Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays and Neutrinos

The observation of neutrinos from cosmic accelerators will be revolutionary. High energy neutrinos are closely connected to ultrahigh energy cosmic rays and their sources. Cosmic ray sources are likely to produce neutrinos and the propagation of ultrahigh cosmic rays from distant sources can generate PeV to ZeV neutrinos. We briefly review recent progress on the observations of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays and their implications for the future detections of high energy neutrinos.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of NOW (Neutrino Oscillation Workshop) 2010, to appear in Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.

Worldsheet Instantons and a Null String Limit of Born-Infeld Theory

For a superstring theory in four spacetime dimensions, we propose a modification of the Born-Infeld action that possesses a well-defined tensionless limit. We interpret this as describing the effective target space dynamics of null strings on a D3-brane. We argue that such a modification can be induced by nonperturbative contributions from instantons in the worldsheet sigma-model describing string propagation on the brane.Comment: 11 pages; Comments and references adde

Macroscopic anisotropy in superconductors with anisotropic gaps

It is shown within the weak-coupling model that the macroscopic superconducting anisotropy for materials with the gap varying on the Fermi surface cannot be characterized by a single number, unlike the case of clean materials with isotropic gaps. For clean uniaxial materials, the anisotropy parameter $\gamma (T)$ defined as the ratio of London penetration depths, $\lambda_c/\lambda_{ab}$, is evaluated for all $T$'s. Within the two-gap model of MgB$_2$, $\gamma (T)$ is an increasing function of $T$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Noncommutative Electromagnetism As A Large N Gauge Theory

We map noncommutative (NC) U(1) gauge theory on R^d_C X R^{2n}_{NC} to U(N -> \infty) Yang-Mills theory on R^d_C, where R^d_C is a d-dimensional commutative spacetime while R^{2n}_{NC} is a 2n-dimensional NC space. The resulting U(N) Yang-Mills theory on R^d_C is equivalent to that obtained by the dimensional reduction of (d+2n)-dimensional U(N) Yang-Mills theory onto R^d_C. We show that the gauge-Higgs system (A_\mu,\Phi^a) in the U(N -> \infty) Yang-Mills theory on R^d_C leads to an emergent geometry in the (d+2n)-dimensional spacetime whose metric was determined by Ward a long time ago. In particular, the 10-dimensional gravity for d=4 and n=3 corresponds to the emergent geometry arising from the 4-dimensional N=4 vector multiplet in the AdS/CFT duality. We further elucidate the emergent gravity by showing that the gauge-Higgs system (A_\mu,\Phi^a) in half-BPS configurations describes self-dual Einstein gravity.Comment: 25 pages; More clarifications, to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

Anisotropy of the Upper Critical Field and Critical Current in Single Crystal MgB2_2

We report on specific heat, high magnetic field transport and $ac-$susceptibility measurements on magnesium diboride single crystals. The upper critical field $H_{c2}$ for magnetic fields perpendicular and parallel to the Mg and B planes is presented for the first time in the entire temperature range. A very different temperature dependence has been observed in the two directions which yields to a temperature dependent anisotropy with $\Gamma \sim$ 5 at low temperatures and about 2 near $T_c$. A peak effect is observed in susceptibility measurements for $H \sim$2 T parallel to the $c-$axis and the critical current density presnts a sharp maximum for $H$ parallel to the ab-plane.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

The Structure of a Rigorously Conserved RNA Element within the SARS Virus Genome

We have solved the three-dimensional crystal structure of the stem-loop II motif (s2m) RNA element of the SARS virus genome to 2.7-Å resolution. SARS and related coronaviruses and astroviruses all possess a motif at the 3′ end of their RNA genomes, called the s2m, whose pathogenic importance is inferred from its rigorous sequence conservation in an otherwise rapidly mutable RNA genome. We find that this extreme conservation is clearly explained by the requirement to form a highly structured RNA whose unique tertiary structure includes a sharp 90° kink of the helix axis and several novel longer-range tertiary interactions. The tertiary base interactions create a tunnel that runs perpendicular to the main helical axis whose interior is negatively charged and binds two magnesium ions. These unusual features likely form interaction surfaces with conserved host cell components or other reactive sites required for virus function. Based on its conservation in viral pathogen genomes and its absence in the human genome, we suggest that these unusual structural features in the s2m RNA element are attractive targets for the design of anti-viral therapeutic agents. Structural genomics has sought to deduce protein function based on three-dimensional homology. Here we have extended this approach to RNA by proposing potential functions for a rigorously conserved set of RNA tertiary structural interactions that occur within the SARS RNA genome itself. Based on tertiary structural comparisons, we propose the s2m RNA binds one or more proteins possessing an oligomer-binding-like fold, and we suggest a possible mechanism for SARS viral RNA hijacking of host protein synthesis, both based upon observed s2m RNA macromolecular mimicry of a relevant ribosomal RNA fold

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Commissioning and performance of the CMS pixel tracker with cosmic ray muons

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published verion of the Paper can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 IOPThe pixel detector of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment consists of three barrel layers and two disks for each endcap. The detector was installed in summer 2008, commissioned with charge injections, and operated in the 3.8 T magnetic field during cosmic ray data taking. This paper reports on the first running experience and presents results on the pixel tracker performance, which are found to be in line with the design specifications of this detector. The transverse impact parameter resolution measured in a sample of high momentum muons is 18 microns.This work is supported by FMSR (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); Academy of Sciences and NICPB (Estonia); Academy of Finland, ME, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); PAEC (Pakistan); SCSR (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MST and MAE (Russia); MSTDS (Serbia); MICINN and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA)

Alignment of the CMS silicon tracker during commissioning with cosmic rays

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version of the Paper can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 IOPThe CMS silicon tracker, consisting of 1440 silicon pixel and 15 148 silicon strip detector modules, has been aligned using more than three million cosmic ray charged particles, with additional information from optical surveys. The positions of the modules were determined with respect to cosmic ray trajectories to an average precision of 3–4 microns RMS in the barrel and 3–14 microns RMS in the endcap in the most sensitive coordinate. The results have been validated by several studies, including laser beam cross-checks, track fit self-consistency, track residuals in overlapping module regions, and track parameter resolution, and are compared with predictions obtained from simulation. Correlated systematic effects have been investigated. The track parameter resolutions obtained with this alignment are close to the design performance.This work is supported by FMSR (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); Academy of Sciences and NICPB (Estonia); Academy of Finland, ME, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); PAEC (Pakistan); SCSR (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MST and MAE (Russia); MSTDS (Serbia); MICINN and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA)

Performance of the CMS drift-tube chamber local trigger with cosmic rays

The performance of the Local Trigger based on the drift-tube system of the CMS experiment has been studied using muons from cosmic ray events collected during the commissioning of the detector in 2008. The properties of the system are extensively tested and compared with the simulation. The effect of the random arrival time of the cosmic rays on the trigger performance is reported, and the results are compared with the design expectations for proton-proton collisions and with previous measurements obtained with muon beams