Octopamine increases the excitability of neurons in the snail feeding system by modulation of inward sodium current but not outward potassium currents

Background: Although octopamine has long been known to have major roles as both transmitter and modulator in arthropods, it has only recently been shown to be functionally important in molluscs, playing a role as a neurotransmitter in the feeding network of the snail Lymnaea stagnalis. The synaptic potentials cannot explain all the effects of octopamine-containing neurons on the feeding network, and here we test the hypothesis that octopamine is also a neuromodulator. Results: The excitability of the B1 and B4 motoneurons in the buccal ganglia to depolarising current clamp pulses is significantly (P << 0.05) increased by (10 mu M) octopamine, whereas the B2 motoneuron becomes significantly less excitable. The ionic currents evoked by voltage steps were recorded using 2-electrode voltage clamp. The outward current of B1, B2 and B4 motoneurons had two components, a transient I-A current and a sustained I-K delayed-rectifier current, but neither was modulated by octopamine in any of these three buccal neurons. The fast inward current was eliminated in sodium - free saline and so is likely to be carried by sodium ions. 10 mu M octopamine enhanced this current by 33 and 45% in the B1 and B4 motoneurons respectively (P << 0.05), but a small reduction was seen in the B2 neuron. A Hodgkin-Huxley style simulation of the B1 motoneuron confirms that a 33% increase in the fast inward current by octopamine increases the excitability markedly. Conclusion: We conclude that octopamine is also a neuromodulator in snails, changing the excitability of the buccal neurons. This is supported by the close relationship from the voltage clamp data, through the quantitative simulation, to the action potential threshold, changing the properties of neurons in a rhythmic network. The increase in inward sodium current provides an explanation for the polycyclic modulation of the feeding system by the octopamine-containing interneurons, making feeding easier to initiate and making the feeding bursts more intense

Fermions and noncommutative emergent gravity II: Curved branes in extra dimensions

We study fermions coupled to Yang-Mills matrix models from the point of view of emergent gravity. The matrix model Dirac operator provides an appropriate coupling for fermions to the effective gravitational metric for general branes with nontrivial embedding, albeit with a non-standard spin connection. This generalizes previous results for 4-dimensional matrix models. Integrating out the fermions in a nontrivial geometrical background induces indeed the Einstein-Hilbert action of the effective metric, as well as additional terms which couple the Poisson tensor to the Riemann tensor, and a dilaton-like term.Comment: 34 pages; minor change

UV/IR duality in noncommutative quantum field theory

We review the construction of renormalizable noncommutative euclidean phi(4)-theories based on the UV/IR duality covariant modification of the standard field theory, and how the formalism can be extended to scalar field theories defined on noncommutative Minkowski space.Comment: 12 pages; v2: minor corrections, note and references added; Contribution to proceedings of the 2nd School on "Quantum Gravity and Quantum Geometry" session of the 9th Hellenic School on Elementary Particle Physics and Gravity, Corfu, Greece, September 13-20 2009. To be published in General Relativity and Gravitatio

The effect of quantization on the FCIQMC sign problem

The sign problem in Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo (FCIQMC) without annihilation can be understood as an instability of the psi-particle population to the ground state of the matrix obtained by making all off-diagonal elements of the Hamiltonian negative. Such a matrix, and hence the sign problem, is basis dependent. In this paper we discuss the properties of a physically important basis choice: first versus second quantization. For a given choice of single-particle orbitals, we identify the conditions under which the fermion sign problem in the second quantized basis of antisymmetric Slater determinants is identical to the sign problem in the first quantized basis of unsymmetrized Hartree products. We also show that, when the two differ, the fermion sign problem is always less severe in the second quantized basis. This supports the idea that FCIQMC, even in the absence of annihilation, improves the sign problem relative to first quantized methods. Finally, we point out some theoretically interesting classes of Hamiltonians where first and second quantized sign problems differ, and others where they do not.Comment: 4 pages w/ 2 page appendix, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Hartree-Fock and Many-Body Perturbation Theory with Correlated Realistic NN-Interactions

We employ correlated realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions for the description of nuclear ground states throughout the nuclear chart within the Hartree-Fock approximation. The crucial short-range central and tensor correlations, which are induced by the realistic interaction and cannot be described by the Hartree-Fock many-body state itself, are included explicitly by a state-independent unitary transformation in the framework of the unitary correlation operator method (UCOM). Using the correlated realistic interaction V_UCOM resulting from the Argonne V18 potential, bound nuclei are obtained already on the Hartree-Fock level. However, the binding energies are smaller than the experimental values because long-range correlations have not been accounted for. Their inclusion by means of many-body perturbation theory leads to a remarkable agreement with experimental binding energies over the whole mass range from He-4 to Pb-208, even far off the valley of stability. The observed perturbative character of the residual long-range correlations and the apparently small net effect of three-body forces provides promising perspectives for a unified nuclear structure description.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, using REVTEX

Adaptive high-order finite element solution of transient elastohydrodynamic lubrication problems

This article presents a new numerical method to solve transient line contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) problems. A high-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method is used for the spatial discretization, and the standard Crank-Nicolson method is employed to approximate the time derivative. An h-adaptivity method is used for grid adaptation with the time-stepping, and the penalty method is employed to handle the cavitation condition. The roughness model employed here is a simple indentation, which is located on the upper surface. Numerical results are presented comparing the DG method to standard finite difference (FD) techniques. It is shown that micro-EHL features are captured with far fewer degrees of freedom than when using low-order FD methods

Violation of the phase space general covariance as a diffeomorphism anomaly in quantum mechanics

We consider a topological quantum mechanics described by a phase space path integral and study the 1-dimensional analog for the path integral representation of the Kontsevich formula. We see that the naive bosonic integral possesses divergences, that it is even naively non-invariant and thus is ill-defined. We then consider a super-extension of the theory which eliminates the divergences and makes the theory naively invariant. This super-extension is equivalent to the correct choice of measure and was discussed in the literature. We then investigate the behavior of this extended theory under diffeomorphisms of the extended phase space and despite of its naive invariance find out that the theory possesses anomaly under nonlinear diffeomorphisms. We localize the origin of the anomaly and calculate the lowest nontrivial anomalous contribution.Comment: 36 page

The Electrostatic Ion Beam Trap : a mass spectrometer of infinite mass range

We study the ions dynamics inside an Electrostatic Ion Beam Trap (EIBT) and show that the stability of the trapping is ruled by a Hill's equation. This unexpectedly demonstrates that an EIBT, in the reference frame of the ions works very similar to a quadrupole trap. The parallelism between these two kinds of traps is illustrated by comparing experimental and theoretical stability diagrams of the EIBT. The main difference with quadrupole traps is that the stability depends only on the ratio of the acceleration and trapping electrostatic potentials, not on the mass nor the charge of the ions. All kinds of ions can be trapped simultaneously and since parametric resonances are proportional to the square root of the charge/mass ratio the EIBT can be used as a mass spectrometer of infinite mass range

A symmetry reduction technique for higher order Painlev\'e systems

The symmetry reduction of higher order Painlev\'e systems is formulated in terms of Dirac procedure. A set of canonical variables that admit Dirac reduction procedure is proposed for Hamiltonian structures governing the ${A^{(1)}_{2M}}$ and ${A^{(1)}_{2M-1}}$ Painlev\'e systems for $M=2,3,...$.Comment: to appear in Phys. Lett.