Fluctuations and Correlations of Conserved Charges in QCD at Finite Temperature with Effective Models

We study fluctuations of conserved charges including baryon number, electric charge, and strangeness as well as the correlations among these conserved charges in the 2+1 flavor Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model at finite temperature. The calculated results are compared with those obtained from recent lattice calculations performed with an improved staggered fermion action at two values of the lattice cutoff with almost physical up and down quark masses and a physical value for the strange quark mass. We find that our calculated results are well consistent with those obtained in lattice calculations except for some quantitative differences for fluctuations related with strange quarks. Our calculations indicate that there is a pronounced cusp in the ratio of the quartic to quadratic fluctuations of baryon number, i.e. $\chi_{4}^{B}/\chi_{2}^{B}$, at the critical temperature during the phase transition, which confirms that $\chi_{4}^{B}/\chi_{2}^{B}$ is a useful probe of the deconfinement and chiral phase transition.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures; final version published in Phys. Rev.

An Energy Sharing Game with Generalized Demand Bidding: Model and Properties

This paper proposes a novel energy sharing mechanism for prosumers who can produce and consume. Different from most existing works, the role of individual prosumer as a seller or buyer in our model is endogenously determined. Several desirable properties of the proposed mechanism are proved based on a generalized game-theoretic model. We show that the Nash equilibrium exists and is the unique solution of an equivalent convex optimization problem. The sharing price at the Nash equilibrium equals to the average marginal disutility of all prosumers. We also prove that every prosumer has the incentive to participate in the sharing market, and prosumers' total cost decreases with increasing absolute value of price sensitivity. Furthermore, the Nash equilibrium approaches the social optimal as the number of prosumers grows, and competition can improve social welfare.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

Rare decays Bs→l+l−B_s\to l^+l^- and B→Kl+l−B\to Kl^+l^- in \the topcolor-assisted technicolor model

We examine the rare decays $B_s\to l^+l^-$ and $B\to Kl^+l^-$ in the framework of the topcolor-assisted technicolor ($TC2$) model. The contributions of the new particles predicted by this model to these rare decay processes are evaluated. We find that the values of their branching ratios are larger than the standard model predictions by one order of magnitude in wide range of the parameter space. The longitudinal polarization asymmetry of leptons in $B_s \to l^+l^-$ can approach \ord(10^{-2}). The forward-backward asymmetry of leptons in $B \to Kl^+l^-$ is not large enough to be measured in future experiments. We also give some discussions about the branching ratios and the asymmetry observables related to these rare decay processes in the littlest Higgs model with T-parity.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figure, corrected typos, the version to appear in PR

Water-Soluble Flexible Organic Frameworks That Include and Deliver Proteins.

Four water-soluble hydrazone-based three-dimensional (3D) flexible organic frameworks FOF-1-4 have been synthesized from a semirigid tetracationic tetraaldehyde and four flexible dihydrazides. 1H NMR spectroscopy indicated the quantitative formation of FOF-1-4 in D2O, while dynamic light scattering experiments revealed that, depending on the concentration, these porous frameworks display hydrodynamic diameters ranging from 50 to 120 nm. The porosity of the frameworks is confirmed by ethanol vapor adsorption experiments of the solid samples as well as the high loading capacity for a 2.3 nm porphyrin guest in water. The new water-soluble frameworks exhibit low cytotoxicity and form inherent pores with diameters of 5.3 or 6.7 nm, allowing rapid inclusion of proteins such as bovine serum albumin and green and orange fluorescent proteins, and efficient delivery of the proteins into normal and cancer cells. Flow cytometric analysis reveals percentages of the delivered cells up to 99.8%