Equation of state and self-bound droplet in Rabi-coupled Bose mixtures

Laser induced transitions between internal states of atoms have been playing a fundamental role to manipulate atomic clouds for many decades. In absence of interactions each atom behaves independently and their coherent quantum dynamics is described by the Rabi model. Since the experimental observation of Bose condensation in dilute gases, static and dynamical properties of multicomponent quantum gases have been extensively investigated. Moreover, at very low temperatures quantum fluctuations crucially affect the equation of state of many-body systems. Here we study the effects of quantum fluctuations on a Rabi-coupled two-component Bose gas of interacting alkali atoms. The divergent zero-point energy of gapless and gapped elementary excitations of the uniform system is properly regularized obtaining a meaningful analytical expression for the beyond-mean-field equation of state. In the case of attractive inter-particle interaction we show that the quantum pressure arising from Gaussian fluctuations can prevent the collapse of the mixture with the creation of a self-bound droplet. We characterize the droplet phase and discover an energetic instability above a critical Rabi frequency provoking the evaporation of the droplet. Finally, we suggest an experiment to observe such quantum droplets using Rabi-coupled internal states of $^{39}$K atoms.Comment: to be published in Scientific Report

Capgras-like syndrome in a patient with an acute urinary tract infection.

Delusional misidentification syndromes are a group of delusional phenomena in which patients misidentify familiar persons, objects, or themselves, believing that they have been replaced or transformed. In 25%-40% of cases, misidentification syndromes have been reported in association with organic illness. We report an acute episode of Capgras-like delusion lasting 8 days, focused on the idea that people were robots with human bodies, in association with an acute urinary infection. To our knowledge, this is the first case report associating urinary tract infection with Capgras-like syndrome. Awareness of the prevalence of delusional misidentification syndromes associated with acute medical illness should promote diligence on the part of clinicians in recognizing this disorder

Optimizing the sample size to estimate growth in I-214 poplar plantations at definitive tree density for bioenergetic production

ArticleIn Europe, over the last decades, the arboriculture for woody biomass production has significantly expanded, often using poplar plantations. In order to maximize prod uction, the flexibility of the cultivation algorithms becomes necessary. For this reason, it is necessary to apply monitoring tools for the evaluation and estimate of the wood productions, without significantly affect the production costs. In particular, f or the estimate of the productions, the choice of the sample size is of particular importance. The aim of this study was to verify a simplified sampling approaches in poplar plantations characterized by constant tree density. The research was conducted in a poplar plantation on the Tuscan hills (Italy). The surveys were carried out each year for 13 years, from 4 to 16 years old. Through different statistical techniques, the change in the social position of each tree over time was evaluated. The results show ed that the social position of each tree has been characterized by the first years after the plantation. Consequently, the estimate of the productions can be carried out by analysing the diameter increment of 10% of the trees, included in the diameter clas ses around the medium - sized tree at the time of the survey. This study provided a valid method for forest managers characterized by a simplified approach useful to estimate the growth and yield of hybrid poplars. This method will permit reliable biomass es timates, but also a reduction of the costs in the sampling activities in the field

An Egyptian green schist palette and an amazonite gemstone from the “Palace of the Copper Axes” at Batrawy, Jordan

The exploration of the “Palace of the Copper Axes”, the Early Bronze Age III palace of the easternmost city of Southern Levant during the 3rd millennium BC, was resumed in 2018, during the 14th season of excavation at Khirbet al-Batrawy in north-central Jordan, and completed in 2019. In the entrance hall of the palace, a square space with ceilings supported by four pillars, an Egyptian green schist palette, a cyan gemstone of amazonite and a pierced bead of fluorapatite were found buried under the destruction layer, while a barrel-shaped carnelian bead from Mesopotamia was found in the destruction layer just outside the Eastern Pavilion of the palace. These finds again testify to the inclusion of the palace and the city into a wide international trade network and its special connections with Pharaonic Egypt

The WINPack 1 a novel wearable system for heart rate and vital signs monitoring

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Tectonics and fluvial dynamism affecting the Tiber River in prehistoric Rome

Open access funding provided by Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. Research funding was provided by Loeb Classical Library Foundation, Gerda Henkel Foundation, American Philosophical Society, Etruscan Foundation, Fondazione Lemmermann, University of Michigan, University of St Andrews, and the Leverhulme Trust.Geomorphological investigations in Rome’s river valley are revealing the dynamism of the prehistoric landscape. It is becoming increasingly apparent that paleogeographic conditions that defined Rome in the historical era are the product of changes since the Bronze Age, which may be the result of local fault activity in addition to fluvial dynamism. Through a dedicated borehole chronostratigraphic study, integrated by 14C and archaeological dates, and paleomagnetic investigations, we offer here new evidence for fault displacement since ca. 4500 years/BP. We present the failure of the sedimentary fabric of a clay horizon caused by liquefaction processes commonly linked with seismic shaking, interpreting an (ca. 4 m) offset to signify the existence of a fault line located at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. In addition, we show evidence for another (ca. 1 m) offset affecting a stratigraphic horizon in the river channel, occurring along another hypothesized fault line crossing through the Tiber Valley. Movement along this fault may have contributed to a documented phase of fast overflooding dated to the sixth century BCE which eventually led to the birth of the Tiber Island. The most plausible scenario implies progressive deformation, with an average tectonic rate of 2 mm/year, along these inferred fault lines. This process was likely punctuated with moderate earthquakes, but no large event necessarily occurred. Together, the available evidence suggests that during the early centuries of sedentary habitation at the site of Rome, active fault lines contributed to significant changes to the Tiber River valley, capable of challenging lowland activities.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

PrP Gene Polymorphism in Medieval Remains of Sicilian Sheep

Encephalopathy in sheep was at first described in Ireland in 1732 and was called scrapie. Ancient DNA in archaeogenetics represents an effective method to evaluate the ancestral pedigree of living animals and track evolutionary changes occurred between the past and the present day. Since several point mutations are today widely described in modern scrapie, no data about both sequence and frequency are still available for the prion protein (PrP) gene in ancient breeds. In order to evaluate whether the haplotypes distribution in ancient sheep differed from those of the modern population we evaluated polymorphism at four well know codons of the Prp Open Reading Frame. In the present work, we collected 37 medieval sheep bone remains found at the Calathamet (n = 11), Palazzo Bonagia (n = 12) and Palazzo Steri (n = 14) Sicilians archeological sites and dated back between 9th - 15th century. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at codons 136, 141, 154 and 171 of the prion protein (PrP) were investigated using cycle sequencing. Sequenom Mass ARRAYiPLEX platform confirmed the results for 5 individuals out of 37. Cycle sequencing showed at all samples the AA136LL141RR154QQ171 (hereafter ALRQ/ALRQ) genotype except at 2 individuals showing the very susceptible genotype VLRQ/VLRQ (n = 1) and the resistant (ALRR/ ALRR) (n = 1) respectively. Supported by a high incidence of susceptible genotype to prion infection we concluded that presumably scrapie was already widespread enough in the medieval Sicily. Moreover, we described conceivable scenarios that could have underlain evolutionary changes in the medieval sheep population

Ultrasonographic measurements of abdominal lymph nodes in growing puppies

The sonographic appearance of the normal abdominal lymph nodes in adult dogs has been well described, but the data in puppies are scarce and of poor quality. The aim of the current study was to evaluate any differences in abdominal lymph node sonographic measurements in puppies of various sizes and to determine whether any differences were correlated with growth and weight gain during the first 10 weeks of life. By an approach based on prospective and serial measurements, length, width and thickness of jejunal, medial iliac and hypogastric nodes were obtained in twenty-one healthy puppies of various sizes, at six (T0), eight (T1) and ten (T2) weeks of age. The relationship between body weight and length, width and thickness of lymph nodes was evaluated using a Pearson correlation analysis. An ANOVA test was used to compare the measurements at different ages. Jejunal and iliac lymph nodes were the largest in large breed dogs. In large-sized puppies only the length of the jejunal lymph nodes correlated positively with width and body weight. Length of medial iliac lymph nodes correlated positively with width and body weight in all three sizes. None of the measurements of hypogastric lymph nodes were related to body weight. In large-sized puppies jejunal and iliac lymph nodes increased in length and width with age; in medium-sized puppies only iliac lymph nodes increased; in small-sized puppies jejunal and iliac lymph nodes significantly decreased in length and thickness. In conclusion, the lymph node sizes in young animals are directly related to body weight and do not decrease with growth during the first 10 weeks of life, except in small-sized puppies

Exploring quantum quasicrystal patterns: a variational study

We study the emergence of quasicrystal configurations produced purely by quantum fluctuations in the ground-state phase diagram of interacting bosonic systems. By using a variational mean-field approach, we determine the relevant features of the pair interaction potential that stabilize such quasicrystalline states in two dimensions. Unlike their classical counterpart, in which the interplay between only two wave vectors determines the resulting symmetries of the solutions, the quantum picture relates in a more complex way to the instabilities of the excitation spectrum. Moreover, the quantum quasicrystal patterns are found to emerge as the ground state with no need of moderate thermal fluctuations. The study extends to the exploration of the excitation properties and the possible existence of super-quasicrystals, i.e. supersolid-like quasicrystalline states in which the long-range non-periodic density profile coexist with a non-zero superfluid fraction. Our calculations show that, in an intermediate region between the homogeneous superfluid and the normal quasicrystal phases, these exotic states indeed exist at zero temperature. Comparison with full numerical simulations provides a solid verification of the variational approach adopted in this work.Comment: 10 pages, 6 Figure

Integrated stratigraphic reconstruction for the last 80 kyr in a deep sector of the Sardinia Channel (Western Mediterranean)

A quantitative analysis of planktonic foraminifera, coupled with petrophysical and paleomagnetic measurements and 14C AMS calibrations, was carried out on a deep core recovered in the Sardinia Channel (Western Mediterranean Sea), during the CIESM Sub2 survey, providing an integrated stratigraphic time-framework over the last 80 kyr. Significant changes in the quantitative distribution of planktonic foraminifera allowed the identification of several eco-bioevents useful to accurately mark the boundaries of the eco-biozones widely recognised in the Western Mediterranean records and used for large scale correlations. Namely, 10 eco-biozones were identified based on the relative abundance of selected climate sensitive planktonic foraminiferal species. Sixteen codified eco-bioevents were correlated with the Alboran Sea planktonic foraminiferal data and four climatic global events (Sapropel S1, Younger Dryas, Greenland Isotope Interstadial 1, Greenland Isotope Stadial 2, Heinrich event H1-H6) were recognized. The eco-bioevents together with the 14C AMS calibrations allowed us to define an accurate age model, spanning between 2 and 83 kyr. The reliability of the age model was confirmed by comparing the colour reflectance (550 nm%) data of the studied record with the astronomically tuned record from the Ionian sea (ODP-Site 964). A mean sedimentation rate of about 7 cm/kyr included three turbidite event beds that were chronologically constrained within the relative low stand and lowering sea level phases of the MIS 4 and 3. The deep-sea sedimentary record includes a distinct tephra occurring at the base of the core which dates 78 ka cal. BP. The paleomagnetic data provide a well-defined record of the characteristic remanent magnetization that may be used to reconstruct the geomagnetic paleosecular variation for the Mediterranean back to 83 kyr