147,068 research outputs found
Helical Magnetic Fields from Inflation
We analyze the generation of seed magnetic fields during de Sitter inflation
considering a non-invariant conformal term in the electromagnetic Lagrangian of
the form , where
is a pseudoscalar function of a non-trivial background field .
In particular, we consider a toy model, that could be realized owing to the
coupling between the photon and either a (tachyonic) massive pseudoscalar field
and a massless pseudoscalar field non-minimally coupled to gravity, where
follows a simple power-law behavior during
inflation, while it is negligibly small subsequently. Here, is a positive
dimensionless constant, the wavenumber, the conformal time, and
a real positive number. We find that only when and astrophysically interesting fields can be produced as
excitation of the vacuum, and that they are maximally helical.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, subsection IIc and references added; accepted for
publication in IJMP
Candidate genes colocalized to linkage regions in inflammatory bowel disease
Background and Aims: The genes encoding for tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and the vitamin D receptor (VDR) are colocalized to inflammatory bowel disease-associated linkage regions on chromosomes 6, 7 and 12. An association study of these gene polymorphisms with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease and a stratification according to disease phenotypes was performed in order to identify gentically homogenous subgroups. Patients and Methods: 119 healthy, unrelated controls, 95 patients with Crohn's disease and 93 patients with ulcerative colitis were genotyped for the (G to A) -308 TNF-alpha promoter polymorphism on chromosome 6, the codon 497 EGFR polymorphism on chromosome 7 and the Taql polymorphism of the VDR gene on chromosome 12. After genotyping, patients were stratified according to the respective disease phenotype. Results: A disequilibrium in the distribution of the VDR genotypes was found in patients with ulcerative colitis compared to controls (p = 0.024). In fistulizing and fibrostenotic Crohn's disease the `TT' genotype was significantly reduced compared with other phenotypes (p = 0.006), whereas the `tt' genotype was found more frequently (p = 0.04). The frequency of the WT allele of the EGFR gene was significantly higher in ulcerative colitis (p = 0.04) than in controls. Further significant differences, concerning the associations of the different polymorphisms and disease susceptibility or clinical phenotypes, were not observed. Conclusions: Regardless of the disease phenotype, the associations between the polymorphisms and inflammatory bowel disease investigated herein are modest, even after stratification for the disease phenotypes. Hence, these polymorphisms are unlikely to confer the reported linkage between inflammatory bowel disease and chromosomes 6, 7 and 12. Copyright (C) 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel
Moral hazard and lack of commitment in dynamic economies
We revisit the role of limited commitment in a dynamic risk-sharing setting with private information. We show that a Markov-perfect equilibrium, in which agent and insurer cannot commit beyond the current period, and an infinitely-long contract to which only the insurer can commit, implement identical consumption, effort and welfare outcomes. Unlike contracts with full commitment by the insurer, Markov-perfect contracts feature non-trivial and determinate asset dynamics. Numerically, we show that Markov-perfect contracts provide sizable insurance, especially at low asset levels, and are able to explain a significant part of wealth inequality beyond what can be explained by self-insurance. The welfare gains from resolving the commitment friction are larger than those from resolving the moral hazard problem at low asset levels, while the opposite holds for high asset levels.Moral hazard ; Risk
Experimental constraints on the polarizabilities of the 6s^2 1S0 and 6s6p 3P0 states of Yb
We utilize accurate experimental data available in the literature to yield
bounds on the polarizabilities of the ground and first excited states of atomic
Yb. For the 6s^2 1S0 ground state, we find the polarizability alpha to be
constrained to 134.4<alpha<144.2 in atomic units, while for the 6s6p 3P0
excited state we find 280.1<alpha<289.9. The uncertainty in each of these
values is 1.0. These constraints provide a valuable check for ab initio and
semi-empirical methods used to compute polarizabilities and other related
properties in Yb.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
Spin relaxation in diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum dots
Electron spin relaxation induced by phonon-mediated s-d exchange interaction
in a II-VI diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum dot is investigated
theoretically. The electron-acoustic phonon interaction due to piezoelectric
coupling and deformation potential is included. The resulting spin lifetime is
typically on the order of microseconds. The effectiveness of the
phonon-mediated spin-flip mechanism increases with increasing Mn concentration,
electron spin splitting, vertical confining strength and lateral diameter,
while it shows non-monotonic dependence on the magnetic field and temperature.
An interesting finding is that the spin relaxation in a small quantum dot is
suppressed for strong magnetic field and low Mn concentration at low
temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Spatially Resolved Gas Kinematics within a Ly Nebula: Evidence for Large-scale Rotation
We use spatially extended measurements of Ly as well as less
optically thick emission lines from an 80 kpc Ly nebula at
to assess the role of resonant scattering and to disentangle
kinematic signatures from Ly radiative transfer effects. We find that
the Ly, CIV, HeII, and CIII] emission lines all tell a similar story in
this system, and that the kinematics are broadly consistent with large-scale
rotation. First, the observed surface brightness profiles are similar in extent
in all four lines, strongly favoring a picture in which the Ly photons
are produced in situ instead of being resonantly scattered from a central
source. Second, we see low kinematic offsets between Ly and the less
optically thick HeII line (100-200 km s), providing further
support for the argument that the Ly and other emission lines are all
being produced within the spatially extended gas. Finally, the full velocity
field of the system shows coherent velocity shear in all emission lines:
500 km s over the central 50 kpc of the nebula. The
kinematic profiles are broadly consistent with large-scale rotation in a gas
disk that is at least partially stable against collapse. These observations
suggest that the Ly nebula represents accreting material that is
illuminated by an offset, hidden AGN or distributed star formation, and that is
undergoing rotation in a clumpy and turbulent gas disk. With an implied mass of
M(<R=20 kpc) , this system may represent the
early formation of a large Milky Way mass galaxy or galaxy group.Comment: Accepted to ApJ; 25 pages in emulateapj format; 15 figures, 4 table
A Monte Carlo study of surface critical phenomena: The special point
We study the special point in the phase diagram of a semi-infinite system,
where the bulk transition is in the three-dimensional Ising universality class.
To this end we perform a finite size scaling study of the improved Blume-Capel
model on the simple cubic lattice with two different types of surface
interactions. In order to check for the effect of leading bulk corrections we
have also simulated the spin-1/2 Ising model on the simple cubic lattice. We
have accurately estimated the surface enhancement coupling at the special point
of these models. We find and for the
surface renormalization group exponents of the special transitions. These
results are compared with previous ones obtained by using field theoretic
methods and Monte Carlo simulations of the spin-1/2 Ising model. Furthermore we
study the behaviour of the surface transition near the special point and
finally we discuss films with special boundary conditions at one surface and
fixed ones at the other.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures. figure 1 replaced, various typos correcte
Continuum modeling of large lattice structures: Status and projections
The status and some recent developments of continuum modeling for large repetitive lattice structures are summarized. Discussion focuses on a number of aspects including definition of an effective substitute continuum; characterization of the continuum model; and the different approaches for generating the properties of the continuum, namely, the constitutive matrix, the matrix of mass densities, and the matrix of thermal coefficients. Also, a simple approach is presented for generating the continuum properties. The approach can be used to generate analytic and/or numerical values of the continuum properties
Incommensurate Magnetism around Vortices and Impurities in High- Superconductors
By solving self-consistently an effective Hamiltonian including interactions
for both antiferromagnetic spin-density wave (SDW) and d-wave superconducting
(DSC) orderings, a comparison study is made for the local magnetic structure
around superconducting vortices and unitary impurities. To represent the
optimally doped regime of cuprates, the parameter values are chosen such that
the DSC is dominant while the SDW is vanishingly small. We show that when
vortices are introduced into the superconductor, an oscillating SDW is induced
around them. The oscillation period of the SDW is microscopically found,
consistent with experiments, to be eight lattice constants (). The
associated charge-density wave (CDW) oscillates with a period of one half
() of the SDW. In the case of unitary impurities, we find a SDW
modulation with identical periodicity, however without an associated CDW. We
propose neutron scattering experiments to test this prediction.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps figures (color) included in the tex
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