Effects of Trauma-Hemorrhage and IL-6 Deficiency on Splenic Immune Function in a Murine Trauma Model

Splenic immune function is known to be depressed following hemorrhage. The present study investigates the effects of femoral shaft fracture, isolated or in combination with hemorrhage, on early stage cytokine production capacity of splenocytes and observes the role of IL-6 under these conditions. Male IL-6 knockout (IL-6−/−) and wild-type mice (WT) were randomly divided into three groups: sham (S), isolated femoral fracture (Fx), and femoral fracture + volume controlled hemorrhage (TH-Fx) (n = 6 per group). Animals were sacrificed four hours after induction of hemorrhage and fracture. Cytokine release (TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-10) of isolated and LPS-stimulated splenocytes was determined by cytometric bead array. Femoral fracture with or without hemorrhage caused a suppression of in vitro cytokine production capacity of splenocytes at an early posttraumatic stage in WT and IL-6−/−. In the absence of IL-6, the profile of splenic cytokine secretion is significantly altered, identifying this cytokine as a potential therapeutic target to modulate the posttraumatic immune response

Magnetic hysteresis in the Cu-Al-Mn intermetallic alloy: experiments and modeling

We study isothermal magnetization processes in the Cu-Al-Mn intermetallic alloy. Hysteresis is observed at temperatures below the spin-freezing of the system. The characteristics of the hysteresis cycles as a function of temperature and Mn content (magnetic element) are obtained. At low temperature (5 K) a change from smooth to sharp cycles is observed with increasing Mn content, which is related to the decrease of configurational disorder. We also study a zero-temperature site-diluted Ising model, suitable for the description of this Cu-Al-Mn system. The model reproduces the main features of the hysteresis loops observed experimentally. It exhibits a disorder-induced critical line separating a disordered phase from an incipient ferromagnetic ground-state. The comparison between the model and the experiments allows to conclude that the observed change in the experimental hysteresis loops can be understood within the framework of the theory of disorder-induced criticality in fluctuationless first-order phase transitions.Comment: 30 pages, 15 eps figures, 2 tables. To appear Phys. Rev. B 59 (June 1999

Magnetic hysteresis in the Cu-Al-Mn intermetallic alloy: experiments and modeling

We study isothermal magnetization processes in the Cu-Al-Mn intermetallic alloy. Hysteresis is observed at temperatures below the spin-freezing of the system. The characteristics of the hysteresis cycles as a function of temperature and Mn content (magnetic element) are obtained. At low temperature (5 K) a change from smooth to sharp cycles is observed with increasing Mn content, which is related to the decrease of configurational disorder. We also study a zero-temperature site-diluted Ising model, suitable for the description of this Cu-Al-Mn system. The model reproduces the main features of the hysteresis loops observed experimentally. It exhibits a disorder-induced critical line separating a disordered phase from an incipient ferromagnetic ground-state. The comparison between the model and the experiments allows to conclude that the observed change in the experimental hysteresis loops can be understood within the framework of the theory of disorder-induced criticality in fluctuationless first-order phase transitions.Comment: 30 pages, 15 eps figures, 2 tables. To appear Phys. Rev. B 59 (June 1999

Observation of Fluctuation-Dissipation-Theorem Violations in a Structural Glass

The fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT), connecting dielectric susceptibility and polarization noise was studied in glycerol below its glass transition temperature Tg. Weak FDT violations were observed after a quench from just above to just below Tg, for frequencies above the alpha peak. Violations persisted up to 10^5 times the thermal equilibration time of the configurational degrees of freedom under study, but comparable to the average relaxation time of the material. These results suggest that excess energy flows from slower to faster relaxing modes.Comment: Improved discussion; final version to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. 4 pages, 5 PS figures, RevTe

Direct measurement of antiferromagnetic domain fluctuations

Measurements of magnetic noise emanating from ferromagnets due to domain motion were first carried out nearly 100 years ago and have underpinned much science and technology. Antiferromagnets, which carry no net external magnetic dipole moment, yet have a periodic arrangement of the electron spins extending over macroscopic distances, should also display magnetic noise, but this must be sampled at spatial wavelengths of order several interatomic spacings, rather than the macroscopic scales characteristic of ferromagnets. Here we present the first direct measurement of the fluctuations in the nanometre-scale spin- (charge-) density wave superstructure associated with antiferromagnetism in elemental Chromium. The technique used is X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy, where coherent x-ray diffraction produces a speckle pattern that serves as a "fingerprint" of a particular magnetic domain configuration. The temporal evolution of the patterns corresponds to domain walls advancing and retreating over micron distances. While the domain wall motion is thermally activated at temperatures above 100K, it is not so at lower temperatures, and indeed has a rate which saturates at a finite value - consistent with quantum fluctuations - on cooling below 40K. Our work is important because it provides an important new measurement tool for antiferromagnetic domain engineering as well as revealing a fundamental new fact about spin dynamics in the simplest antiferromagnet.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall and the Barkhausen effect

We derive an equation of motion for the the dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall driven by an external magnetic field through a disordered medium and we study the associated depinning transition. The long-range dipolar interactions set the upper critical dimension to be $d_c=3$, so we suggest that mean-field exponents describe the Barkhausen effect for three-dimensional soft ferromagnetic materials. We analyze the scaling of the Barkhausen jumps as a function of the field driving rate and the intensity of the demagnetizing field, and find results in quantitative agreement with experiments on crystalline and amorphous soft ferromagnetic alloys.Comment: 4 RevTex pages, 3 ps figures embedde

Experimental and Theoretical Investigation into the Effect of the Electron Velocity Distribution on Chaotic Oscillations in an Electron Beam under Virtual Cathode Formation Conditions

The effect of the electron transverse and longitudinal velocity spread at the entrance to the interaction space on wide-band chaotic oscillations in intense multiple-velocity beams is studied theoretically and numerically under the conditions of formation of a virtual cathode. It is found that an increase in the electron velocity spread causes chaotization of virtual cathode oscillations. An insight into physical processes taking place in a virtual cathode multiple velocity beam is gained by numerical simulation. The chaotization of the oscillations is shown to be associated with additional electron structures, which were separated out by constructing charged particle distribution functions.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall: avalanches, depinning transition and the Barkhausen effect

We study the dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall driven by an external magnetic field through a disordered medium. The avalanche-like motion of the domain walls between pinned configurations produces a noise known as the Barkhausen effect. We discuss experimental results on soft ferromagnetic materials, with reference to the domain structure and the sample geometry, and report Barkhausen noise measurements on Fe$_{21}$Co$_{64}$B$_{15}$ amorphous alloy. We construct an equation of motion for a flexible domain wall, which displays a depinning transition as the field is increased. The long-range dipolar interactions are shown to set the upper critical dimension to $d_c=3$, which implies that mean-field exponents (with possible logarithmic correction) are expected to describe the Barkhausen effect. We introduce a mean-field infinite-range model and show that it is equivalent to a previously introduced single-degree-of-freedom model, known to reproduce several experimental results. We numerically simulate the equation in $d=3$, confirming the theoretical predictions. We compute the avalanche distributions as a function of the field driving rate and the intensity of the demagnetizing field. The scaling exponents change linearly with the driving rate, while the cutoff of the distribution is determined by the demagnetizing field, in remarkable agreement with experiments.Comment: 17 RevTeX pages, 19 embedded ps figures + 1 extra figure, submitted to Phys. Rev.