1,818 research outputs found
S-Branes, Negative Tension Branes and Cosmology
A general class of solutions of string background equations is studied and
its physical interpretations are presented. These solutions correspond to
generalizations of the standard black p-brane solutions to surfaces with
curvature k=-1,0. The relation with the recently introduced S-branes is
provided. The mass, charge, entropy and Hawking temperature are computed,
illustrating the interpretation in terms of negative tension branes. Their
cosmological interpretation is discussed as well as their potential instability
under small perturbations.Comment: 10 pages. Talks given at: SUSY'02, ``the 10th International
Conference on Supersymmetry and Unification of Fundamental Interactions'',
DESY, Hamburg, Germany, 17-23 June 2002, and ``The 1st International
Conference on String Phenomenology'', Oxford, July 6 - 11, 2002. References
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Modulated Reheating and Large Non-Gaussianity in String Cosmology
A generic feature of the known string inflationary models is that the same
physics that makes the inflaton lighter than the Hubble scale during inflation
often also makes other scalars this light. These scalars can acquire
isocurvature fluctuations during inflation, and given that their VEVs determine
the mass spectrum and the coupling constants of the effective low-energy field
theory, these fluctuations give rise to couplings and masses that are modulated
from one Hubble patch to another. These seem just what is required to obtain
primordial adiabatic fluctuations through conversion into density perturbations
through the `modulation mechanism', wherein reheating takes place with
different efficiency in different regions of our Universe. Fluctuations
generated in this way can generically produce non-gaussianity larger than
obtained in single-field slow-roll inflation; potentially observable in the
near future. We provide here the first explicit example of the modulation
mechanism at work in string cosmology, within the framework of LARGE Volume
Type-IIB string flux compactifications. The inflationary dynamics involves two
light Kaehler moduli: a fibre divisor plays the role of the inflaton whose
decay rate to visible sector degrees of freedom is modulated by the primordial
fluctuations of a blow-up mode (which is made light by the use of
poly-instanton corrections). We find the challenges of embedding the mechanism
into a concrete UV completion constrains the properties of the non-gaussianity
that is found, since for generic values of the underlying parameters, the model
predicts a local bi-spectrum with fNL of order `a few'. However, a moderate
tuning of the parameters gives also rise to explicit examples with fNL O(20)
potentially observable by the Planck satellite.Comment: 42 pages, 2 figure
Swift development of protective effector functions in naive CD8(+) T cells against malaria liver stages.
We generated T cell receptor transgenic mice specific for the liver stages of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium yoelii and studied the early events in the development of in vivo effector functions in antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells. Differently to activated/memory cells, naive CD8(+) T cells are not capable of exerting antiparasitic activity unless previously primed by parasite immunization. While naive cells need to differentiate before achieving effector status, the time required for this process is very short. Indeed, interferon (IFN)-gamma and perforin mRNA are detectable 24 h after immunization and IFN-gamma secretion and cytotoxic activity are detected ex vivo 24 and 48 h after immunization, respectively. In contrast, the proliferation of CD8(+) T cells begins after 24 h and an increase in the total number of antigen-specific cells is detected only after 48 h. Remarkably, a strong CD8(+) T cell-mediated inhibition of parasite development is observed in mice challenged with viable parasites only 24 h after immunization with attenuated parasites. These results indicate that differentiation of naive CD8(+) T cells does not begin only after extensive cell division, rather this process precedes or occurs simultaneously with proliferation
Spinflation
We study the cosmological implications of including angular motion in the DBI
brane inflation scenario. The non-canonical kinetic terms of the
Dirac-Born-Infeld action give an interesting alternative to slow roll
inflation, and cycling branes can drive periods of accelerated expansion in the
Universe. We present explicit numerical solutions demonstrating brane inflation
in the Klebanov-Strassler throat. We find that demanding sufficient inflation
takes place in the throat is in conflict with keeping the brane's total energy
low enough so that local gravitational backreaction on the Calabi-Yau manifold
can be safely ignored. We deduce that spinflation (brane inflation with angular
momentum) can ease this tension by providing extra e-foldings at the start of
inflation. Cosmological expansion rapidly damps the angular momentum causing an
exit to a more conventional brane inflation scenario. Finally, we set up a
general framework for cosmological perturbation theory in this scenario, where
we have multi-field non-standard kinetic term inflation.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, minor changes, typos fixed, to appear in JCA
Dynamical mass of the O-type supergiant in Zeta Orionis A
A close companion of Zeta Orionis A was found in 2000 with the Navy Precision
Optical Interferometer (NPOI), and shown to be a physical companion. Because
the primary is a supergiant of type O, for which dynamical mass measurements
are very rare, the companion was observed with NPOI over the full 7-year orbit.
Our aim was to determine the dynamical mass of a supergiant that, due to the
physical separation of more than 10 AU between the components, cannot have
undergone mass exchange with the companion. The interferometric observations
allow measuring the relative positions of the binary components and their
relative brightness. The data collected over the full orbital period allows all
seven orbital elements to be determined. In addition to the interferometric
observations, we analyzed archival spectra obtained at the Calar Alto, Haute
Provence, Cerro Armazones, and La Silla observatories, as well as new spectra
obtained at the VLT on Cerro Paranal. In the high-resolution spectra we
identified a few lines that can be associated exclusively to one or the other
component for the measurement of the radial velocities of both. The combination
of astrometry and spectroscopy then yields the stellar masses and the distance
to the binary star. The resulting masses for components Aa of 14.0 solar masses
and Ab of 7.4 solar masses are low compared to theoretical expectations, with a
distance of 294 pc which is smaller than a photometric distance estimate of 387
pc based on the spectral type B0III of the B component. If the latter (because
it is also consistent with the distance to the Orion OB1 association) is
adopted, the mass of the secondary component Ab of 14 solar masses would agree
with classifying a star of type B0.5IV. It is fainter than the primary by about
2.2 magnitudes in the visual. The primary mass is then determined to be 33
solar masses
Expectancies, working alliance, and outcome in transdiagnostic and single diagnosis treatment for anxiety disorders: an investigation of mediation
Patients’ outcome expectancies and the working alliance are two psychotherapy process variables that researchers have found to be associated with treatment outcome, irrespective of treatment approach and problem area. Despite this, little is known about the mechanisms accounting for this association, and whether contextual factors (e.g., psychotherapy type) impact the strength of these relationships. The primary aim of this study was to examine whether patient-rated working alliance quality mediates the relationship between outcome expectancies and pre- to post-treatment change in anxiety symptoms using data from a recent randomized clinical trial comparing a transdiagnostic treatment (the Unified Protocol [UP]; Barlow et al., Unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders: Client workbook, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011a; Barlow et al., Unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders: Patient workbook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017b) to single diagnosis protocols (SDPs) for patients with a principal heterogeneous anxiety disorder (n = 179). The second aim was to explore whether cognitive-behavioral treatment condition (UP vs. SDP) moderated this indirect relationship. Results from mediation and moderated mediation models indicated that, when collapsing across the two treatment conditions, the relationship between expectancies and outcome was partially mediated by the working alliance [B = 0.037, SE = 0.05, 95% CI (.005, 0.096)]. Interestingly, within-condition analyses showed that this conditional indirect effect was only present for SDP patients, whereas in the UP condition, working alliance did not account for the association between expectancies and outcome. These findings suggest that outcome expectancies and working alliance quality may interact to influence treatment outcomes, and that the nature and strength of the relationships among these constructs may differ as a function of the specific cognitive-behavioral treatment approach utilized.This study was funded by grant R01 MH090053 from the National Institutes of Health. (R01 MH090053 - National Institutes of Health)First author draf
Periodic Optical Variability of Radio Detected Ultracool Dwarfs
A fraction of very low mass stars and brown dwarfs are known to be radio
active, in some cases producing periodic pulses. Extensive studies of two such
objects have also revealed optical periodic variability and the nature of this
variability remains unclear. Here we report on multi-epoch optical photometric
monitoring of six radio detected dwarfs, spanning the M8 - L3.5 spectral
range, conducted to investigate the ubiquity of periodic optical variability in
radio detected ultracool dwarfs. This survey is the most sensitive ground-based
study carried out to date in search of periodic optical variability from
late-type dwarfs, where we obtained 250 hours of monitoring, delivering
photometric precision as low as 0.15%. Five of the six targets exhibit
clear periodicity, in all cases likely associated with the rotation period of
the dwarf, with a marginal detection found for the sixth. Our data points to a
likely association between radio and optical periodic variability in
late-M/early-L dwarfs, although the underlying physical cause of this
correlation remains unclear. In one case, we have multiple epochs of monitoring
of the archetype of pulsing radio dwarfs, the M9 TVLM 513-46546, spanning a
period of 5 years, which is sufficiently stable in phase to allow us to
establish a period of 1.95958 0.00005 hours. This phase stability may be
associated with a large-scale stable magnetic field, further strengthening the
correlation between radio activity and periodic optical variability. Finally,
we find a tentative spin-orbit alignment of one component of the very low mass
binary LP 349-25.Comment: Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal; 22 pages; 12 figure
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