379 research outputs found
Spontaneous Flavor and Parity Breaking with Wilson Fermions
We discuss the phase diagram of Wilson fermions in the -- plane for
two-flavor QCD. We argue that, as originally suggested by Aoki, there is a
phase in which flavor and parity are spontaneously broken. Recent numerical
results on the spectrum of the overlap Hamiltonian have been interpreted as
evidence against Aoki's conjecture. We show that they are in fact consistent
with the presence of a flavor-parity broken ``Aoki phase''. We also show how,
as the continuum limit is approached, one can study the lattice theory using
the continuum chiral Lagrangian supplemented by additional terms proportional
to powers of the lattice spacing. We find that there are two possible phase
structures at non-zero lattice spacing: (1) there is an Aoki phase of width
with two massless Goldstone pions; (2) there is no
symmetry breaking, and all three pions have an equal non-vanishing mass of
order . Present numerical evidence suggests that the former option is
realized for Wilson fermions. Our analysis then predicts the form of the pion
masses and the flavor-parity breaking condensate within the Aoki phase. Our
analysis also applies for non-perturbatively improved Wilson fermions.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures (added several references and a comment
The phase diagram of twisted mass lattice QCD
We use the effective chiral Lagrangian to analyze the phase diagram of
two-flavor twisted mass lattice QCD as a function of the normal and twisted
masses, generalizing previous work for the untwisted theory. We first determine
the chiral Lagrangian including discretization effects up to next-to-leading
order (NLO) in a combined expansion in which m_\pi^2/(4\pi f_\pi)^2 ~ a \Lambda
(a being the lattice spacing, and \Lambda = \Lambda_{QCD}). We then focus on
the region where m_\pi^2/(4\pi f_\pi)^2 ~ (a \Lambda)^2, in which case
competition between leading and NLO terms can lead to phase transitions. As for
untwisted Wilson fermions, we find two possible phase diagrams, depending on
the sign of a coefficient in the chiral Lagrangian. For one sign, there is an
Aoki phase for pure Wilson fermions, with flavor and parity broken, but this is
washed out into a crossover if the twisted mass is non-vanishing. For the other
sign, there is a first order transition for pure Wilson fermions, and we find
that this transition extends into the twisted mass plane, ending with two
symmetrical second order points at which the mass of the neutral pion vanishes.
We provide graphs of the condensate and pion masses for both scenarios, and
note a simple mathematical relation between them. These results may be of
importance to numerical simulations.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, small clarifying comments added in introduction,
minor typos fixed. Version to be published in Phys. Rev.
Partial Flavor Symmetry Restoration for Chiral Staggered Fermions
We study the leading discretization errors for staggered fermions by first
constructing the continuum effective Lagrangian including terms of O(a^2), and
then constructing the corresponding effective chiral Lagrangian. The terms of
O(a^2) in the continuum effective Lagrangian completely break the SU(4) flavor
symmetry down to the discrete subgroup respected by the lattice theory. We
find, however, that the O(a^2) terms in the potential of the chiral Lagrangian
maintain an SO(4) subgroup of SU(4). It follows that the leading discretization
errors in the pion masses are SO(4) symmetric, implying three degeneracies
within the seven lattice irreducible representations. These predictions hold
also for perturbatively improved versions of the action. These degeneracies are
observed, to a surprising degree of accuracy, in existing data. We argue that
the SO(4) symmetry does not extend to the masses and interactions of other
hadrons (vector mesons, baryons, etc), nor to higher order in a^2. We show how
it is possible that, for physical quark masses of O(a^2), the new SO(4)
symmetry can be spontaneously broken, leading to a staggered analogue of the
Aoki-phase of Wilson fermions. This does not, however, appear to happen for
presently studied versions of the staggered action.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures (using psfig). Version to appear in PRD
(clarifications added to introduction and section 6; typos corrected;
references updated
Identification of Functional Toxin/Immunity Genes Linked to Contact-Dependent Growth Inhibition (CDI) and Rearrangement Hotspot (Rhs) Systems
Bacterial contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) is mediated by the CdiA/CdiB family of two-partner secretion proteins. Each CdiA protein exhibits a distinct growth inhibition activity, which resides in the polymorphic C-terminal region (CdiA-CT). CDI+ cells also express unique CdiI immunity proteins that specifically block the activity of cognate CdiA-CT, thereby protecting the cell from autoinhibition. Here we show that many CDI systems contain multiple cdiA gene fragments that encode CdiA-CT sequences. These “orphan” cdiA-CT genes are almost always associated with downstream cdiI genes to form cdiA-CT/cdiI modules. Comparative genome analyses suggest that cdiA-CT/cdiI modules are mobile and exchanged between the CDI systems of different bacteria. In many instances, orphan cdiA-CT/cdiI modules are fused to full-length cdiA genes in other bacterial species. Examination of cdiA-CT/cdiI modules from Escherichia coli EC93, E. coli EC869, and Dickeya dadantii 3937 confirmed that these genes encode functional toxin/immunity pairs. Moreover, the orphan module from EC93 was functional in cell-mediated CDI when fused to the N-terminal portion of the EC93 CdiA protein. Bioinformatic analyses revealed that the genetic organization of CDI systems shares features with rhs (rearrangement hotspot) loci. Rhs proteins also contain polymorphic C-terminal regions (Rhs-CTs), some of which share significant sequence identity with CdiA-CTs. All rhs genes are followed by small ORFs representing possible rhsI immunity genes, and several Rhs systems encode orphan rhs-CT/rhsI modules. Analysis of rhs-CT/rhsI modules from D. dadantii 3937 demonstrated that Rhs-CTs have growth inhibitory activity, which is specifically blocked by cognate RhsI immunity proteins. Together, these results suggest that Rhs plays a role in intercellular competition and that orphan gene modules expand the diversity of toxic activities deployed by both CDI and Rhs systems
One-loop matching coefficients for improved staggered bilinears
We calculate one-loop matching factors for bilinear operators composed of
improved staggered fermions. We compare the results for different improvement
schemes used in the recent literature, all of which involve the use of smeared
links. These schemes aim to reduce, though not completely eliminate, O(a^2)
discretization errors. We find that all these improvement schemes substantially
reduce the size of matching factors compared to unimproved staggered fermions.
The resulting corrections are comparable to, or smaller than, those found with
Wilson and domain-wall fermions. In the best case (``Fat-7'' and mean-field
improved HYP links) the corrections are 10 % or smaller at 1/a = 2 GeV.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure (misleading sentence in sec. II removed; version
to appear in Physical Review D
Complementarity and Chiral Fermions in SU(2) gauge Theories
Complementarity - the absence of a phase boundary separating the Higgs and
confinement phases of a gauge theory - can be violated by the addition of
chiral fermions. We utilize chiral symmetry violating fermion correlators such
as \langle \bps \psi \rangle as order parameters to investigate this issue.
Using inequalities similar to those of Vafa-Witten and Weingarten, we show that
SU(2) gauge theories with Higgs and fermion fields in the fundamental
representation exhibit chiral symmetry breaking in the confined phase and
therefore do {\it not} lead to massless composite fermions. We discuss the
implications for the Abbott-Farhi strongly interacting standard model.Comment: 10 pages, HUTP-92-A047, 2 figures not include
Reduced functional measure of cardiovascular reserve predicts admission to critical care unit following kidney transplantation
Background: There is currently no effective preoperative assessment for patients undergoing kidney transplantation that is
able to identify those at high perioperative risk requiring admission to critical care unit (CCU). We sought to determine if
functional measures of cardiovascular reserve, in particular the anaerobic threshold (VO2AT) could identify these patients.
Methods: Adult patients were assessed within 4 weeks prior to kidney transplantation in a University hospital with a 37-bed
CCU, between April 2010 and June 2012. Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET), echocardiography and arterial
applanation tonometry were performed.
Results: There were 70 participants (age 41.7614.5 years, 60% male, 91.4% living donor kidney recipients, 23.4% were
desensitized). 14 patients (20%) required escalation of care from the ward to CCU following transplantation. Reduced
anaerobic threshold (VO2AT) was the most significant predictor, independently (OR = 0.43; 95% CI 0.27–0.68; p,0.001) and
in the multivariate logistic regression analysis (adjusted OR = 0.26; 95% CI 0.12–0.59; p = 0.001). The area under the receiveroperating-
characteristic curve was 0.93, based on a risk prediction model that incorporated VO2AT, body mass index and
desensitization status. Neither echocardiographic nor measures of aortic compliance were significantly associated with CCU
admission.
Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first prospective observational study to demonstrate the usefulness of CPET as a
preoperative risk stratification tool for patients undergoing kidney transplantation. The study suggests that VO2AT has the
potential to predict perioperative morbidity in kidney transplant recipients
Quantum Kinks: Solitons at Strong Coupling
We examine solitons in theories with heavy fermions. These ``quantum''
solitons differ dramatically from semi-classical (perturbative) solitons
because fermion loop effects are important when the Yukawa coupling is strong.
We focus on kinks in a --dimensional theory coupled to
fermions; a large- expansion is employed to treat the Yukawa coupling
nonperturbatively. A local expression for the fermion vacuum energy is derived
using the WKB approximation for the Dirac eigenvalues. We find that fermion
loop corrections increase the energy of the kink and (for large ) decrease
its size. For large , the energy of the quantum kink is proportional to ,
and its size scales as , unlike the classical kink; we argue that these
features are generic to quantum solitons in theories with strong Yukawa
couplings. We also discuss the possible instability of fermions to solitons.Comment: 21 pp. + 2 figs., phyzzx, JHU-TIPAC-92001
Quantum entanglement and disentanglement of multi-atom systems
We present a review of recent research on quantum entanglement, with special
emphasis on entanglement between single atoms, processing of an encoded
entanglement and its temporary evolution. Analysis based on the density matrix
formalism are described. We give a simple description of the entangling
procedure and explore the role of the environment in creation of entanglement
and in disentanglement of atomic systems. A particular process we will focus on
is spontaneous emission, usually recognized as an irreversible loss of
information and entanglement encoded in the internal states of the system. We
illustrate some certain circumstances where this irreversible process can in
fact induce entanglement between separated systems. We also show how
spontaneous emission reveals a competition between the Bell states of a two
qubit system that leads to the recently discovered "sudden" features in the
temporal evolution of entanglement. An another problem illustrated in details
is a deterministic preparation of atoms and atomic ensembles in long-lived
stationary squeezed states and entangled cluster states. We then determine how
to trigger the evolution of the stable entanglement and also address the issue
of a steered evolution of entanglement between desired pairs of qubits that can
be achieved simply by varying the parameters of a given system.Comment: Review articl
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