Stem cankers on sunflower (Helianthus annuus) in Australia reveal a complex of pathogenic Diaporthe (Phomopsis) species

The identification of Diaporthe (anamorph Phomopsis) species associated with stem canker of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) in Australia was studied using morphology, DNA sequence analysis and pathology. Phylogenetic analysis revealed three clades that did not correspond with known taxa, and these are believed to represent novel species. Diaporthe gulyae sp. nov. is described for isolates that caused a severe stem canker, specifically pale brown to dark brown, irregularly shaped lesions centred at the stem nodes with pith deterioration and mid-stem lodging. This pathogenicity of D. gulyae was confirmed by satisfying Koch’s Postulates. These symptoms are almost identical to those of sunflower stem canker caused by D. helianthi that can cause yield reductions of up to 40 % in Europe and the USA, although it has not been found in Australia. We show that there has been broad misapplication of the name D. helianthi to many isolates of Diaporthe (Phomopsis) found causing, or associated with, stem cankers on sunflower. In GenBank, a number of isolates had been identified as D. helianthi, which were accommodated in several clades by molecular phylogenetic analysis. Two less damaging species, D. kochmanii sp. nov. and D. kongii sp. nov., are also described from cankers on sunflower in Australia

Wave Propagation in Gravitational Systems: Late Time Behavior

It is well-known that the dominant late time behavior of waves propagating on a Schwarzschild spacetime is a power-law tail; tails for other spacetimes have also been studied. This paper presents a systematic treatment of the tail phenomenon for a broad class of models via a Green's function formalism and establishes the following. (i) The tail is governed by a cut of the frequency Green's function $\tilde G(\omega)$ along the $-$~Im~$\omega$ axis, generalizing the Schwarzschild result. (ii) The $\omega$ dependence of the cut is determined by the asymptotic but not the local structure of space. In particular it is independent of the presence of a horizon, and has the same form for the case of a star as well. (iii) Depending on the spatial asymptotics, the late time decay is not necessarily a power law in time. The Schwarzschild case with a power-law tail is exceptional among the class of the potentials having a logarithmic spatial dependence. (iv) Both the amplitude and the time dependence of the tail for a broad class of models are obtained analytically. (v) The analytical results are in perfect agreement with numerical calculations

Fermi Surface Measurements on the Low Carrier Density Ferromagnet Ca1-xLaxB6 and SrB6

Recently it has been discovered that weak ferromagnetism of a dilute 3D electron gas develops on the energy scale of the Fermi temperature in some of the hexaborides; that is, the Curie temperature approximately equals the Fermi temperature. We report the results of de Haas-van Alphen experiments on two concentrations of La-doped CaB6 as well as Ca-deficient Ca1-dB6 and Sr-deficient Sr1-dB6. The results show that a Fermi surface exists in each case and that there are significant electron-electron interactions in the low density electron gas.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR

Does entropic force always imply the Newtonian force law?

We study the entropic force by introducing a bound $S \le A^{3/4}$ between entropy and area which was derived by imposing the non-gravitational collapse condition. In this case, applying a modified entropic force to this system does not lead to the Newtonian force law.Comment: 11 pages, version to appear in EPJ

Lower Critical Dimension of Ising Spin Glasses

Exact ground states of two-dimensional Ising spin glasses with Gaussian and bimodal (+- J) distributions of the disorder are calculated using a ``matching'' algorithm, which allows large system sizes of up to N=480^2 spins to be investigated. We study domain walls induced by two rather different types of boundary-condition changes, and, in each case, analyze the system-size dependence of an appropriately defined ``defect energy'', which we denote by DE. For Gaussian disorder, we find a power-law behavior DE ~ L^\theta, with \theta=-0.266(2) and \theta=-0.282(2) for the two types of boundary condition changes. These results are in reasonable agreement with each other, allowing for small systematic effects. They also agree well with earlier work on smaller sizes. The negative value indicates that two dimensions is below the lower critical dimension d_c. For the +-J model, we obtain a different result, namely the domain-wall energy saturates at a nonzero value for L\to \infty, so \theta = 0, indicating that the lower critical dimension for the +-J model exactly d_c=2.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, revte

Application of Minimal Subtraction Renormalization to Crossover Behavior near the 3^3He Liquid-Vapor Critical Point

Parametric expressions are used to calculate the isothermal susceptibility, specific heat, order parameter, and correlation length along the critical isochore and coexistence curve from the asymptotic region to crossover region. These expressions are based on the minimal-subtraction renormalization scheme within the $\phi^4$ model. Using two adjustable parameters in these expressions, we fit the theory globally to recently obtained experimental measurements of isothermal susceptibility and specific heat along the critical isochore and coexistence curve, and early measurements of coexistence curve and light scattering intensity along the critical isochore of $^3$He near its liquid-vapor critical point. The theory provides good agreement with these experimental measurements within the reduced temperature range $|t| \le 2\times 10^{-2}$

Quasinormal modes and hidden conformal symmetry in the Reissner-Nordstrom black hole

It is shown that the scalar wave equation in the near-horizon limit respects a hidden SL(2,R) invariance in the Reissner-Nordstrom (RN) black hole spacetimes. We use the SL(2,R) symmetry to determine algebraically the purely imaginary quasinormal frequencies of the RN black hole. We confirm that these are exactly quasinormal modes of scalar perturbation around the near-extremal black hole.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in EPJ

Dilaton gravity approach to three dimensional Lifshitz black hole

The z=3 Lifshitz black hole is an exact black hole solution to the new massive gravity in three dimensions. In order to understand this black hole clearly, we perform a dimensional reduction to two dimensional dilaton gravity by utilizing the circular symmetry. Considering the linear dilaton, we find the same Lifshitz black hole in two dimensions. This implies that all thermodynamic quantities of the z=3 Lifshitz black hole could be obtained from its corresponding black hole in two dimensions. As a result, we derive the temperature, mass, heat capacity, Bekesnstein-Hawking entropy, and free energy.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in EPJ

Chiral Analysis of Quenched Baryon Masses

We extend to quenched QCD an earlier investigation of the chiral structure of the masses of the nucleon and the delta in lattice simulations of full QCD. Even after including the meson-loop self-energies which give rise to the leading and next-to-leading non-analytic behaviour (and hence the most rapid variation in the region of light quark mass), we find surprisingly little curvature in the quenched case. Replacing these meson-loop self-energies by the corresponding terms in full QCD yields a remarkable level of agreement with the results of the full QCD simulations. This comparison leads to a very good understanding of the origins of the mass splitting between these baryons.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

Electronic Structure of Calcium Hexaboride within the Weighted Density Approximation

We report calculations of the electronic structure of CaB$_6$ using the weighted density approximation (WDA) to density functional theory. We find a semiconducting band structure with a sizable gap, in contrast to local density approximation (LDA) results, but in accord with recent experimental data. In particular, we find an $X$-point band gap of 0.8 eV. The WDA correction of the LDA error in describing the electronic structure of CaB$_6$ is discussed in terms of the orbital character of the bands and the better cancelation of self-interactions within the WDA.Comment: 1 figur