Natural Inflation From Fermion Loops

``Natural'' inflationary theories are a class of models in which inflation is driven by a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson. In this paper we consider two models, one old and one new, in which the potential for inflation is generated by loop effects from a fermion sector which explicitly breaks a global $U(1)$ symmetry. In both models, we retrieve the ``standard'' natural inflation potential, $V\left(\theta\right) = \Lambda^4\left[1 + \cos\left(\theta / \mu\right)\right]$, as a limiting case of the exact one-loop potential, but we carry out a general analysis of the models including the limiting case. Constraints from the COBE DMR observation and from theoretical consistency are used to limit the parameters of the models, and successful inflation occurs without the necessity of fine-tuning the parameters.Comment: (Revised) 15 pages, LaTeX (revTeX), 8 figures in uuencoded PostScript format. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D 15. Corrected definition of power spectrum and added three reference

Qualitative Real-Time PCR SYBR Green Detection of Petri Disease Fungi

Real-time PCR provides a fast, reliable, and cost-effective method for detecting the presence or absence of Petri disease fungi in grapevines. The primer pairs, Pmo1f + Pmo2r, and Pac1f + Pac2r, were designed for species and genus-specific amplification of Phaeomoniella chlamydospora and Phaeoacremonium spp. respectively, using realtime PCR with SYBR® Green. The primers were specific and showed no primer-primer dimers until after 35 cycles. Pa. chlamydospora was detected in roots, shoots, and young trunks of drill-inoculated vines. Phaeoacremonium was detected in trunk cross-sections of naturally infected vines from which Phaeoacremonium aleophilum had been isolated. The protocol presented here can be adapted to provide a reliable detection system for research and industry