1,028 research outputs found
Bifurcations and stability of gap solitons in periodic potentials
We analyze the existence, stability, and internal modes of gap solitons in
nonlinear periodic systems described by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation with
a sinusoidal potential, such as photonic crystals, waveguide arrays,
optically-induced photonic lattices, and Bose-Einstein condensates loaded onto
an optical lattice. We study bifurcations of gap solitons from the band edges
of the Floquet-Bloch spectrum, and show that gap solitons can appear near all
lower or upper band edges of the spectrum, for focusing or defocusing
nonlinearity, respectively. We show that, in general, two types of gap solitons
can bifurcate from each band edge, and one of those two is always unstable. A
gap soliton corresponding to a given band edge is shown to possess a number of
internal modes that bifurcate from all band edges of the same polarity. We
demonstrate that stability of gap solitons is determined by location of the
internal modes with respect to the spectral bands of the inverted spectrum and,
when they overlap, complex eigenvalues give rise to oscillatory instabilities
of gap solitons.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures; updated bibliograph
Setting the photoelectron clock through molecular alignment
The interaction of strong laser fields with matter intrinsically provides a powerful tool for imaging transient dynamics with an extremely high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we study strong-field ionisation of laser-aligned molecules, and show a full real-time picture of the photoelectron dynamics in the combined action of the laser field and the molecular interaction. We demonstrate that the molecule has a dramatic impact on the overall strong-field dynamics: it sets the clock for the emission of electrons with a given rescattering kinetic energy. This result represents a benchmark for the seminal statements of molecular-frame strong-field physics and has strong impact on the interpretation of self-diffraction experiments. Furthermore, the resulting encoding of the time-energy relation in molecular-frame photoelectron momentum distributions shows the way of probing the molecular potential in real-time, and accessing a deeper understanding of electron transport during strong-field interactions
Triploid plover female provides support for a role of the W chromosome in avian sex determination
Two models, Z Dosage and Dominant W, have been proposed to explain sex determination in birds, in which males are characterized by the presence of two Z chromosomes, and females are hemizygous with a Z and a W chromosome. According to the Z Dosage model, high dosage of a Z-linked gene triggers male development, whereas the Dominant W model postulates that a still unknown W-linked gene triggers female development. Using 33 polymorphic microsatellite markers, we describe a female triploid Kentish plover Charadrius alexandrinus identified by characteristic triallelic genotypes at 14 autosomal markers that produced viable diploid offspring. Chromatogram analysis showed that the sex chromosome composition of this female was ZZW. Together with two previously described ZZW female birds, our results suggest a prominent role for a female determining gene on the W chromosome. These results imply that avian sex determination is more dynamic and complex than currently envisioned
The HERA-B Ring Imaging Cherenkov Counter
The HERA-B RICH uses a radiation path length of 2.8 m in C_4F_10 gas and a
large 24 square meters spherical mirror for imaging Cherenkov rings. The photon
detector consists of 2240 Hamamatsu multi-anode photomultipliers with about
27000 channels. A 2:1 reducing two-lens telescope in front of each PMT
increases the sensitive area at the expense of increased pixel size, resulting
in a contribution to the resolution which roughly matches that of dispersion.
The counter was completed in January of 1999, and its performance has been
steady and reliable over the years it has been in operation. The design
performance of the RICH was fully reached: the average number of detected
photons in the RICH for a beta=1 particle was found to be 33 with a single hit
resolution of 0.7 mrad and 1 mrad in the fine and coarse granularity regions,
respectively.Comment: 29 pages, 23 figure
The pharmaceutical use of permethrin: Sources and behavior during municipal sewage treatment
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.Permethrin entered use in the 1970s as an insecticide in a wide range of applications, including agriculture, horticultural, and forestry, and has since been restricted. In the 21st century, the presence of permethrin in the aquatic environment has been attributed to its use as a human and veterinary pharmaceutical, in particular as a pedeculicide, in addition to other uses, such as a moth-proofing agent. However, as a consequence of its toxicity to fish, sources of permethrin and its fate and behavior during wastewater treatment are topics of concern. This study has established that high overall removal of permethrin (approximately 90%) was achieved during wastewater treatment and that this was strongly dependent on the extent of biological degradation in secondary treatment, with more limited subsequent removal in tertiary treatment processes. Sources of permethrin in the catchment matched well with measured values in crude sewage and indicated that domestic use accounted for more than half of the load to the treatment works. However, removal may not be consistent enough to achieve the environmental quality standards now being derived in many countries even where tertiary treatment processes are applied.United Utilities PL
The radial arrangement of the human chromosome 7 in the lymphocyte cell nucleus is associated with chromosomal band gene density
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ Springer-Verlag 2008.In the nuclei of human lymphocytes, chromosome territories are distributed according to the average gene density of each chromosome. However, chromosomes are very heterogeneous in size and base composition, and can contain both very gene-dense and very gene-poor regions. Thus, a precise analysis of chromosome organisation in the nuclei should consider also the distribution of DNA belonging to the chromosomal bands in each chromosome. To improve our understanding of the chromatin organisation, we localised chromosome 7 DNA regions, endowed with different gene densities, in the nuclei of human lymphocytes. Our results showed that this chromosome in cell nuclei is arranged radially with the gene-dense/GC-richest regions exposed towards the nuclear interior and the gene-poorest/GC-poorest ones located at the nuclear periphery. Moreover, we found that chromatin fibres from the 7p22.3 and the 7q22.1 bands are not confined to the territory of the bulk of this chromosome, protruding towards the inner part of the nucleus. Overall, our work demonstrates the radial arrangement of the territory of chromosome 7 in the lymphocyte nucleus and confirms that human genes occupy specific radial positions, presumably to enhance intra- and inter-chromosomal interaction among loci displaying a similar expression pattern, and/or similar replication timing
Belle II Technical Design Report
The Belle detector at the KEKB electron-positron collider has collected
almost 1 billion Y(4S) events in its decade of operation. Super-KEKB, an
upgrade of KEKB is under construction, to increase the luminosity by two orders
of magnitude during a three-year shutdown, with an ultimate goal of 8E35 /cm^2
/s luminosity. To exploit the increased luminosity, an upgrade of the Belle
detector has been proposed. A new international collaboration Belle-II, is
being formed. The Technical Design Report presents physics motivation, basic
methods of the accelerator upgrade, as well as key improvements of the
detector.Comment: Edited by: Z. Dole\v{z}al and S. Un
Open and Hidden Charm Production in 920 GeV Proton-Nucleus Collisions
The HERA-B collaboration has studied the production of charmonium and open
charm states in collisions of 920 GeV protons with wire targets of different
materials. The acceptance of the HERA-B spectrometer covers negative values of
xF up to xF=-0.3 and a broad range in transverse momentum from 0.0 to 4.8
GeV/c. The studies presented in this paper include J/psi differential
distributions and the suppression of J/psi production in nuclear media.
Furthermore, production cross sections and cross section ratios for open charm
mesons are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figures, to be published in the proceedings of the 6th
International Conference on Hyperons, Charm & Beauty Hadrons (BEACH04),
Chicago, IL, June 27 - July 3, 200
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