Unpinning and removal of a rotating wave in cardiac muscle

Rotating waves in cardiac muscle may be pinned to a heterogeneity, as it happens in superconductors or in superfluids. We show that the physics of electric field distribution between cardiac cells permits one to deliver an electric pulse exactly to the core of a pinned wave, without knowing its position, and even to locations where a direct access is not possible. Thus, unpinning or removal of rotating waves can be achieved. The energy needed is 2 orders of magnitude less than defibrillation energy. This opens a way to new manipulations with pinned vortices both in experiments and in cardiac clinics.     

Defibrillation via the elimination of spiral turbulence in a model for ventricular fibrillation

Ventricular fibrillation, the major reason behind sudden cardiac death, is turbulent cardiac electrical activity in which rapid, irregular disturbances in the spatiotemporal electrical activation of the heart make it incapable of any concerted pumping action. Methods of controlling ventricular fibrillation include electrical defibrillation as well as injected medication. Electrical defibrillation, though widely used, involves subjecting the whole heart to massive, and often counterproductive, electrical shocks. We propose a defibrillation method that uses a very low-amplitude shock (of order mV) applied for a brief duration (of order 100 ms) and over a coarse mesh of lines on our model ventricle.     

Scattering theory of Kondo mirages and observation of single Kondo atom phase shift

We explain the origin of the Kondo mirage seen in recent quantum corral scanning tunneling microscope experiments with a scattering theory of electrons on the surfaces of metals. Our theory, combined with experimental data, provides a direct observation of a single Kondo atom phase shift. The Kondo mirage observed at the empty focus of an elliptical quantum corral is shown to arise from multiple electron bounces off the corral wall adatoms. We demonstrate our theory with direct quantitive comparison to experimental data.     

Models of defibrillation of cardiac tissue

Heterogeneities, such as gap junctions, defects in periodical cellular lattices, intercellular clefts and fiber curvature allow one to understand the effect of an electric field in cardiac tissue. They induce membrane potential variations even in the bulk of the myocardium, with a characteristic sawtooth shape. The sawtooth potential, induced by heterogeneities at large scales (tissue strands) can be more easily observed, and lead to stronger effects than the one induced at the cellular level. In the generic model of propagation in cardiac tissue (FitzHugh), 4 mechanisms of defibrillation were found, two mechanisms based on excitation (E(A),E(M)), and two-on de-excitation (D(A),D(M)). The lowest electric field is required by an E(M) mechanism. In the Beeler-Reuter ionic model, mechanism D(M) is impossible. We critically review the experimental basis of the theory and propose new experiments. (c) 1998 American Institute of Physics.     

Direct and compound contributions to (n, γ) cross sections

We have investigated the direct and compound nucleus contributions to the²⁰⁸Pb (n, γ)²⁰⁹Pb reaction in the region 2.25–7.25 MeV. We have used for the compound nucleus cross sections a modified Hauser-Feshbach theory in the presence of direct reactions. The corrections to the traditional Hauser-Feshbach theory are found to be small in this case.     

Electronic band structure of (001) GaAs-AlAs superlattices

We present the results of a theory of electronic energy bands of superlattices using an application of a recent novel empirical tight binding method. The theory is applied to GaAs-AlAs (001) superlattices with very good agreements with available experimental results for both the direct and indirect energy gaps.     

Self-consistency in non-extensive thermodynamics of highly excited hadronic states

The self-consistency of a thermodynamical theory for hadronic systems based on the non-extensive statistics is investigated. We show that it is possible to obtain a self-consistent theory according to the asymptotic bootstrap principle if the mass spectrum and the energy density increase q-exponentially. A direct consequence is the existence of a limiting effective temperature for the hadronic system. We show that this result is in agreement with experiments.     

An approach to measurement

We present a new approach to measurement theory. Our definition of measurement is motivated by direct laboratory procedures as they are carried out in practice. The theory is developed within the quantum logic framework. This work clarifies an important problem in the quantum logic approach; namely, where the Hilbert space comes from. We consider the relationship between measurements and observables, and present a Hilbert space embedding theorem. We conclude with a discussion of charge systems.     

Inverse Problem of the Theory of Reflection for Three-Layer Structures

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics - We propose an original approach to analyzing the exact solution of the direct problem in the theory of reflection that allows an algorithm for...     

The role of cardiac tissue structure in defibrillation

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between cardiac tissue structure, applied electric field, and the transmembrane potential induced in the process of defibrillation. It outlines a general understanding of the structural mechanisms that contribute to the outcome of a defibrillation shock. Electric shocks defibrillate by changing the transmembrane potential throughout the myocardium. In this process first and foremost the shock current must access the bulk of myocardial mass. The exogenous current traverses the myocardium along convoluted intracellular and extracellular pathways channeled by the tissue structure. Since individual fibers follow curved pathways in the heart, and the fiber direction rotates across the ventricular wall, the applied current perpetually engages in redistribution between the intra- and extracellular domains. This redistribution results in changes in transmembrane potential (membrane polarization): regions of membrane hyper- and depolarization of extent larger than a single cell are induced in the myocardium by the defibrillation shock. Tissue inhomogeneities also contribute to local membrane polarization in the myocardium which is superimposed over the large-scale polarization associated with the fibrous organization of the myocardium. The paper presents simulation results that illustrate various mechanisms by which cardiac tissue structure assists the changes in transmembrane potential throughout the myocardium. (c) 1998 American Institute of Physics.     

Cancellation of Sudakov effects in the Drell-Yan process

We show, by a direct examination of Feynman graphs, that lowest-order Sudakov effects factorize from Glauber-region gluons in quark-hadron scattering. We then find that the Sudakov double logarithms cancel. This result is consistent with order-by-order factorization in perturbation theory for the Drell-Yan process.     

Suppress Winfree turbulence by local forcing excitable systems

The occurrence of Winfree turbulence is currently regarded as one of the principal mechanisms underlying cardiac fibrillation. We develop a local stimulation method that suppresses Winfree turbulence in three-dimensional excitable media. We find that Winfree turbulence can be effectively suppressed by locally injecting periodic signals to only a very small subset (around some surface region) of total space sites. Our method for the first time demonstrates the effectiveness of local low-amplitude periodic excitations in suppressing turbulence in 3D excitable media and has fundamental improvements in efficiency, convenience, and turbulence suppression speed compared with previous strategies. Therefore, it has great potential for developing into a practical low-amplitude defibrillation approach.     

Effective field theory for bound state reflection

Elastic quantum bound-state reflection from a hard-wall boundary provides direct information regarding the structure and compressibility of quantum bound states. We discuss elastic quantum bound-state reflection and derive a general theory for elastic reflection of shallow dimers from hard-wall surfaces using effective field theory. We show that there is a small expansion parameter for analytic calculations of the reflection scattering length. We present a calculation up to second order in the effective Hamiltonian in one, two, and three dimensions. We also provide numerical lattice results for all three cases as a comparison with our effective field theory results. Finally, we provide an analysis of the compressibility of the alpha particle confined to a cubic lattice with vanishing Dirichlet boundaries.     

Direct correlation function in equilibrium polymers by PRISM equations

In this work, we calculate the direct correlation function and the structure factor of equilibrium polymers in the framework of the PRISM theory. We study especially the effect of the polydispersity and the monomer density on these functions. The intermolecular pair distribution function is compared with simulation results using a recent equilibrium polymer chains model. A scaling analysis is carried out for the direct correlation function.     

Feynman quantization: An operator approach to path integration over commuting and anticommuting variables

We present an operator quantization scheme on a continuous direct product of Hilbert spaces over a time interval as an extension of the quantization using Feynman path integrals. We define the continuous direct product as a Hilbert space with two principal bases: the Fock and the Feynman ones. The Fock basis, defined by a complete set of commuting operators at different times, serves for a definition of the operator calculus. The Feynman basis, simultaneously diagonalizing the complete set of commuting operators, leads to path integrals constructed without time slicing as a spectral representation of certain operator functions. The construction of quantum theory and the corresponding path integrals for the harmonic oscillator is demonstrated both in the configuration and phase spaces. The extension of the theory to coherent states and anticommuting variables is performed.     

Fresnel filtering of Gaussian beams in microcavities

We study the output from the modes described by the superposition of Gaussian beams confined in the quasi-stadium microcavities. We experimentally observe the deviation from Snell's law in the output when the incident angle of the Gaussian beam at the cavity interface is near the critical angle for total internal reflection, providing direct experimental evidence on the Fresnel filtering. The theory of the Fresnel filtering for a planar interface qualitatively reproduces experimental data, and a discussion is given on small deviation between the measured data and the theory.     

Resetting wave forms in dictyostelium territories

The mechanism by which spiral wave patterns appear in populations of Dictyostelium was probed experimentally by external chemical perturbation. Spiral waves, which often arise from the breakup of circular waves driven by pacemakers, typically entrain those pacemakers. We studied these processes by resetting the waves with a spatially uniform pulse of extrinsic cyclic AMP. A pattern of spirals reappeared if resetting was early in the signaling stage, but only targets emerged following late resetting, in a manner analogous to cardiac defibrillation. This supports recent hypotheses that wave pattern selection naturally occurs by slow temporal variation of the excitability of the cells.     

Scattering Theory with Finite-Gap Backgrounds: Transformation Operators and Characteristic Properties of Scattering Data

We develop direct and inverse scattering theory for Jacobi operators (doubly infinite second order difference operators) with steplike coefficients which are asymptotically close to different finite-gap quasi-periodic coefficients on different sides. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the scattering data in the case of perturbations with finite second (or higher) moment.     

Wikipedia mining of hidden links between political leaders

We describe a new method of reduced Google matrix which allows to establish direct andhidden links between a subset of nodes of a large directed network. This approach usesparallels with quantum scattering theory, developed for processes in nuclear andmesoscopic physics and quantum chaos. The method is applied to the Wikipedia networks indifferent language editions analyzing several groups of political leaders of USA, UK,Germany, France, Russia and G20. We demonstrate that this approach allows to recoverreliably direct and hidden links among political leaders. We argue that the reduced Googlematrix method can form the mathematical basis for studies in social and political sciencesanalyzing Leader-Members eXchange (LMX).