We consider two-dimensional Yang-Mills theories on arbitrary Riemann surfaces. We introduce a generalized Yang-Mills action, which coincides with the ordinary one on flat surfaces but differs from it in its coupling to two-dimensional gravity. The quantization of this theory in the unitary gauge can be consistently performed taking into account all the topological sectors arising from the gauge...

A repeated thermomechanical treatment (RTMT) was adopted to control the microstructure of a glass-balloon-dispersed aluminum alloy (AC3A) composite. The RTMT, which involves the repetition of a multi-step process and followed by heat treatment, was applied to a cast plate of the composite. The composite was successfully worked into a rod or sheet by either swaging or flat rolling. The porous gl...

We study tachyon condensation on brane-antibrane systems in orbifold theories from the viewpoint of boundary string field theory. We show that the condensation of holomorphic tachyon fields generates various fractional D-branes. The boundary N=2 supersymmetry in the world-sheet theory ensures this result exactly. Furthermore, our results are consistent with the twisted RR-charges from detailed ...

We calculate the supersymmetric type II string partition function in a flat background for the situation where the world-sheet is hyperelliptic. We show explicitly that the contribution to the cosmological constant from hyperelliptic world-surfaces vanishes for genus< 20. This implies, in particular, that the cosmological constant vanishes completely to two loops. Due to the decoupling of the h...

Novel technologies are required for three-dimensional cell biology and biophysics. By three-dimensional we refer to experimental conditions that essentially try to avoid hard and flat surfaces and favour unconstrained sample dynamics. We believe that light-sheet-based microscopes are particularly well suited to studies of sensitive three-dimensional biological systems. The application of such i...

Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) were synthesized by Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD). Two different procedures were used to grow MWCNT films roughly, aligned in the direction normal to the SiO2/Si(111) substrate. Inverse Photoemission Spectroscopy measurements, on these samples, show the existence of resonances which could be traced back to a flat graphene sheet. The unoccupied valence band ...

Exact and explicit string solutions in de Sitter spacetime are found. (Here, the string equations reduce to a sinh-Gordon model). A new feature without flat spacetime analogy appears: starting with a single world-sheet, several (here two) strings emerge. One string is stable and the other (unstable) grows as the universe grows. Their invariant size and energy either grow as the expansion factor...

The lateral membrane plays an important role in the mechanical stability of epithelial cell sheet in steady state. In addition, the lateral membrane is continuously remodeled during dynamic processes such as cell extrusion, cytokinesis, and intercellular cell movement. In wound healing, the lateral membrane must be built from flat and spread cells that had crawled into the area of the wound. Th...

We study renormalization group flows in unitary two dimensional sigma models with asymptotically flat target spaces. Applying an infrared cutoff to the target space, we use the Zamolodchikov c-theorem to demonstrate that the target space ADM energy of the UV fixed point is greater than that of the IR fixed point: spacetime energy decreases under world-sheet RG flow. This result mirrors the well...

Enhanced plasmonic fields are a promising way to increase the efficiency of photocatalytic water splitting. The availability of atomically thin materials opens up completely new opportunities. We report photocatalytic water splitting on ultrathin CdSe nanoplatelets placed in plasmonic nanogaps formed by a flat gold surface and a gold nanoparticle. The extreme field intensity created in these ga...