1,579 research outputs found
Impurity Energy Level Within The Haldane Gap
An impurity bond in a periodic 1D antiferromagnetic, spin 1 chain with
exchange is considered. Using the numerical density matrix renormalization
group method, we find an impurity energy level in the Haldane gap,
corresponding to a bound state near the impurity bond. When the level
changes gradually from the edge of the Haldane gap to the ground state energy
as the deviation changes from 0 to 1. It seems that there is
no threshold. Yet, there is a threshold when . The impurity level
appears only when the deviation is greater than ,
which is near 0.3 in our calculation.Comment: Latex file,9 pages uuencoded compressed postscript including 4
figure
Dynamical Structure Factor for the Alternating Heisenberg Chain: A Linked Cluster Calculation
We develop a linked cluster method to calculate the spectral weights of
many-particle excitations at zero temperature. The dynamical structure factor
is expressed as a sum of exclusive structure factors, each representing
contributions from a given set of excited states. A linked cluster technique to
obtain high order series expansions for these quantities is discussed. We apply
these methods to the alternating Heisenberg chain around the dimerized limit
(), where complete wavevector and frequency dependent spectral
weights for one and two-particle excitations (continuum and bound-states) are
obtained. For small to moderate values of the inter-dimer coupling parameter
, these lead to extremely accurate calculations of the dynamical
structure factors. We also examine the variation of the relative spectral
weights of one and two-particle states with bond alternation all the way up to
the limit of the uniform chain (). In agreement with Schmidt and
Uhrig, we find that the spectral weight is dominated by 2-triplet states even
at , which implies that a description in terms of triplet-pair
excitations remains a good quantitative description of the system even for the
uniform chain.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figure
Low-Lying Excited States and Low-Temperature Properties of an Alternating Spin-1 / Spin-1/2 Chain : A DMRG study
We report spin wave and DMRG studies of the ground and low-lying excited
states of uniform and dimerized alternating spin chains. The DMRG procedure is
also employed to obtain low-temperature thermodynamic properties of the system.
The ground state of a 2N spin system with spin-1 and spin-1/2 alternating from
site to site and interacting via an antiferromagnetic exchange is found to be
ferrimagnetic with total spin from both DMRG and spin wave analysis.
Both the studies also show that there is a gapless excitation to a state with
spin and a gapped excitation to a state with spin .
Surprisingly, the correlation length in the ground state is found to be very
small from both the studies for this gapless system. For this very reason, we
show that the ground state can be described by a variational ``ansatz'' of the
product type. DMRG analysis shows that the chain is susceptible to a
conditional spin-Peierls' instability. The DMRG studies of magnetization,
magnetic susceptibility () and specific heat show strong magnetic-field
dependence. The product shows a minimum as a function of
temperature() at low-magnetic fields and the minimum vanishes at
high-magnetic fields. This low-field behaviour is in agreement with earlier
experimental observations. The specific heat shows a maximum as a function of
temperature and the height of the maximum increases sharply at high magnetic
fields. It is hoped that these studies will motivate experimental studies at
high-magnetic fields.Comment: 22 pages in latex; 16 eps figures available upon reques
SAFEGUARDS AND NONPROLIFERATION CONSIDERATIONS RELEVANT TO FUELS REFABRICATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Early in the Fuels Refabrication and Development (FRAD) program, it was recognized that safeguards and nonproliferation design criteria were needed to provide guidance to equipment, process, and facility designers. This need was highlighted by the recent attention given safeguards and proliferation. Because of this heightened concern, it was found that design criteria that adequately address safeguards and nonproliferation do not now exist. For this reason, a three-day workshop was convened to attempt to collect and organize existing information regarding design criteria. This document is a result of that undertaking and the subsequent efforts required to structure the information. In summary, it was found that domestic and international goals and objectives are reasonably well established. Goals and objectives for evaluating the proliferation resistance of a facility are less firmly defined. A listing of design criteria for domestic and international safeguards has not been compiled. This document presents a summary of considerations that must be incorporated into design criteria but stops short of developing a comprehensive list of design criteria. One is certainly needed and should be funded as a follow-on effort. Following the development of the design criteria, the next logical steps are the development of evaluation methodologies and acceptance criteria. These also were proposed as logical follow-on activities which would be needed before a major FRAD design activity could be initiated
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Shadowgraph illumination techniques for framing cameras
Many pulse power applications in use at the Pegasus facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory require specialized imaging techniques. Due to the short event duration times, visible images are recorded by high speed electronic framing cameras. Framing cameras provide the advantages of high speed movies of back light experiments. These high speed framing cameras require bright illumination sources to record images with 10 ns integration times. High power lasers offer sufficient light for back illuminating the target assemblies; however, laser speckle noise lowers the contrast in the image. Laser speckle noise also limits the effective resolution. This discussion focuses on the use of telescopes to collect images 50 feet away. Both light field and dark field illumination techniques are compared. By adding relay lenses between the assembly target and the telescope, a high resolution magnified image can be recorded. For dark field illumination, these relay lenses can be used to separate the object field from the illumination laser. The illumination laser can be made to focus onto the opaque secondary of a Schmidt telescope. Thus, the telescope only collects scattered light from the target assembly. This dark field illumination eliminates the laser speckle noise and allows high resolution images to be recorded. Using the secondary of the telescope to block the illumination laser makes dark field illumination an ideal choice for the framing camera
Novel mutations in TARDBP (TDP-43) in patients with familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
The TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) has been identified as the major disease protein in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration with ubiquitin inclusions (FTLD-U), defining a novel class of neurodegenerative conditions: the TDP-43 proteinopathies. The first pathogenic mutations in the gene encoding TDP-43 (TARDBP) were recently reported in familial and sporadic ALS patients, supporting a direct role for TDP-43 in neurodegeneration. In this study, we report the identification and functional analyses of two novel and one known mutation in TARDBP that we identified as a result of extensive mutation analyses in a cohort of 296 patients with variable neurodegenerative diseases associated with TDP-43 histopathology. Three different heterozygous missense mutations in exon 6 of TARDBP (p.M337V, p.N345K, and p.I383V) were identified in the analysis of 92 familial ALS patients (3.3%), while no mutations were detected in 24 patients with sporadic ALS or 180 patients with other TDP-43-positive neurodegenerative diseases. The presence of p.M337V, p.N345K, and p.I383V was excluded in 825 controls and 652 additional sporadic ALS patients. All three mutations affect highly conserved amino acid residues in the C-terminal part of TDP-43 known to be involved in protein-protein interactions. Biochemical analysis of TDP-43 in ALS patient cell lines revealed a substantial increase in caspase cleaved fragments, including the approximately 25 kDa fragment, compared to control cell lines. Our findings support TARDBP mutations as a cause of ALS. Based on the specific C-terminal location of the mutations and the accumulation of a smaller C-terminal fragment, we speculate that TARDBP mutations may cause a toxic gain of function through novel protein interactions or intracellular accumulation of TDP-43 fragments leading to apoptosis
Finite Temperature Properties of Quantum Antiferromagnets in a Uniform Magnetic Field in One and Two Dimensions
Consider a -dimensional antiferromagnet with a quantum disordered ground
state and a gap to bosonic excitations with non-zero spin. In a finite external
magnetic field, this antiferromagnet will undergo a phase transition to a
ground state with non-zero magnetization, describable as the condensation of a
dilute gas of bosons. The finite temperature properties of the Bose gas in the
vicinity of this transition are argued to obey a hypothesis of ZERO
SCALE-FACTOR UNIVERSALITY for , with logarithmic violations in .
Scaling properties of various experimental observables are computed in an
expansion in , and exactly in .Comment: 27 pages, REVTEX 3.0, 8 Postscript figures appended, YCTP-xyz
Imatinib in combination with hydroxyurea versus hydroxyurea alone as oral therapy in patients with progressive pretreated glioblastoma resistant to standard dose temozolomide
A randomized, multicenter, open-label, phase 3 study of patients with progressive, recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) for whom front-line therapy had failed was conducted. This study was designed to determine whether combination therapy with imatinib and hydroxyurea (HU) has superior antitumor activity compared with HU monotherapy in the treatment of recurrent GBM. The target population consisted of patients with confirmed recurrent GBM and an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0-2 who had completed previous treatment comprising surgical resection, irradiation therapy, and first-line chemotherapy (preferably temozolomide (TMZ) containing regimen) and who have progressed despite treatment. If first-line chemotherapy did not contain TMZ, a second completed chemotherapy was acceptable. The primary efficacy parameter was progression-free survival (PFS). The primary comparison of combination therapy versus monotherapy for PFS was not significant (adjusted P = 0.56). The hazard ratio (HR) (adjusted HR = 0.93) was not clinically relevant. The median PFS for the combination arm was low at 6 weeks and similar to the median PFS in the monotherapy arm (6 weeks). The 6-month PFS for the two treatment groups was very similar (5% in the combination arm vs. 7% in the monotherapy arm). No clinically meaningful differences were found between the two treatment arms, and the primary study end point was not met. Among the patients receiving imatinib, no adverse events were reported that were either previously unknown or unexpected as a consequence of the disease
Ab initio van der Waals interactions in simulations of water alter structure from mainly tetrahedral to high-density-like
The structure of liquid water at ambient conditions is studied in ab initio
molecular dynamics simulations using van der Waals (vdW) density-functional
theory, i.e. using the new exchange-correlation functionals optPBE-vdW and
vdW-DF2. Inclusion of the more isotropic vdW interactions counteracts highly
directional hydrogen-bonds, which are enhanced by standard functionals. This
brings about a softening of the microscopic structure of water, as seen from
the broadening of angular distribution functions and, in particular, from the
much lower and broader first peak in the oxygen-oxygen pair-correlation
function (PCF), indicating loss of structure in the outer solvation shells. In
combination with softer non-local correlation terms, as in the new
parameterization of vdW-DF, inclusion of vdW interactions is shown to shift the
balance of resulting structures from open tetrahedral to more close-packed. The
resulting O-O PCF shows some resemblance with experiment for high-density water
(A. K. Soper and M. A. Ricci, Phys. Rev. Lett., 84:2881, 2000), but not
directly with experiment for ambient water. However, an O-O PCF consisting of a
linear combination of 70% from vdW-DF2 and 30% from experiment on low-density
liquid water reproduces near-quantitatively the experimental O-O PCF for
ambient water, indicating consistency with a two-liquid model with fluctuations
between high- and low-density regions
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