Recent developments on kaon condensation and its astrophysical implications

We discuss three different ways to arrive at kaon condensation at _nc?3_n0$n_c?3n_0$ where _n0$n_0$ is nuclear matter density: (1) Fluctuating around the n=0$n=0$ vacuum in chiral perturbation theory, (2) fluctuating around _nVM$n_{VM}$ near the chiral restoration density _nχ$n_{\chi }$ where the vector manifestation of hidden local symmetry is reached and (3) fluctuating around the Fermi liquid fixed point at ∼_n0$\sim n_0$. They all share one common theoretical basis, “hidden local symmetry”. We argue that when the critical density _nc<_nχ$n_c<n_{\chi }$ is reached in a neutron star, the electrons turn into K⁻$K^{-}$ mesons, which go into an s-wave Bose condensate. This reduces the pressure substantially and the neutron star goes into a black hole. Next we develop the argument that the collapse of a neutron star into a black hole takes place for a star of M?1.5_M⊙$M?1.5M_{\odot }$. This means that Supernova 1987A had a black hole as result. We also show that two neutron stars in a binary have to be within 4% of each other in mass, for neutron stars sufficiently massive that they escape helium shell burning. For those that are so light that they do have helium shell burning, after a small correction for this, they must be within 4% of each other in mass. Observations support the proximity in mass inside of a neutron star binary. The result of strangeness condensation is that there are ∼5$\sim 5$ times more low-mass black-hole, neutron-star binaries than double neutron-star binaries although the former are difficult to observe.     

Phorbasones A and B, sesterterpenoids isolated from the marine sponge Phorbas sp. and induction of osteoblast differentiation

Two new sesterterpenoids, phorbasones A (1) and B (2), were isolated from the Korean marine sponge Phorbas sp. Their complete structures were elucidated by spectral data and chemical reactions. Phorbasone A exhibited a positive effect on the calcium deposition activity in C3H10T1/2 cells. The biogenic origin of the core structure is believed to be through a novel rearrangement from the ansellone carbon structure.     

Phenomenological sizes of confinement regions in baryons

Standard order of magnitude estimates from QCD indicate that the radius of the quarkgluon core in the nucléon is Λ _QCD ^?1 ?1 fm. However, in work with the chiral bag model, we have found that the effective confinement size for low energy reactions can be as small as ～ 1/2 fm or smaller. This shrinking of the effective confinement size has been attributed to the pressure of the pion cloud surrounding the quark core. The concept of confinement size is evidently subtle in light-quark systems, due to the chiral vacuum structure. This is indicated by the “Cheshire Cat” phenomenon, in which physical observables tend to be insensitive to the bag radiusR. In four dimensions, no exact Cheshire Cat principle has yet been established but it is likely to involve infinitely many mesons. We suggest that when strange quarks are present, a qualitative change occurs in the Cheshire Cat picture; in particular, we propose that strangeness provides an obstruction to this picture. We present a phenomenological indication that when strange quarks are present, the bag radiusR is frozen at a value substantially larger than 0.5 fm by as much as a factor of two. Roughly speaking, the Cheshire Cat picture emerges from a near cancellation between repulsive quark kinetic and attractive pion-cloud energies in the case of the nucleon. In theΛ andΣ particles, however, replacement of one up or down quark by a strange quark removes ～ 1/N_c of the attraction from the coupling of the quarks to the pion cloud. This upsets the balance needed for the Cheshire Cat phenomenon and makes larger strange baryons more favorable energetically than the 0.5 fm ones appropriate for pureu- andd-systems. Since the above argument is crude, we appeal strongly to phenomenology. We find that magnetic moments of strange baryons favor a bag radius R?1.1 fm. We find that the excited states of theΛ-hyperons favor similarly large bag radii. Somewhat less convincingly, we argue that — due to perturbative effects — the bag radius appropriate to the Δ(1232) lies intermediate between that of the nucleon and of the strange baryons.     

2',5,7-Trihydroxy-4',5'-(2,2-dimethylchromeno)-8-(3-hydroxy-3-methylbutyl) flavanone purified from Cudrania tricuspidata induces apoptotic cell death of human leukemia U937 cells

Cellular DNA topoisomerase I is an important target in cancer chemotherapy. A chloroform extract of the root barks of Cudrania tricuspidata showed an inhibitory effect on mammalian DNA topoisomerase I. The topoisomerase I inhibitory compound was purified and identified as 2',5,7-trihydroxy-4',5'-(2,2-dimethylchromeno)-8-(3-hydroxy-3-methylbutyl) flavanone. The compound, temporarily designated as PKH-3, was shown to inhibit the activity of topoisomerase I with IC50 about 1.0 mM. Concentration of 10 microM PKH-3 caused 50% growth inhibition of human cancer cell U937. PKH-3-induced cell death was characterized with the cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) and pro-caspase 3. Furthermore, PKH-3 induced the fragmentation of DNA into multiples of 180 b.p. (an apoptotic DNA ladder), indicating that the inhibitor triggered apoptosis. This induction of apoptosis by PKH-3 was also confirmed using flow cytometry analysis. Taken together, these results suggest that PKH-3 may function by inhibiting oncogenic disease, at least in part, through the inhibition of topoisomerase I activity.     

Efficient coupling of hybrid optical waveguide with a sharp bend structure for high integration

A hybrid optical waveguide with a \(90^{\circ }\) sharp bend comprising a dielectric straight waveguide, a tapered dielectric strip waveguide, and a microscale metal gap waveguide is proposed, modeled, fabricated, and characterized with the aim of improving the efficiency of light coupling between the dielectric and plasmonic waveguides. The simulation result using the full-vector finite-difference time domain shows a total transmissivity of about 63 % at a wavelength of 1,550 nm. A set of hybrid optical waveguide with a \(90^{\circ }\) bend is fabricated via the two-step photolithography and a metal lift-off process. From the measured result for the characteristics of the fabricated hybrid optical waveguide, the transmission loss was estimated to be about 17 dB, which is in stark contrast with the simulation value. Nevertheless, such a novel coupling scheme may be of potential use in high-density photonic integration applications.     

Dynamical response of multi-patch, flux-based models to the input of infected people: Epidemic response to initiated events

The time course of an epidemic can be modeled using the differential equations that describe the spread of disease and by dividing people into “patches” of different sizes with the migration of people between these patches. We used these multi-patch, flux-based models to determine how the time course of infected and susceptible populations depends on the disease parameters, the geometry of the migrations between the patches, and the addition of infected people into a patch. We found that there are significantly longer lived transients and additional “ancillary” epidemics when the reproductive rate R is closer to 1, as would be typical of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and bird flu, than when R is closer to 10, as would be typical of measles. In addition we show, both analytical and numerical, how the time delay between the injection of infected people into a patch and the corresponding initial epidemic that it produces depends on R.     

Effective field theories, Landau-Migdal Fermi liquid theory, and effective chiral Lagrangians for nuclear matter

We reinterpret Landau-Migdal Fermi liquid theory of nuclear matter as an effective chiral field theory with a Fermi surface. The effective field theory is formulated in terms of a chiral Lagrangian with its mass and coupling parameters scaling à la Brown-Rho and with the Landau-Migdal parameters identified as the fixed points of the field theory. We show how this mapping works out for response functions to the EM vector current and, then using the same reasoning, make a prediction on nuclear axial current, in particular on the enhanced axial-charge transitions in heavy nuclei. We speculate on how to extrapolate the resulting theory, which appears to be sound both theoretically and empirically up to normal nuclear-matter density r₀, to hitherto unexplored higher density regime relevant to relativistic heavy-ion processes and to cold compact (neutron) stars.     

Schlieren visualization of micro gas turbine exhaust plume with different shapes of nozzle

Journal of Visualization - Schlieren visualization of the plume ejected from the microgas turbine nozzle was conducted to understand infrared signal characteristics of various shapes of the exhaust...