E2 nuclear resonance effects in pionic and kaonic atoms

The attenuation due to the E2 nuclear resonance effect has been measured in hadronic atoms using pions with ¹¹¹Cd and ¹¹²Cd, and for kaons with ¹²²Sn. Energies of the relevant X-ray and γ-ray transitions and of the X-ray cascade intensities have also been measured so as to give a self-consistent set of information. The results are found to be in very good agreement with theoretical calculations.     

Gold nanoshell bioconjugates for molecular imaging in living cells

Advances in scattering-based optical imaging technologies offer a new approach to noninvasive point-of-care detection, diagnosis, and monitoring of cancer. Emerging photonics technologies provide a cost-effective means to image tissue in vivo with high resolution in real time. Advancing the clinical potential of these imaging strategies requires the development of optical contrast agents targeted to specific molecular signatures of disease. We describe the use of a novel class of contrast agents based on nanoshell bioconjugates for molecular imaging in living cells. Nanoshells offer significant advantages over conventional imaging probes including continuous and broad wavelength tunability, far greater scattering and absorption coefficients, increased chemical stability, and improved biocompatibility. We show that nanoshell bioconjugates can be used to effectively target and image human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), a clinically relevant biomarker, in live human breast carcinoma cells.     

Green's function for magnetically incoherent interacting electrons in one dimension

Using a path integral approach and bosonization, we calculate the low-energy asymptotics of the one particle Green's function for a "magnetically incoherent" one dimensional strongly interacting electron gas at temperatures much greater than the typical exchange energy but much lower than the Fermi energy. The Green's function exhibits features reminiscent of spin-charge separation, with exponential spatial decay and scaling behavior with interaction dependent anomalous exponents inconsistent with any unitary conformal field theory. We compute the tunneling density of states at low energies and find that it is a power law in energy with exponent 1/(4g)-1, where g is the Luttinger interaction parameter in the charge sector. The underlying physics is made transparent by the simplicity of the approach. Our results generalize those of Cheianov and Zvonarev [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 176401 (2004)]].     

Brane-World Models Emerging from Collisions of Plane Waves in 5D

We consider brane-world models embedded in a five-dimensional bulk spacetime with a large extra dimension and a cosmological constant. The cosmology in 5D possesses wave-like character in the sense that the metric coefficients in the bulk are assumed to have the form of plane waves propagating in the fifth dimension. We model the brane as the plane of collision of waves propagating in opposite directions along the extra dimension. This plane is a jump discontinuity which presents the usual Z ₂ symmetry of brane models. The model reproduces the generalized Friedmann equation for the evolution on the brane, regardless of the specific details in 5D. Model solutions with spacelike extra coordinate show the usual big-bang behavior, while those with timelike extra dimension present a big bounce. This bounce is an genuine effect of a timelike extra dimension. We argue that, based on our current knowledge, models having a large timelike extra dimension cannot be dismissed as mathematical curiosities in non-physical solutions. The size of the extra dimension is small today, but it is increasing if the universe is expanding with acceleration. Also, the expansion rate of the fifth dimension can be expressed in a simple way through the four-dimensional deceleration and Hubble parameters as – q H. These predictions could have important observational implications, notably for the time variation of rest mass, electric charge and the gravitational constant. They hold for the three (k = 0, + 1, – 1) models with arbitrary cosmological constant, and are independent of the signature of the extra dimension.     

Naphthalene-based calixarenes: unusual regiochemistry of a Friedel-Crafts alkylation

[reaction: see text] In the pursuit of naphthalene-based calixarenes, a Friedel-Crafts alkylation with unusual regiochemistry was observed. Treatment of carbinol 14 with catalytic triflic acid was expected to produce calixarenes of the class represented by 16. Instead, the major product was cyclic trimer 15, in which alkylation of each naphthalene ring occurred at the electronically deactivated position. The structure of compound 15 was assigned by 2-D NMR studies.     

Hyperbolic -spheres with conical singularities, accessory parameters and Kähler metrics on

We show that the real-valued function on the moduli space of pointed rational curves, defined as the critical value of the Liouville action functional on a hyperbolic -sphere with conical singularities of arbitrary orders , generates accessory parameters of the associated Fuchsian differential equation as their common antiderivative. We introduce a family of Kähler metrics on parameterized by the set of orders , explicitly relate accessory parameters to these metrics, and prove that the functions are their Kähler potentials.

     

Weakly abelian lattice-ordered groups

Every nilpotent lattice-ordered group is weakly Abelian; i.e., satisfies the identity . In 1984, V. M. Kopytov asked if every weakly Abelian lattice-ordered group belongs to the variety generated by all nilpotent lattice-ordered groups [The Black Swamp Problem Book, Question 40]. In the past 15 years, all attempts have centred on finding counterexamples. We show that two constructions of weakly Abelian lattice-ordered groups fail to be counterexamples. They include all preiously considered potential counterexamples and also many weakly Abelian ordered free groups on finitely many generators. If every weakly Abelian ordered free group on finitely many generators belongs to the variety generated by all nilpotent lattice-ordered groups, then every weakly Abelian lattice-ordered group belongs to this variety. This paper therefore redresses the balance and suggests that Kopytov's problem is even more intriguing.

     

Paroxysmal starting and stopping of circulating waves in excitable media

Levels of intracellular Ca2+ were monitored using fluorescence from Ca2+-sensitive dyes in chick embryonic heart cells cultured in an annular geometry. There was spontaneous starting and stopping of reentrant waves of activity. The results are modeled using modified FitzHugh-Nagumo equations representing pacemakers embedded in a conducting medium. These results provide a potential mechanism for spontaneous abnormal cardiac rhythms in which there are rapid heart beats (tachycardias) that repetitively start and stop.