Dynamics of magnetic vortices

The canonical conservation laws of linear and angular momentum in the ferromagnetic continuum have been known to be plagued by certain ambiguities which are resolved in this paper by constructing conservation laws as suitable moments of a topological density. The resulting canonical structure is then shown to be analogous to that encountered in the familiar Hall effect and explains the unusual features of the dynamics of magnetic vortices without resorting to a detailed solution of the underlying nonlinear equations. Thus, in the absence of external magnetic fields, a magnetic vortex is shown to be spontaneously pinned around a fixed guiding center. The guiding center would drift in a direction perpendicular to an applied magnetic field gradient, provided that dissipation can be neglected, with a Hall velocity that is calculated explicitly in terms of the initial configuration of the vortex. In the presence of dissipation, the vortex undergoes skew deflection at an angle δ ≠ 90° with respect to the applied field gradient. The angle δ is related to the winding number of the vortex according to the well-known golden rule of bubble dynamics.     

Is the standard model saved asymptotically by conformal symmetry?

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics - It is pointed out that the top-quark and Higgs masses and the Higgs VEV with great accuracy satisfy the relations 4m 2 = 2m 2 = v 2, which are very...     

Some properties of the Alday–Maldacena minimum

The Alday–Maldacena solution, relevant to the n=4$n=4$ gluon amplitude in N=4$N=4$ SYM at strong coupling, was recently identified as a minimum of the regularized action in the moduli space of solutions of the AdS₅${\mathit{AdS}}_5$σ  -model equations of motion. Analogous solutions of the Nambu–Goto equations for the n=4$n=4$ case are presented and shown to form (modulo the reparametrization group) an equally large but different moduli space, with the Alday–Maldacena solution at the intersection of the σ  -model and Nambu–Goto moduli spaces. We comment upon the possible form of the regularized action for n=5$n=5$. A function of moduli parameters za$z_a$ is written, whose minimum reproduces the BDDK one-loop five-gluon amplitude. This function may thus be considered as some kind of Legendre transform of the BDDK formula and has its own value independently of the Alday–Maldacena approach.     

On the need for a phenomenological theory of <Emphasis Type="Italic">P</Emphasis>-vortices,or does the spaghetti confinement pattern admit condensed-matter analogues?

The intuition from condensed-matter physics is commonly used to generate ideas for possible confinement mechanisms in gauge theories. Today, with a clear but puzzling “spaghetti” confinement pattern arising from a decade of lattice computer experiments and implying the formation of a fluctuating net of peculiar magnetic vortices rather than condensation of homogeneously distributed magnetic monopoles, the time has come to reverse logic and search for similar patterns in condensed-matter systems. The main effect to be sought in a condensed-matter setup is the simultaneous existence of narrow tubes (P-vortices or 1-branes) of the direction-changing electric field and broader tubes (Abrikosov lines) of the magnetic field, a pattern dual to the one presumably underlying the confinement in gluodynamics. As one possible place to search, we suggest systems with coexisting charge-density waves and superconductivity.     

Distinctive attributes of β-lactam target proteins in Acinetobacter baumannii relevant to development of new antibiotics

Multi-drug-resistant forms of the Gram-negative pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii are an emerging threat to human health and further complicate the general problem of treating serious bacterial infections. Meeting this challenge requires an improved understanding of the relationships between the structures of major therapeutic targets in this organism and the activity levels exhibited against it by different antibiotics. Here we report the first crystal structures of A. baumannii penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) covalently inactivated by four β-lactam antibiotics. We also relate the results to kinetic, biophysical, and computational data. The structure of the class A protein PBP1a was solved in apo form and for its covalent conjugates with benzyl penicillin, imipenem, aztreonam, and the siderophore-conjugated monocarbam MC-1. It included a novel domain genetically spliced into a surface loop of the transpeptidase domain that contains three conserved loops. Also reported here is the first high-resolution structure of the A. baumannii class B enzyme PBP3 in apo form. Comparison of this structure with that of MC-1-derivatized PBP3 of Pseudomonas aeruginosa identified differences between these orthologous proteins in A. baumannii and P. aeruginosa. Thermodynamic analyses indicated that desolvation effects in the PBP3 ligand-binding sites contributed significantly to the thermal stability of the enzyme-antibiotic covalent complexes. Across a significant range of values, they correlated well with results from studies of inactivation kinetics and the protein structures. The structural, biophysical, and computational data help rationalize differences in the functional performance of antibiotics against different protein targets and can be used to guide the design of future agents.     

Infrared stability or anti-grandunification

We attempt to exploit the idea that the observed symmetries in particle physics may be infrared attractive fixed points of general classes of theories which do not obey the particular symmetries. Westudy some global as well as abelian gauge symmetries. For the latter we find that spinor QED is an infrared attractor while scalar QED is not.     

Geodesic deviation and particle creation in curved spacetimes

A quantum mechanical picture, relating accelerated geodesic deviation to creation of massive particles via quantum tunneling in curved background spacetimes, is presented. The effect is analogous to pair production by an electric field and leads naturally to production of massive particles in de Sitter and superluminal FRW spacetimes. The probability of particle production in de Sitter space per unit volume and time is computed in a leading semiclassical approximation and shown to coincide with the previously obtained expression.     

Replica field theory for anharmonic sound attenuation in glasses

A saddle-point treatment of interacting phonons in a disordered environment is developed. In contrast to crystalline solids, anharmonic attenuation of density fluctuations becomes important in the hydrodynamic regime, due to a broken momentum conservation. The variance of the shear modulus Δ² turns out to be the strength of the disorder enhanced phonon-phonon interaction. In the low-frequency regime (below the boson peak frequency) we obtain an Akhiezer-like sound attenuation law Γ ∝ Τω². Together with the usual Rayleigh scattering mechanism this yields a crossover of the Brillouin linewidth from a ω² to a ω⁴ regime. The crossover frequency ω_c is fully determined by the boson peak frequency and the temperature. For network glasses like SiO₂ at room temperature this crossover is predicted to be situated one order of magnitude below the boson peak frequency.