20,519 research outputs found
Relativistic Generalization of the Gamow Factor for Fermion Pair Production or Annihilation
In the production or annihilation of a pair of fermions, the initial-state or
final-state interactions often lead to significant effects on the reaction
cross sections. For Coulomb-type interactions, the Gamow factor has been
traditionally used to take into account these effects. However the Gamow factor
needs to be modified when the magnitude of the coupling constant or the
relative velocity of two particles increases. We obtain the relativistic
generalization of the Gamow factor in terms of the overlap of the Feynman
amplitude with the relativistic wave function of two fermions with an
attractive Coulomb-type interaction. An explicit form of the corrective factor
is presented for the spin-singlet S-wave state. While the corrective factor
approaches the Gamow factor in the non-relativistic limit, we found that the
Gamow factor significantly over-estimates the effects when the coupling
constant or the velocity is large.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures in LaTe
Rotating Black Hole Entropy from Two Different Viewpoints
Using the brick-wall method, we study the entropy of Kerr-Newman black hole
from two different viewpoints, a rest observer at infinity and zero angular
momentum observer near horizon. We investigate this with scalar field in the
canonical quantization approach. An observer at infinity can take one of the
two possible frequency ranges; one is with positive frequencies only and the
other is with the whole range including negative frequencies. On the other
hand, a zero angular momentum observer near horizon can take positive
frequencies only. For the observer at infinity the superradiant modes appear in
either choice of the frequency ranges and the two results coincide. For the
zero angular momentum observer superradiant modes do not appear due to absence
of ergoregion. The resulting entropies from the two viewpoints turn out to be
the same.Comment: LaTeX 18 pages, 2 figures, Minor modifications in section 3(ZAMO
An Activating Mutation in sos-1 Identifies Its Dbl Domain as a Critical Inhibitor of the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Pathway during Caenorhabditis elegans Vulval Development
Proper regulation of receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)-Ras-mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways is critical for normal development and the prevention of cancer. SOS is a dual-function guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) that catalyzes exchange on Ras and Rac. Although the physiologic role of SOS and its CDC25 domain in RTK-mediated Ras activation is well established, the in vivo function of its Dbl Rac GEF domain is less clear. We have identified a novel gain-of-function missense mutation in the Dbl domain of Caenorhabditis elegans SOS-1 that promotes epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling in vivo. Our data indicate that a major developmental function of the Dbl domain is to inhibit EGF-dependent MAPK activation. The amount of inhibition conferred by the Dbl domain is equal to that of established trans-acting inhibitors of the EGFR pathway, including c-Cbl and RasGAP, and more than that of MAPK phosphatase. In conjunction with molecular modeling, our data suggest that the C. elegans mutation, as well as an equivalent mutation in human SOS1, activates the MAPK pathway by disrupting an autoinhibitory function of the Dbl domain on Ras activation. Our work suggests that functionally similar point mutations in humans could directly contribute to disease
Focusing Capillary Optics for Use in Solution Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering
Measurements of the global conformation of macromolecules can be carried out using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). Glass focusing capillaries, manufactured at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), have been successfully employed for SAXS measurements on the heme protein cytochrome c. These capillaries provide high X-ray flux into a spot size of tens of micrometres, permitting short exposures of small-volume samples. Such a capability is ideal for use in conjunction with microfluidic mixers, where time resolution may be determined by beam size and sample volumes are kept small to facilitate mixing and conserve material
Multi-Dimensional Simulations of the Accretion-Induced Collapse of White Dwarfs to Neutron Stars
We present 2.5D radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of the accretion-induced
collapse (AIC) of white dwarfs, starting from 2D rotational equilibrium
configurations of a 1.46-Msun and a 1.92-Msun model. Electron capture leads to
the collapse to nuclear densities of these cores within a few tens of
milliseconds. The shock generated at bounce moves slowly, but steadily,
outwards. Within 50-100ms, the stalled shock breaks out of the white dwarf
along the poles. The blast is followed by a neutrino-driven wind that develops
within the white dwarf, in a cone of ~40deg opening angle about the poles, with
a mass loss rate of 5-8 x 10^{-3} Msun/yr. The ejecta have an entropy on the
order of 20-50 k_B/baryon, and an electron fraction distribution that is
bimodal. By the end of the simulations, at >600ms after bounce, the explosion
energy has reached 3-4 x 10^{49}erg and the total ejecta mass has reached a few
times 0.001Msun. We estimate the asymptotic explosion energies to be lower than
10^{50}erg, significantly lower than those inferred for standard core collapse.
The AIC of white dwarfs thus represents one instance where a neutrino mechanism
leads undoubtedly to a successful, albeit weak, explosion.
We document in detail the numerous effects of the fast rotation of the
progenitors: The neutron stars are aspherical; the ``nu_mu'' and anti-nu_e
neutrino luminosities are reduced compared to the nu_e neutrino luminosity; the
deleptonized region has a butterfly shape; the neutrino flux and electron
fraction depend strongly upon latitude (a la von Zeipel); and a quasi-Keplerian
0.1-0.5-Msun accretion disk is formed.Comment: 25 pages, 19 figures, accpeted to ApJ, high resolution of the paper
and movies available at http://hermes.as.arizona.edu/~luc/aic/aic.htm
BRST Quantization of the Proca Model based on the BFT and the BFV Formalism
The BRST quantization of the Abelian Proca model is performed using the
Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin and the Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky formalism. First, the
BFT Hamiltonian method is applied in order to systematically convert a second
class constraint system of the model into an effectively first class one by
introducing new fields. In finding the involutive Hamiltonian we adopt a new
approach which is more simpler than the usual one. We also show that in our
model the Dirac brackets of the phase space variables in the original second
class constraint system are exactly the same as the Poisson brackets of the
corresponding modified fields in the extended phase space due to the linear
character of the constraints comparing the Dirac or Faddeev-Jackiw formalisms.
Then, according to the BFV formalism we obtain that the desired resulting
Lagrangian preserving BRST symmetry in the standard local gauge fixing
procedure naturally includes the St\"uckelberg scalar related to the explicit
gauge symmetry breaking effect due to the presence of the mass term. We also
analyze the nonstandard nonlocal gauge fixing procedure.Comment: 29 pages, plain Latex, To be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.
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