Coulomb branch Hilbert series and three dimensional Sicilian theories

Journal of High Energy Physics - We find both analytical and numerical solutions of SU(2) Yang-Mills with an adjoint Higgs field within both closed and open tubes whose sections are spherical caps....     

Validated procedure for simultaneous trace level determination of the anti-cancer agent gemcitabine and its metabolite in human urine by high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry

A sensitive, accurate and reproducible procedure has been developed for the quantitative determination of gemcitabine (2',2'-difluorodeoxycytidine, dFdC) and its metabolite 2',2'-difluorodeoxyuridine (2dFdU) in human urine. The samples (2 mL) were extracted by solid-phase extraction (SPE) and analyzed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS/MS), operating in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM mode). This procedure was validated using 2'-deoxycytidine as internal standard (IS). The urine assay was linear over the range 0-50 microg/L, with a limit of quantification (LLOQ) of 0.2 microg/L for gemcitabine and 1.0 microg/L for the metabolite. The respective limits of detection (LODs) for dFdC and 2dFdU were 0.05 and 0.3 microg/L. The precision and accuracy of the assay were determined on three different days. The within-series precision was found to be always less than 8.5 and 12.7% for gemcitabine and 2dFdU, respectively. The overall precision expressed as relative standard deviation (CVr) was always less than 7.1% for both analytes. The recovery of gemcitabine was always greater than 90% with a CVr <6.3%. The measurement uncertainty determined from the validation data assessed the possibility of determining this drug and its metabolite at trace levels in urine, considering that the combined uncertainty of the whole procedure was always less than 30%.     

Possibility of observable amount of gravitational waves from inflation

The curvaton and inhomogeneous reheating scenarios for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represent an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario. The basic assumption of these mechanisms is that the initial curvature perturbation due to the inflaton field is negligible. This is usually attained by lowering the energy scale of inflation, thereby concluding that the amount of gravitational waves produced during inflation is highly suppressed. We show that the curvaton and inhomogeneous reheating scenarios are compatible with a level of gravity-wave fluctuations which may well be observed in future satellite experiments.     

New Tetracobalt Cluster Compounds for Electrocatalytic Proton Reduction: Syntheses,Structures, and Reactivity

Reaction of Co₂(CO)₈ and 1,3‐propanedithiol in a 1:1 molar ratio in toluene affords a novel tetracobalt complex, [(μ₂‐pdt)₂(μ₃‐S)Co₄(CO)₆] (pdt=‐SCH₂CH₂CH₂S‐, 1 ), which possesses some of the structural features of the active site of [FeFe]‐hydrogenase. Carbonyl displacement reaction of complex 1 in the presence of mono‐ or diphosphine ligands leads to the formation of [(μ₂‐pdt)₂(μ₃‐S)Co₄(CO)₅(PCy₃)] ( 2 ) and [(μ₂‐pdt)₂(μ₃‐S)Co₄(CO)₄(L)] [L=Ph₂PCH?CHPPh₂, 3 ; Ph₂PCH₂N(Ph)CH₂PPh₂, 4 ; Ph₂PCH₂N(iPr)CH₂PPh₂, 5 ]. Complexes 1 – 5 have been fully characterized by spectroscopy and single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction studies. Cyclic voltammetry has revealed that complexes 1 – 5 show a reversible first reduction wave and are active for electrocatalytic proton reduction in the presence of CF₃COOH. Protonation reactions have been monitored by ³¹P and ¹H NMR and infrared spectroscopies, which revealed the formation of different protonated species. The mono‐reduced species of 1 – 5 have been spectroscopically characterized by EPR and spectro‐electro‐infrared techniques.     

Supersymmetry in Lorentzian Curved Spaces and Holography

We consider superconformal and supersymmetric field theories on four-dimensional Lorentzian curved space-times, and their five-dimensional holographic duals. As in the Euclidean signature case, preserved supersymmetry for a superconformal theory is equivalent to the existence of a charged conformal Killing spinor. Differently from the Euclidean case, we show that the existence of such spinors is equivalent to the existence of a null conformal Killing vector. For a supersymmetric field theory with an R-symmetry, this vector field is further restricted to be Killing. We demonstrate how these results agree with the existing classification of supersymmetric solutions of minimal gauged supergravity in five dimensions.