconvertible between red and near-infrared light-absorption states. We combined single-wavelength PAT with efficient BphP1 photoswitching, which enabled differential imaging with substantially decreased background signals, enhanced detection sensitivity, increased penetration depth and improved spatial resolution. We monitored tumor growth and metastasis with ~100-μm resolution at depths approaching 10 mm using photoacoustic computed tomography, and we imaged individual cancer cells with a suboptical-diffraction resolution of ~140 nm using photoacoustic microscopy. This technology is promising for biomedical studies at several scales
A Genetically Encoded Tag for Correlated Light and Electron Microscopy of Intact Cells, Tissues, and Organisms
Electron microscopy (EM) achieves the highest spatial resolution in protein localization, but specific protein EM labeling has lacked generally applicable genetically encoded tags for in situ visualization in cells and tissues. Here we introduce “miniSOG” (for mini Singlet Oxygen Generator), a fluorescent flavoprotein engineered from Arabidopsis phototropin 2. MiniSOG contains 106 amino acids, less than half the size of Green Fluorescent Protein. Illumination of miniSOG generates sufficient singlet oxygen to locally catalyze the polymerization of diaminobenzidine into an osmiophilic reaction product resolvable by EM. MiniSOG fusions to many well-characterized proteins localize correctly in mammalian cells, intact nematodes, and rodents, enabling correlated fluorescence and EM from large volumes of tissue after strong aldehyde fixation, without the need for exogenous ligands, probes, or destructive permeabilizing detergents. MiniSOG permits high quality ultrastructural preservation and 3-dimensional protein localization via electron tomography or serial section block face scanning electron microscopy. EM shows that miniSOG-tagged SynCAM1 is presynaptic in cultured cortical neurons, whereas miniSOG-tagged SynCAM2 is postsynaptic in culture and in intact mice. Thus SynCAM1 and SynCAM2 could be heterophilic partners. MiniSOG may do for EM what Green Fluorescent Protein did for fluorescence microscopy
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