Phase structures of the black Dpp-D(p+4)(p + 4)-brane system in various ensembles II: electrical and thermodynamic stability

By incorporating the electrical stability condition into the discussion, we continue the study on the thermodynamic phase structures of the D$p$-D$(p + 4)$ black brane in GG, GC, CG, CC ensembles defined in our previous paper arXiv:1502.00261. We find that including the electrical stability conditions in addition to the thermal stability conditions does not modify the phase structure of the GG ensemble but puts more constraints on the parameter space where black branes can stably exist in GC, CG, CC ensembles. In particular, the van der Waals-like phase structure which was supposed to be present in these ensembles when only thermal stability condition is considered would no longer be visible, since the phase of the small black brane is unstable under electrical fluctuations. However, the symmetry of the phase structure by interchanging the two kinds of brane charges and potentials is still preserved, which is argued to be the result of T-duality.Comment: 34 pages, 17 figure

Phase structures of the black Dpp-D(p+4)(p+4)-brane system in various ensembles I: thermal stability

When the D$(p+4)$-brane ($p=0,1,2$) with delocalized D$p$ charges is put into equilibrium with a spherical thermal cavity, the two kinds of charges can be put into canonical or grand canonical ensemble independently by setting different conditions at the boundary. Using the thermal stability condition, we discuss the phase structures of various ensembles of this system formed in this way and find out the situations that the black brane could be the final stable phase in these ensembles. In particular, van der Waals-like phase transitions can happen when D0 and D4 charges are in different kinds of ensembles. Furthermore, our results indicate that the D$(p+4)$-branes and the delocalized D$p$-branes are equipotent.Comment: 45 pages, 16 figures, accepted by JHEP; A section added to briefly discuss more general stability conditions, various typos correcte

A multi-phenotypic cancer model with cell plasticity

The conventional cancer stem cell (CSC) theory indicates a hierarchy of CSCs and non-stem cancer cells (NSCCs), that is, CSCs can differentiate into NSCCs but not vice versa. However, an alternative paradigm of CSC theory with reversible cell plasticity among cancer cells has received much attention very recently. Here we present a generalized multi-phenotypic cancer model by integrating cell plasticity with the conventional hierarchical structure of cancer cells. We prove that under very weak assumption, the nonlinear dynamics of multi-phenotypic proportions in our model has only one stable steady state and no stable limit cycle. This result theoretically explains the phenotypic equilibrium phenomena reported in various cancer cell lines. Furthermore, according to the transient analysis of our model, it is found that cancer cell plasticity plays an essential role in maintaining the phenotypic diversity in cancer especially during the transient dynamics. Two biological examples with experimental data show that the phenotypic conversions from NCSSs to CSCs greatly contribute to the transient growth of CSCs proportion shortly after the drastic reduction of it. In particular, an interesting overshooting phenomenon of CSCs proportion arises in three-phenotypic example. Our work may pave the way for modeling and analyzing the multi-phenotypic cell population dynamics with cell plasticity.Comment: 29 pages,6 figure

Miniature High-Sensitivity High-Temperature Fiber Sensor with a Dispersion Compensation Fiber-Based Interferometer

A miniature high-sensitivity, high-temperature fiber sensor with an interferometer based on a bare small-core-diameter dispersion compensation fiber (DCF) is reported. The sensing head is a single-mode-fiber (SMF) DCF configuration formed by a 4 mm long bare DCF with one end connected to the SMF by a fusion splicing technique and the other end cleaved. Due to the large mode index difference and high thermo-optic coefficient induced by two dominative interference modes, a miniature high-temperature fiber sensor with a high sensitivity of 68.6 pm/°C is obtained by monitoring the wavelength shift of the interference spectrum. This type of sensor has the features of small size, high sensitivity, high stability, simple structure, and low cost