4,379 research outputs found
Colloid-stabilized emulsions: behaviour as the interfacial tension is reduced
We present confocal microscopy studies of novel particle-stabilized
emulsions. The novelty arises because the immiscible fluids have an accessible
upper critical solution temperature. The emulsions have been created by
beginning with particles dispersed in the single-fluid phase. On cooling,
regions of the minority phase nucleate. While coarsening these nuclei become
coated with particles due to the associated reduction in interfacial energy.
The resulting emulsion is arrested, and the particle-coated interfaces have
intriguing properties. Having made use of the binary-fluid phase diagram to
create the emulsion we then make use of it to study the properties of the
interfaces. As the emulsion is re-heated toward the single-fluid phase the
interfacial tension falls and the volume of the dispersed phase drops.
Crumpling, fracture or coalescence can follow. The results show that the
elasticity of the interfaces has a controlling influence over the emulsion
behaviour.Comment: Submitted for the proceedings of the 6th Liquid Matter Conference,
held in Utrecht (NL) in July 200
Energetic Instability Unjams Sand and Suspension
Jamming is a phenomenon occurring in systems as diverse as traffic, colloidal
suspensions and granular materials. A theory on the reversible elastic
deformation of jammed states is presented. First, an explicit granular
stress-strain relation is derived that captures many relevant features of sand,
including especially the Coulomb yield surface and a third-order jamming
transition. Then this approach is generalized, and employed to consider jammed
magneto- and electro-rheological fluids, again producing results that compare
well to experiments and simulations.Comment: 9 pages 2 fi
Probing spin-charge separation in a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid
In a one-dimensional (1D) system of interacting electrons, excitations of
spin and charge travel at different speeds, according to the theory of a
Tomonaga-Luttinger Liquid (TLL) at low energies. However, the clear observation
of this spin-charge separation is an ongoing challenge experimentally. We have
fabricated an electrostatically-gated 1D system in which we observe spin-charge
separation and also the predicted power-law suppression of tunnelling into the
1D system. The spin-charge separation persists even beyond the low-energy
regime where the TLL approximation should hold. TLL effects should therefore
also be important in similar, but shorter, electrostatically gated wires, where
interaction effects are being studied extensively worldwide.Comment: 11 pages, 4 PDF figures, uses scicite.sty, Science.bs
Recommended from our members
Observations of the martian atmosphere with the mars climate sounder
The Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) has obtained measurements of the Martian atmosphere for one Mars year. Onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), MCS continues to acquire high vertical resolution profiles of temperature, dust, condensates of CO2 and H2O, and water vapor by observing the limb of the atmosphere from the surface to 80 km in the spectral intervals 0.3 – 3 ?m and 11.5 – 45 ?m [1]. This paper describes the investigation and introduces some of the observations being studied by the MCS science team. Other presentations by the team at this workshop will describe in greater detail results of ongoing research using MCS data
Multiple-Point and Multiple-Time Correlations Functions in a Hard-Sphere Fluid
A recent mode coupling theory of higher-order correlation functions is tested
on a simple hard-sphere fluid system at intermediate densities. Multi-point and
multi-time correlation functions of the densities of conserved variables are
calculated in the hydrodynamic limit and compared to results obtained from
event-based molecular dynamics simulations. It is demonstrated that the mode
coupling theory results are in excellent agreement with the simulation results
provided that dissipative couplings are included in the vertices appearing in
the theory. In contrast, simplified mode coupling theories in which the
densities obey Gaussian statistics neglect important contributions to both the
multi-point and multi-time correlation functions on all time scales.Comment: Second one in a sequence of two (in the first, the formalism was
developed). 12 pages REVTeX. 5 figures (eps). Submitted to Phys.Rev.
Symmetric Grothendieck polynomials, skew Cauchy identities, and dual filtered Young graphs
Symmetric Grothendieck polynomials are analogues of Schur polynomials in the
K-theory of Grassmannians. We build dual families of symmetric Grothendieck
polynomials using Schur operators. With this approach we prove skew Cauchy
identity and then derive various applications: skew Pieri rules, dual
filtrations of Young's lattice, generating series and enumerative identities.
We also give a new explanation of the finite expansion property for products of
Grothendieck polynomials
Quantum free energy differences from non-equilibrium path integrals: I. Methods and numerical application
The imaginary-time path integral representation of the canonical partition
function of a quantum system and non-equilibrium work fluctuation relations are
combined to yield methods for computing free energy differences in quantum
systems using non-equilibrium processes. The path integral representation is
isomorphic to the configurational partition function of a classical field
theory, to which a natural but fictitious Hamiltonian dynamics is associated.
It is shown that if this system is prepared in an equilibrium state, after
which a control parameter in the fictitious Hamiltonian is changed in a finite
time, then formally the Jarzynski non-equilibrium work relation and the Crooks
fluctuation relation are shown to hold, where work is defined as the change in
the energy as given by the fictitious Hamiltonian. Since the energy diverges
for the classical field theory in canonical equilibrium, two regularization
methods are introduced which limit the number of degrees of freedom to be
finite. The numerical applicability of the methods is demonstrated for a
quartic double-well potential with varying asymmetry. A general parameter-free
smoothing procedure for the work distribution functions is useful in this
context.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures. Added clarifying remarks and fixed typo
Mutation analysis of HIF prolyl hydroxylases (PHD/EGLN) in individuals with features of phaeochromocytoma and renal cell carcinoma susceptibility
Germline mutations in the von Hippel–Lindau disease (VHL) and succinate dehydrogenase subunit B (SDHB) genes can cause inherited phaeochromocytoma and/or renal cell carcinoma(RCC). Dysregulation of the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) transcription factors has been linked to VHL and SDHB-related RCC; both HIF dysregulation and disordered function of a prolyl hydroxylase domain isoform 3 (PHD3/EGLN3)-related pathway of neuronal apoptosis have been linked to the development of phaeochromocytoma. The 2-oxoglutarate-dependent prolyl hydroxylase enzymes PHD1 (EGLN2), PHD2 (EGLN1) and PHD3 (EGLN3) have a key role in regulating the stability of HIF-a subunits (and hence expression of the HIF-a transcription factors). A germline PHD2 mutation has been reported in association with congenital erythrocytosis and recurrent extra-adrenal phaeochromocytoma. We undertook mutation analysis of PHD1, PHD2 and PHD3 in two cohorts of patients with features of inherited phaeochromocytoma (nZ82) and inherited RCC (nZ64) and no evidence of germline mutations in known susceptibility genes. No confirmed pathogenic mutations were detected suggesting that mutations in these genes are not a frequent cause of inherited phaeochromocytoma or RCC
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