The evolution and distribution of phage ST160 within Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium

Salmonellosis is an internationally important disease of mammals and birds. Unique epidemics in New Zealand in the recent past include two Salmonella serovars: Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium definitive type (DT) 160 (S. Typhimurium DT160) and S. Brandenburg. Although not a major threat internationally, in New Zealand S. Typhimurium DT160 has been the most common serovar isolated from humans, and continues to cause significant losses in wildlife. We have identified DNA differences between the first New Zealand isolate of S. Typhimurium DT160 and the genome-sequenced strain, S. Typhimurium LT2. All the differences could be accounted for in one cryptic phage ST64B, and one novel P22-like phage, ST160. The majority of the ST160 genome is almost identical to phage SE1 but has two regions not found in SE1 which are identical to the P22-like phage ST64T, suggesting that ST160 evolved from SE1 via two recombination events with ST64T. All of the New Zealand isolates of DT160 were identical indicating the clonal spread of this particular Salmonella. Some overseas isolates of S. Typhimurium DT160 differed from the New Zealand strain and contained SE1 phage rather than ST160. ST160 was also identified in New Zealand isolates of S. Typhimurium DT74 and S. Typhimurium RDNC-April06 and in S. Typhimurium DT160 isolates from the USA. The emergence of S. Typhimurium DT160 as a significant pathogen in New Zealand is postulated to have occurred due to the sensitivity of the Salmonella strains to the ST160 phage when S. Typhimurium DT160 first arrived. © 2010 Cambridge University Press

Particle dynamics near extreme Kerr throat and supersymmetry

The extreme Kerr throat solution is believed to be non-supersymmetric. However, its isometry group SO(2,1) x U(1) matches precisely the bosonic subgroup of N=2 superconformal group in one dimension. In this paper we construct N=2 supersymmetric extension of a massive particle moving near the horizon of the extreme Kerr black hole. Bosonic conserved charges are related to Killing vectors in a conventional way. Geometric interpretation of supersymmetry charges remains a challenge.Comment: V2: 10 pages; discussion in sect. 4 and 5 extended, acknowledgements and references adde

A scalar field condensation instability of rotating anti-de Sitter black holes

Near-extreme Reissner-Nordstrom-anti-de Sitter black holes are unstable against the condensation of an uncharged scalar field with mass close to the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. It is shown that a similar instability afflicts near-extreme large rotating AdS black holes, and near-extreme hyperbolic Schwarzschild-AdS black holes. The resulting nonlinear hairy black hole solutions are determined numerically. Some stability results for (possibly charged) scalar fields in black hole backgrounds are proved. For most of the extreme black holes we consider, these demonstrate stability if the ``effective mass" respects the near-horizon BF bound. Small spherical Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black holes are an interesting exception to this result.Comment: 34 pages; 13 figure

Heterotic Black Horizons

We show that the supersymmetric near horizon geometry of heterotic black holes is either an AdS_3 fibration over a 7-dimensional manifold which admits a G_2 structure compatible with a connection with skew-symmetric torsion, or it is a product R^{1,1} * S^8, where S^8 is a holonomy Spin(7) manifold, preserving 2 and 1 supersymmetries respectively. Moreover, we demonstrate that the AdS_3 class of heterotic horizons can preserve 4, 6 and 8 supersymmetries provided that the geometry of the base space is further restricted. Similarly R^{1,1} * S^8 horizons with extended supersymmetry are products of R^{1,1} with special holonomy manifolds. We have also found that the heterotic horizons with 8 supersymmetries are locally isometric to AdS_3 * S^3 * T^4, AdS_3 * S^3 * K_3 or R^{1,1} * T^4 * K_3, where the radii of AdS_3 and S^3 are equal and the dilaton is constant.Comment: 35 pages, latex. Minor alterations to equation (3.11) and section 4.1, the conclusions are not affecte

Thermodynamical Metrics and Black Hole Phase Transitions

An important phase transition in black hole thermodynamics is associated with the divergence of the specific heat with fixed charge and angular momenta, yet one can demonstrate that neither Ruppeiner's entropy metric nor Weinhold's energy metric reveals this phase transition. In this paper, we introduce a new thermodynamical metric based on the Hessian matrix of several free energy. We demonstrate, by studying various charged and rotating black holes, that the divergence of the specific heat corresponds to the curvature singularity of this new metric. We further investigate metrics on all thermodynamical potentials generated by Legendre transformations and study correspondences between curvature singularities and phase transition signals. We show in general that for a system with n-pairs of intensive/extensive variables, all thermodynamical potential metrics can be embedded into a flat (n,n)-dimensional space. We also generalize the Ruppeiner metrics and they are all conformal to the metrics constructed from the relevant thermodynamical potentials.Comment: Latex, 25 pages, reference added, typos corrected, English polished and the Hawking-Page phase transition clarified; to appear in JHE

Topology of supersymmetric N=1, D=4 supergravity horizons

All supersymmetric N=1, D=4 supergravity horizons have toroidal or spherical topology, irrespective of whether the black hole preserves any supersymmetry.Comment: 17 pages, latex. Alterations to introduction and section 3.

Random Matrix Theory and Chiral Symmetry in QCD

Random matrix theory is a powerful way to describe universal correlations of eigenvalues of complex systems. It also may serve as a schematic model for disorder in quantum systems. In this review, we discuss both types of applications of chiral random matrix theory to the QCD partition function. We show that constraints imposed by chiral symmetry and its spontaneous breaking determine the structure of low-energy effective partition functions for the Dirac spectrum. We thus derive exact results for the low-lying eigenvalues of the QCD Dirac operator. We argue that the statistical properties of these eigenvalues are universal and can be described by a random matrix theory with the global symmetries of the QCD partition function. The total number of such eigenvalues increases with the square root of the Euclidean four-volume. The spectral density for larger eigenvalues (but still well below a typical hadronic mass scale) also follows from the same low-energy effective partition function. The validity of the random matrix approach has been confirmed by many lattice QCD simulations in a wide parameter range. Stimulated by the success of the chiral random matrix theory in the description of universal properties of the Dirac eigenvalues, the random matrix model is extended to nonzero temperature and chemical potential. In this way we obtain qualitative results for the QCD phase diagram and the spectrum of the QCD Dirac operator. We discuss the nature of the quenched approximation and analyze quenched Dirac spectra at nonzero baryon density in terms of an effective partition function. Relations with other fields are also discussed.Comment: invited review article for Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci., 61 pages, 11 figures, uses ar.sty (included); references added and typos correcte

New Horizons for Black Holes and Branes

We initiate a systematic scan of the landscape of black holes in any spacetime dimension using the recently proposed blackfold effective worldvolume theory. We focus primarily on asymptotically flat stationary vacuum solutions, where we uncover large classes of new black holes. These include helical black strings and black rings, black odd-spheres, for which the horizon is a product of a large and a small sphere, and non-uniform black cylinders. More exotic possibilities are also outlined. The blackfold description recovers correctly the ultraspinning Myers-Perry black holes as ellipsoidal even-ball configurations where the velocity field approaches the speed of light at the boundary of the ball. Helical black ring solutions provide the first instance of asymptotically flat black holes in more than four dimensions with a single spatial U(1) isometry. They also imply infinite rational non-uniqueness in ultraspinning regimes, where they maximize the entropy among all stationary single-horizon solutions. Moreover, static blackfolds are possible with the geometry of minimal surfaces. The absence of compact embedded minimal surfaces in Euclidean space is consistent with the uniqueness theorem of static black holes.Comment: 54 pages, 7 figures; v2 added references, added comments in the subsection discussing the physical properties of helical black rings; v3 added references, fixed minor typo

The Nuts and Bolts of Einstein-Maxwell Solutions

We find new non-supersymmetric solutions of five-dimensional ungauged supergravity coupled to two vector multiplets. The solutions are regular, horizonless and have the same asymptotic charges as non-extremal charged black holes. An essential ingredient in our construction is a four-dimensional Euclidean base which is a solution to Einstein-Maxwell equations. We construct stationary solutions based on the Euclidean dyonic Reissner-Nordstrom black hole as well as a six-parameter family with a dyonic Kerr-Newman-NUT base. These solutions can be viewed as compactifications of eleven-dimensional supergravity on a six-torus and we discuss their brane interpretation.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figure