New treatment of breakup continuum in the method of continuum discretized coupled channels

A new method of pseudo-state discretization is proposed for the method of continuum discretized coupled channels (CDCC) to deal with three-body breakup processes. We propose real- and complex-range Gaussian bases for the pseudo-state wave functions, and show that they form in good approximation a complete set in the configuration space which is important for breakup processes. Continuous S-matrix elements are derived with the approximate completeness from discrete ones calculated by CDCC. Accuracy of the method is tested quantitatively for two realistic examples, d+$^{58}$Ni scattering at 80 MeV and $^{6}$Li+$^{40}$Ca scattering at 156 MeV with the satisfactory results. Possibility of application of the method to four-body breakup processes is also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 14 Postscript figures, uses REVTeX 4, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Potent spinal parenchymal AAV9-mediated gene delivery by subpial injection in adult rats and pigs.

Effective in vivo use of adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based vectors to achieve gene-specific silencing or upregulation in the central nervous system has been limited by the inability to provide more than limited deep parenchymal expression in adult animals using delivery routes with the most clinical relevance (intravenous or intrathecal). Here, we demonstrate that the spinal pia membrane represents the primary barrier limiting effective AAV9 penetration into the spinal parenchyma after intrathecal AAV9 delivery. We develop a novel subpial AAV9 delivery technique and AAV9-dextran formulation. We use these in adult rats and pigs to show (i) potent spinal parenchymal transgene expression in white and gray matter including neurons, glial and endothelial cells after single bolus subpial AAV9 delivery; (ii) delivery to almost all apparent descending motor axons throughout the length of the spinal cord after cervical or thoracic subpial AAV9 injection; (iii) potent retrograde transgene expression in brain motor centers (motor cortex and brain stem); and (iv) the relative safety of this approach by defining normal neurological function for up to 6 months after AAV9 delivery. Thus, subpial delivery of AAV9 enables gene-based therapies with a wide range of potential experimental and clinical utilizations in adult animals and human patients

Strong-field terahertz-optical mixing in excitons

Driving a double-quantum-well excitonic intersubband resonance with a terahertz (THz) electric field of frequency \omega_{THz} generated terahertz optical sidebands \omega=\omega_{THz}+\omega_{NIR} on a weak NIR probe. At high THz intensities, the intersubband dipole energy which coupled two excitons was comparable to the THz photon energy. In this strong-field regime the sideband intensity displayed a non-monotonic dependence on the THz field strength. The oscillating refractive index which gives rise to the sidebands may be understood by the formation of Floquet states, which oscillate with the same periodicity as the driving THz field.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure