Spin-charge mixing effects on resonant tunneling in a polarized Luttinger Liquid

We investigate spin-charge mixing effect on resonant tunneling in spin-polarized Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid with double impurities. The mixing arises from Fermi velocity difference between two spin species due to Zeeman effect. Zero bias conductance is calculated as a function of gate voltage $V_{\rm g}$, gate magnetic field $B_{\rm g}$, temperature and magnetic field applied to the system. Mixing effect is shown to cause rotation of the lattice pattern of the conductance peaks in $(V_{\rm g},B_{\rm g})$ plane, which can be observed in experiments. At low temperatures, the contour shapes are classified into three types, reflecting the fact that effective barrier potential is renormalized towards ``perfect reflection'', ``perfect transmission'' and magnetic field induced ``spin-filtering'', respectively.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, Sec.I and references largely changed, results for a strong barrier limit added in a new section Sec.I

Superconducting Gap Structure of kappa-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(NCS)2 Probed by Thermal Conductivity Tensor

The thermal conductivity of organic superconductor kappa-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(NCS)2 (Tc =10.4 K) has been studied in a magnetic field rotating within the 2D superconducting planes with high alignment precision. At low temperatures (T < 0.5 K), a clear fourfold symmetry in the angular variation, which is characteristic of a d-wave superconducting gap with nodes along the directions rotated 45 degrees relative to the b and c axes of the crystal, was resolved. The determined nodal structure is inconsistent with recent theoretical predictions of superconductivity induced by the antiferromagnetic spin fluctuation.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Functionality of soybean CBF/DREB1 transcription factors

Soybean (Glycine max) is considered to be cold intolerant and is not able to significantly acclimate to cold/freezing stress. In most cold tolerant plants, the C-repeat/DRE Binding Factors (CBF/DREBs) are critical contributors to successful cold-responses; rapidly increasing following cold treatment and regulating the induction of many cold responsive genes. In soybean vegetative tissue, we found strong, transient accumulation of CBF transcripts in response to cold stress; however, the soybean transcripts of typical cold responsive genes (homologues to Arabidopsis genes such as dehydrins, ADH1, RAP2.1, and LEA14) were not significantly altered. Soybean CBFs were found to be functional, as when expressed constitutively in Arabidopsis they increased the levels of AtCOR47 and AtRD29a transcripts and increased freezing tolerance as measured by a decrease in leaf freezing damage and ion leakage. Furthermore the constitutive expression of GmDREB1A;2 and GmDREB1B;1 in Arabidopsis led to stronger up-regulation of downstream genes and more freezing tolerance than GmDREB1A;1, the gene whose transcript is the major contributor to total CBF/DREB1 transcripts in soybean. The inability for the soybean CBFs to significantly up regulate the soybean genes that contribute to cold tolerance is consistent with poor acclimation capability and the cold intolerance of soybean

Prediction of risk of fracture in the tibia due to altered bone mineral density distribution resulting from disuse : a finite element study

The disuse-related bone loss that results from immobilisation following injury shares characteristics with osteoporosis in postmenopausal women and the aged, with decreases in bone mineral density (BMD) leading to weakening of the bone and increased risk of fracture. The aim of the study was to use the finite element method to: (i) calculate the mechanical response of the tibia under mechanical load and (ii) estimate the risk of fracture; comparing between two groups, an able bodied (AB) group and spinal cord injury (SCI) patients group suffering from varying degree of bone loss. The tibiae of eight male subjects with chronic SCI and those of four able-bodied (AB) age-matched controls were scanned using multi-slice peripheral Quantitative Computed Tomography. Images were used to develop full three-dimensional models of the tibiae in Mimics (Materialise) and exported into Abaqus (Simulia) for calculation of stress distribution and fracture risk in response to specified loading conditions – compression, bending and torsion. The percentage of elements that exceeded a calculated value of the ultimate stress provided an estimate of the risk of fracture for each subject, which differed between SCI subjects and their controls. The differences in BMD distribution along the tibia in different subjects resulted in different regions of the bone being at high risk of fracture under set loading conditions, illustrating the benefit of creating individual material distribution models. A predictive tool can be developed based on these models, to enable clinicians to estimate the amount of loading that can be safely allowed onto the skeletal frame of individual patients who suffer from extensive musculoskeletal degeneration (including SCI, multiple sclerosis and the ageing population). The ultimate aim would be to reduce fracture occurrence in these vulnerable groups

Quantum phase transition of dynamical resistance in a mesoscopic capacitor

We study theoretically dynamic response of a mesoscopic capacitor, which consists of a quantum dot connected to an electron reservoir via a point contact and capacitively coupled to a gate voltage. A quantum Hall edge state with a filling factor nu is realized in a strong magnetic field applied perpendicular to the two-dimensional electron gas. We discuss a noise-driven quantum phase transition of the transport property of the edge state by taking into account an ohmic bath connected to the gate voltage. Without the noise, the charge relaxation for nu>1/2 is universally quantized at R_q=h/(2e^2), while for nu<1/2, the system undergoes the Kosterlitz-Thouless transtion, which drastically changes the nature of the dynamical resistance. The phase transition is facilitated by the noisy gate voltage, and we see that it can occur even for an integer quantum Hall edge at nu=1. When the dissipation by the noise is sufficiently small, the quantized value of R_q is shifted by the bath impedance.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, proceeding of the 19th International Conference on the Application of High Magnetic Fields in Semiconductor Physics and Nanotechnology (HMF-19

Probing cellular protein complexes using single-molecule pull-down.

Proteins perform most cellular functions in macromolecular complexes. The same protein often participates in different complexes to exhibit diverse functionality. Current ensemble approaches of identifying cellular protein interactions cannot reveal physiological permutations of these interactions. Here we describe a single-molecule pull-down (SiMPull) assay that combines the principles of a conventional pull-down assay with single-molecule fluorescence microscopy and enables direct visualization of individual cellular protein complexes. SiMPull can reveal how many proteins and of which kinds are present in the in vivo complex, as we show using protein kinase A. We then demonstrate a wide applicability to various signalling proteins found in the cytosol, membrane and cellular organelles, and to endogenous protein complexes from animal tissue extracts. The pulled-down proteins are functional and are used, without further processing, for single-molecule biochemical studies. SiMPull should provide a rapid, sensitive and robust platform for analysing protein assemblies in biological pathways

Decoherence modes of entangled qubits within neutron interferometry

We study two different decoherence modes for entangled qubits by considering a Liouville - von Neumann master equation. Mode A is determined by projection operators onto the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian and mode B by projectors onto rotated states. We present solutions for general and for Bell diagonal states and calculate for the later the mixedness and the amount of entanglement given by the concurrence. We propose a realization of the decoherence modes within neutron interferometry by applying fluctuating magnetic fields. An experimental test of the Kraus operator decomposition describing the evolution of the system for each mode is presented.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure