Cenh3: An Emerging Player in Haploid Induction Technology.

True-breeding lines are required for the development and production of crop varieties. In a classical breeding approach these lines are obtained through inbreeding, and often 7-9 generations of inbreeding is performed to achieve the desired level of homozygosity, over a period of several years. In contrast, the chromosomes of haploids can be doubled to produce true-breeding lines in a single generation. Over the last century, scientists have developed a variety of techniques to induce haploids and doubled haploids, though these techniques apply only to particular crop varieties. Ravi and Chan (2010) discovered that haploids could be obtained in Arabidopsis through the manipulation of the centromere-specific histone 3 variant, CENH3. Their approach, which involved extensive modifications to a transgenic CENH3, held promise of being translated to crop species, and has been successfully employed in maize (see Kelliher et al., 2016). Refinements of this technology have since been developed which indicate that non-transgenic modifications to CENH3 will also induce haploids. The complementation of a cenh3 null by CENH3 from closely related plant species can result in plants that are fertile but haploid-inducing on crossing by CENH3 wt plants- suggesting that introgression of alien CENH3 may produce non-transgenic haploid inducers. Similarly, a remarkably wide variety of point mutations in CENH3, inducible by chemical agents, have recently been shown to result in haploid induction on crossing by wild-type CENH3 plants. These CENH3-variant plants grow normally, are fully fertile on self-pollination, and may be present in existing mutagenized collections

Ehrenfest Dynamics and Frictionless Cooling Methods

Recently introduced methods which result in shortcuts to adiabaticity, particularly in the context of frictionless cooling, are rederived and discussed in the framework of an approach based on Ehrenfest dynamics. This construction provides physical insights into the emergence of the Ermakov equation, the choice of its boundary conditions, and the use of minimum uncertainty states as indicators of the efficiency of the procedure. Additionally, it facilitates the extension of frictionless cooling to more general situations of physical relevance, such as optical dipole trapping schemes. In this context, we discuss frictionless cooling in the short-time limit, a complementary case to the one considered in the literature, making explicit the limitations intrinsic to the technique when the full three-dimensional case is analyzed.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, v2: To appear in Physical Review A. (some minor typos corrected and some references added

A nonlinear Ramsey interferometer operating beyond the Heisenberg limit

We show that a dynamically evolving two-mode Bose-Einstein condensate (TBEC) with an adiabatic, time-varying Raman coupling maps exactly onto a nonlinear Ramsey interferometer that includes a nonlinear medium. Assuming a realistic quantum state for the TBEC, namely the SU(2) coherent spin state, we find that the measurement uncertainty of the ``path-difference'' phase shift scales as the standard quantum limit (1/N^{1/2}) where N is the number of atoms, while that for the interatomic scattering strength scales as 1/N^{7/5}, overcoming the Heisenberg limit of 1/N.Comment: 4 figures. Submitted for publicatio

An Atom Laser is not monochromatic

We study both numerically and analytically the possibility of using an adiabatic passage control method to construct a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) for Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in the time domain, in exact one-to-one correspondence with the traditional optical MZI that involves two beam splitters and two mirrors. The interference fringes one obtains from such a minimum-disturbance set up clearly demonstrates that, fundamentally, an atom laser is not monochromatic due to interatomic interactions. We also consider how the amount of entanglement in the system correlates to the interference fringes.Comment: 4 figures. Submitted for publicatio

Squeezing and robustness of frictionless cooling strategies

Quantum control strategies that provide shortcuts to adiabaticity are increasingly considered in various contexts including atomic cooling. Recent studies have emphasized practical issues in order to reduce the gap between the idealized models and actual ongoing implementations. We rephrase here the cooling features in terms of a peculiar squeezing effect, and use it to parametrize the robustness of frictionless cooling techniques with respect to noise-induced deviations from the ideal time-dependent trajectory for the trapping frequency. We finally discuss qualitative issues for the experimental implementation of this scheme using bichromatic optical traps and lattices, which seem especially suitable for cooling Fermi-Bose mixtures and for investigating equilibration of negative temperature states, respectively.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures; To appear in Physical Review

New Experimental-Technique For The Fabrication Of Ion Diffused Optical-Glass Wave-Guides

A new electric-field-assisted ion diffusion technique has been used for the fabrication of optical waveguides in glass. The construction of the setup is discussed in detail. Ion exchange in standard glass slide can be performed very efficiently and the setup can be conveniently used for double diffusions which are required for the fabrication of buried waveguides. Silver ions of various mole fractions were diffused in glass by this technique. Diffusion depth measurements were made both for the fabricated planar and channel waveguides

Landing of giant rock cod Promicrops lanceolatus (Bloch 1970) at New Ferry Wharf, Mumbai

The giant rock cod, Promicrops lanceolatus (Epinephalus lanceolatus) is found off the entire coastline of the Western Indian Ocean, in the waters of Indonesia, the Phililppines, Taiwan and Australia (Fischer and Bianchi, 1984)

Case of tumour in Otolithies cuvieri landed at New Ferry Wharf, Mumbai

Otolithies cuvieri landed at New Ferry Wharf was affected with Tumou