Refine
Has Fulltext
- yes (2805) (remove)
Year of publication
Document Type
- Doctoral Thesis (2805) (remove)
Language
- English (2805) (remove)
Keywords
- Maus (61)
- Taufliege (61)
- Drosophila (39)
- Signaltransduktion (39)
- Topologischer Isolator (38)
- Thrombozyt (36)
- Genexpression (34)
- Tissue Engineering (31)
- Leistungsbewertung (29)
- T-Lymphozyt (28)
Institute
- Graduate School of Life Sciences (791)
- Theodor-Boveri-Institut für Biowissenschaften (482)
- Physikalisches Institut (209)
- Institut für Informatik (139)
- Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik (127)
- Institut für Organische Chemie (113)
- Institut für Mathematik (112)
- Institut für Psychologie (111)
- Institut für Pharmazie und Lebensmittelchemie (104)
- Julius-von-Sachs-Institut für Biowissenschaften (90)
Schriftenreihe
Sonstige beteiligte Institutionen
- Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) (7)
- Fraunhofer-Institut für Silicatforschung ISC (5)
- Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm (3)
- Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Raumfahrtsysteme (2)
- EMBL Heidelberg (2)
- Institut für Tierökologie und Tropenbiologie (2)
- Rudolf Virchow Center for Integrative and Translational Bioimaging, University of Würzburg (2)
- Universität Belgrad, Serbien (2)
- Universitätsklinikum Münster (2)
- Universitätsklinikum Würzburg (2)
ResearcherID
- B-1911-2015 (1)
- B-4606-2017 (1)
- C-2593-2016 (1)
- D-1250-2010 (1)
- I-5818-2014 (1)
- J-8841-2015 (1)
- M-1240-2017 (1)
- N-2030-2015 (1)
- N-3741-2015 (1)
EU-Project number / Contract (GA) number
- 311781 (1)
- 320377 (1)
- EU (FP7/ 2007-2013) (1)
In this thesis we analyze CP violating effects of MSSM phases in production and two-body decays of neutralinos, charginos and sfermions. For different supersymmetric processes we define and calculate CP-odd asymmetries, which base on triple products. We present numerical results for electron-positron collisions at a future linear collider with a center of mass energy of 500-800 GeV, high luminosity and longitudinally polarized beams.
In this work, we studied in great detail how the unknown parameters of the SUSY seesaw model can be determined from measurements of observables at or below collider energies, namely rare flavor violating decays of leptons, slepton pair production processes at linear colliders and slepton mass differences. This is a challenging task as there is an intricate dependence of the observables on the unknown seesaw, light neutrino and mSUGRA parameters. In order to separate these different influences, we first considered two classes of seesaw models, namely quasi-degenerate and strongly hierarchical right-handed neutrinos. As a generalisation, we presented a method that can be used to reconstruct the high energy seesaw parameters, among them the heavy right-handed neutrino masses, from low energy observables alone.
The enhancement of electronic and optical properties of semiconductor nanostructures is known as a direct consequence of the spatial confinement of carriers. However, the physics of quantum confinement is still not entirely understood. This work focuses on a qualitative study of quasi-zero dimensional II-VI semiconductor nanostructures (quantum dots QDs). In particular, commercially available as-received and heat treated CdSxSe1-x QDs embedded in a dielectric matrix were investigated by means of linear and nonlinear spectroscopy techniques. Low wavenumber Raman in off-resonance scattering regime was applied in order to obtain key-properties of the nanocrystals, such as the QD's size and the distribution of the QD's size inside the inhomogeneous broadening. Moreover, by careful selection of the polarization geometries, different acoustic vibrational modes could be evidenced. In comparison to the bulk, 3D confinement of carriers leads to modifications in the energy distribution in a QD and as a consequence, the intensity of the acoustical phonons is enhanced. However, only 2 acoustic vibrational modes (labelled l=0 and l=2) are Raman-active, which were selectively excited using linear polarized laser light in parallel- and cross-polarized excitation geometries. The QD's size was determined using the dependence of the frequency of the acoustic vibrational mode on the diameter of the vibrating particle, whereas the QD's size distribution was estimated from the normalized full width at the half of the maximum (FWHM) of the symmetric acoustic vibrational mode. In order to study relaxation mechanisms, which in quantum confined systems occur on a ps time scale, ultrafast spectroscopy techniques using laser pulses in the fs range must be employed. To this purpose, fs-FWM and fs-PPT measurements were performed on CdS0.6Se0.4 QDs of 9.1 nm in diameter, embedded in a glass matrix. The laser pulses employed in these experiments were circularly polarized, careful selection of the polarization geometries making different nonlinear processes available to study. It was shown that the relaxation of polarization selection rules depend strongly on the symmetry of the nanocrystals under discussion. The investigated nanocrystals belong to the symmetry group C2v or lower and their hexagonal crystal shape could be evidenced. The relaxation of selection rules was explained in the framework of the 4-level system, including a ground state, two exciton states and a biexcitons state. The appearance of FWM and PPT signals in forbidden polarization geometries was shown to be due to exciton state splitting due to lowering of the QD’s symmetry and due to the strong Coulomb interaction between carriers belonging to the same nanocrystal. Moreover, the significant difference in the origin of the gratings created by two pulses having the same and opposite polarizations, respectively. The intensity of the FWM signals should be the square of the intensity of the PPT signals and therefore the PPT measurements were employed as a check method for the results yielded by the FWM technique. The efficiency of circularly polarized femtosecond FWM spectroscopy techniques was proved once more in the investigation of heat treated CdSe QDs embedded in a dielectric matrix. The role of non-phonon energy relaxation mechanisms in the exciton ground and excited state of the QDs ensemble was extensively studied. Moreover, the dependence of the crystal shape asymmetry on the particle size and on the growth conditions could be estimated. It was shown, that the most efficient procedure to grow high quality nanocrystals is a longer heat treating at lower temperatures. In this case, the particles have more time to "nucleate" and to adopt a more "symmetric" shape. Further, the relaxation of excitons was extensively investigated. It was shown, that the electron intraband dynamics depend strongly on the Coulomb interaction between electrons and holes. Even at low excitation density, the Auger processes cannot be ignored. Auger autoionization of excitons followed by capture of carriers in surface states and deep traps in the dielectric matrix slow down the exciton relaxation process leading to an exciton lifetime ranging on a ps time scale. The relaxation of excitons from higher lying energy levels occurs also on two paths. At the beginning of the relaxation process (t31 < 400 fs), Auger-like thermalization of carriers is responsible for relaxation of the electron from 1pe into its 1se state, while the hole relaxes rapidly through its dense spectrum of states in the valence band. This process is immediately followed by capturing of carriers in deep traps, situated at the semiconductor-dielectric heterointerface. The traps are a consequence of the QD's asymmetry: the more and the deeper the traps, the higher the asymmetry of the nanocrystals (the band offset  is larger). This work presents a complete characterization of CdSSe QDs embedded in a glass matrix. The most important properties of the nanocrystals like QD's size and size distribution inside the inhomogeneous broadening were determined by means of low wavenumber Raman spectroscopy. In order to draw a full picture of these nanoparticles further complementary nonlinear spectroscopy techniques were used. Invaluable conclusions were available as a result of TI-FWM techniques applied in the framework of transient grating on 3D confined nanocrystals embedded in a glass matrix. The polarized the TI-FWM measurements were successfully performed on different QDs ensembles in order to determine symmetry properties and to describe the ultrafast relaxation mechanisms. This work brings additional contribution concerning the preparation of high quality QDs by presenting the effect of different growth conditions on the QDs symmetry, thus indicating a way for efficient manufacturing of nanocrystals.
1. Summary Candida albicans is an opportunistic human fungal pathogen that causes a variety of infections, ranging from superficial mucosal to deep-seated systemic infections, especially in immunocompromised patients. Although the ability of C.albicans to cause disease largely depends on the immune status of the host, the fungus also exhibits specific characteristics that facilitate colonization, dissemination, and adaptation to different host niches and thereby turn C.albicans from a harmless commensal to an aggressive pathogen. In response to various environmental stimuli C.albicans switches from growth as a budding yeast to invasive filamentous growth, and this morphogenetic switch plays an important role in C.albicans pathogenesis. Nitrogen limitation is one of the signals that induce filamentous growth in C.albicans, and the control of the morphogenetic transition by nitrogen availability was studied in detail in the present work. Ammonium is a preferred nitrogen source for yeasts that is taken up into the cells by specific transporters. It was found in this study that C.albicans possesses two major ammonium transporters, encoded by the CaMEP1 and CaMEP2 genes, expression of which is induced by nitrogen starvation. Whereas mep1 or mep2 single mutants grew as well as the wild-type strain on limiting concentrations of ammonium, deletion of both transporters rendered C.albicans unable to grow at ammonium concentrations below 5 mM. In contrast to mep1 mutants, mep2 mutants failed to filament and grew only in the yeast form under nitrogen starvation conditions, indicating that in addition to its role as an ammonium transporter CaMep2p also has a signaling function in the induction of filamentous growth. CaMep2p was found to be a less efficient ammonium transporter than CaMep1p and to be expressed at much higher levels, a distinguishing feature important for its signaling function. By the construction and analysis of serially truncated versions of CaMep2p, the C-terminal cytoplasmic tail of the protein was shown to be essential for signaling but dispensable for ammonium transport, demonstrating that these two functions of CaMep2p are separable. In C.albicans at least two signal transduction pathways, a MAP kinase cascade and a cAMP-dependent pathway ending in the transcriptional regulators Cph1p and Efg1p, respectively, control filamentous growth, and mutants defective in either one of these pathways are defective for filamentation under nitrogen starvation conditions. A hyperactive CaMEP2 allele rescued the filamentation defect of a cph1 or a efg1 mutant, but not of a cph1 efg1 double mutant or a mutant deleted for RAS1, which acts upstream of and activates both signaling pathways. Conversely, a dominant active RAS1 allele or addition of exogenous cAMP rescued the filamentation defect of mep2 mutants. These results suggest that CaMep2p activates both the MAP kinase and the cAMP pathway in a Ras1p dependent manner to promote filamentous growth under nitrogen starvation conditions. At sufficiently high concentrations, ammonium repressed filamentous growth even when the signaling pathways were artificially activated. Therefore, C.albicans has established a regulatory circuit in which a preferred nitrogen source, ammonium, serves as an inhibitor of morphogenesis that is taken up into the cell by the same transporter that induces filamentous growth in response to nitrogen starvation. Although a detailed understanding of virulence mechanisms of C.albicans may ultimately lead to novel approaches to combat infections caused by this pathogen, the identification and characterization of essential genes as potential targets for the development of antifungal drugs is a strategy favoured by most pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, C.albicans homologs of three genes that are essential in other fungi were selected in collaboration with an industrial partner and functionally characterized in this work. RAP1 encodes the repressor/activator protein 1, a transcription factor and telomere binding protein that is essential for viability in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. However, deletion of the C.albicans RAP1 homolog did not affect viability or growth of the mutants, suggesting that it is not a promising target. CBF1 (centromere binding factor 1) is necessary for proper chromosome segregation and transcriptional activation of methionine biosynthesis genes in S.cerevisiae and is essential for viability in the related yeasts Kluyveromyces lactis and Candida glabrata. Deletion of CBF1 in C.albicans did not result in an increased frequency of chromosome loss, indicating that it has no role in chromosome segregation in this organism. However, the C.albicans cbf1 mutants exhibited severe growth impairment, temperature sensitivity at 42°C, and auxotrophy for sulphur amino acids, suggesting that Cbf1p is a transcription factor that is important for normal growth of C.albicans. YIL19 is an essential gene in S.cerevisiae that is involved in 18S rRNA maturation. YIL19 was found to be an essential gene also in C.albicans. Conditional mutants in which the YIL19 gene could be excised from the genome by inducible, FLP-mediated recombination were non-viable and accumulated rRNA precursors, demonstrating that YIL19 is essential for this important cellular process and for viability of C.albicans and could serve as a target for the development of antifungal drugs.
The subject of this work has been the investigation of dynamical processes that occur during and after the interaction of matter with pulses of femtosecond laser radiation. The experiments presented here were performed in the gas phase and involve one atomic and several model molecular systems. Absorption of femtosecond laser radiation by these systems induces an electronic excitation, and subsequently their ionization, photofragmentation or isomerization. The specific adjustment of the excitation laser field properties offers the possibility to manipulate the induced electronic excitation and to influence the formation of the associated photoproducts. From the perspective of the employed spectroscopic methods, the development of photoelectron spectroscopy and its implementation in laser control experiments has been of particular interest in this thesis. This technique allows for a most direct and intuitive observation of electronic excitation dynamics in atomic as well as in complex polyatomic molecular systems. The propagation of an intermediate electronic transient state, associated to the formation of a particular photoproduct, can be interrogated by means of its correlation to a specific state of the atomic or molecular continuum. Such correlations involve the autoionization of the transient state, or by means of a second probe laser field, a structural correlation, as summarized by the Koopman's theorem (section 2.4.1). The technique of adaptive femtosecond quantum control has been the subject of development in our group for many years. The basic method, by which the temporal profile of near-infrared laser pulses at a central wavelength of 800 nm, can be adjusted, is a programmable femtosecond pulse-shaper that comprises of a zero dispersion compressor and a commercial liquid crystal modulator (LCD). This experimental arrangement was realized prior to this thesis and served as a starting point to extend the pulse-shaping technique to the ultraviolet spectral region. This technological development was realized for the purposes of the experiments presented in Chapter 5. It involves a combination of the LCD-pulse-shaper with frequency up-conversion techniques on the basis of producing specifically modulated laser pulses of central wavelength 266 nm. Furthermore, the optical method X-FROG had to be developed in order to characterize the often complex structure of generated ultraviolet pulses. In the adaptive control experiments presented in this work, the generated femtosecond laser pulses could be automatically adjusted by means of specifically addressing the 128 independent voltage parameters of the programmable liquid-crystal modulator. Additionally a machine learning algorithm was employed for the cause of defining laser pulse-shapes that delivered the desired (optimal) outcome in the investigated laser interaction processes. In Chapter 4, the technique of feedback-controlled femtosecond pulse shaping was combined with time-of-flight mass spectroscopy as well as photoelectron spectroscopy in order to investigate the multiphoton double ionization of atomic calcium. A pronounced absolute enhancement of the double ionization yield was obtained with optimized femtosecond laser pulses. On the basis of the measured photoelectron spectra and of the electron optimization experiments, a non-sequential process was found, which plays an important role in the formation of doubly charged Calcium ions. Then in Chapter 5, the dynamics following the pp* excitation of ethylene-like molecules were investigated. In this context, the model molecule stilbene was studied by means of femtosecond photoelectron spectroscopy. Due to the simplicity of its chemical structure, stilebene is one of the most famous models used in experimental as well as theoretical studies of isomerization dynamics. From the time-resolved experiments described in that chapter, new spectroscopic data involving the second excited electronic state S2 of the molecule were acquired. The second ethylenic product was the molecule tetrakis (dimethylamino) ethylene (TDMAE). Due to the presence of numerous lone pair electrons on the four dimethylamino groups, TDMAE exhibits a much more complex structure than stilbene. Nevertheless, previously reported studies on the dynamics of TDMAE provided vital information for planning and conducting a successful optimisation control experiment of the wavepacket propagation upon the (pp*) S1 excited potential surface of the molecule. Finally, in Chapter 6 the possibility of employing femtosecond laser pulses as an alternative method for activating a metallocene molecular catalyst was addressed. By means of an adaptive laser control scheme, an optimization experiment was realized. There, the target was the selective cleavage of one methyl-ligand of the model catalyst (Cp)^2Zr(CH3)^2, which induces a catalytic coordination position on the molecule. The spectroscopic studies presented in that chapter were performed in collaboration to the company BASF A.G. and constitute a proof-of principle attempt for a commercial application of the adaptive femtosecond quantum control technique.
This thesis aims at a description of the equilibrium dynamics of quantum spin glass systems. To this end a generic fermionic SU(2), spin 1/2 spin glass model with infinite-range interactions is defined in the first part. The model is treated in the framework of imaginary-time Grassmann field theory along with the replica formalism. A dynamical two-step decoupling procedure, which retains the full time dependence of the (replica-symmetric) saddle point, is presented. As a main result, a set of highly coupled self-consistency equations for the spin-spin correlations can be formulated. Beyond the so-called spin-static approximation two complementary systematic approximation schemes are developed in order to render the occurring integration problem feasible. One of these methods restricts the quantum-spin dynamics to a manageable number of bosonic Matsubara frequencies. A sequence of improved approximants to some quantity can be obtained by gradually extending the set of employed discrete frequencies. Extrapolation of such a sequence yields an estimate of the full dynamical solution. The other method is based on a perturbative expansion of the self-consistency equations in terms of the dynamical correlations. In the second part these techniques are applied to the isotropic Heisenberg spin glass both on the Fock space (HSGF) and, exploiting the Popov-Fedotov trick, on the spin space (HSGS). The critical temperatures of the paramagnet to spin glass phase transitions are determined accurately. Compared to the spin-static results, the dynamics causes slight increases of T_c by about 3% and 2%, respectively. For the HSGS the specific heat C(T) is investigated in the paramagnetic phase and, by way of a perturbative method, below but close to T_c. The exact C(T)-curve is shown to exhibit a pronounced non-analyticity at T_c and, contradictory to recent reports by other authors, there is no indication of maximum above T_c. In the last part of this thesis the spin glass model is augmented with a nearest-neighbor hopping term on an infinite-dimensional cubic lattice. An extended self-consistency structure can be derived by combining the decoupling procedure with the dynamical CPA method. For the itinerant Ising spin glass numerous solutions within the spin-static approximation are presented both at finite and zero temperature. Systematic dynamical corrections to the spin-static phase diagram in the plane of temperature and hopping strength are calculated, and the location of the quantum critical point is determined.
An exhaustive discussion of constraint qualifications (CQ) and stationarity concepts for mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) is presented. It is demonstrated that all but the weakest CQ, Guignard CQ, are too strong for a discussion of MPECs. Therefore, MPEC variants of all the standard CQs are introduced and investigated. A strongly stationary point (which is simply a KKT-point) is seen to be a necessary first order optimality condition only under the strongest CQs, MPEC-LICQ, MPEC-SMFCQ and Guignard CQ. Therefore a whole set of KKT-type conditions is investigated. A simple approach is given to acquire A-stationarity to be a necessary first order condition under MPEC-Guiganrd CQ. Finally, a whole chapter is devoted to investigating M-stationary, among the strongest stationarity concepts, second only to strong stationarity. It is shown to be a necessary first order condition under MPEC-Guignard CQ, the weakest known CQ for MPECs.
The invertebrate trace fossils from the Keuper (Upper Triassic) of the southern part of the Germanic Basin are revised. The Keuper sediments of the Germanic Basin are predominantly composed of rocks representing various nonmarine environments dominated by red-bed facies. The Würzburg Formation, the Stuttgart Formation, and the Hassberge Formation, all representing deposits of extended river systems, contain the richest ichnofauna. Trace fossil abundance is generally low and their occurrence is scattered. The studied material can be assigned to 28 ichnogenera, 38 ichnospecies, and 6 vernacular forms. Among the described trace fossils are one new ichnogenus and three new ichnospecies. Apart from the revision of the invertebrate trace fossils from the Keuper numerous related ichnotaxa from various localities and ages have been studied and revised. In the course of these studies several ichnotaxa are synonymised, lowered in rank, and new ichnogenera, subichnogenera, and ichnospecies are suggested. In addition, general guidelines for naming, and methodologies for studying invertebrate trace fossils are presented. The palaeoecology of three ichnocoenoses, one from the Würzburg Formation and two from the Hassberge Formation in Lower Franconia are briefly discussed.
The design of ligands is one of the most important and simultaneously challenging fields of research in modern inorganic chemistry. The aim is to synthesise ligands that can serve as coordination units for a broad variety of metal fragments and different purposes. The ligands have to be very flexible concerning their donating behaviour and geometrical prerequisites in order to correspond to the required metal fragments.
We investigate the single particle static and dynamic properties at zero temperature within the Hubbard an three-band-Hubbard model for the superconducting copper oxides. Based on the recently proposed self-energy functional approach (SFA) [M.Potthoff, Eur. Phys. J. B 32 429 (2003)], we present an extension of the cluster-perturbation theory (CPT) to systems with spontaneous broken symmetry. Our method accounts for both short-range correlations and long-range order. Short-range correlations are accurately taken into account via the exact diagonalization of finite clusters. Long-range order is described by variational optimization of a ficticious symmetry-breaking field. In comparison with related cluster methods, our approach is more flexible and, for a given cluster size, less demanding numerically, especially at zero temperature. An application of the method to the antiferromagnetic phase of the Hubbard model at half-filling shows good agreement with results from quantum Monte-Carlo calculations. We demonstrate that the variational extension of the cluster-perturbation theory is crucial to reproduce salient features of the single-particle spectrum of the insulating cuprates. Comparison of the dispersion of the low-energy excitations with recent experimental results of angular resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) allows us to fix a consistent parameter set for the one-band Hubbard model with an additional hopping parameter t' along the lattice diagonal. The doping dependence of the single-particle excitations is studied within the t-t-U Hubbard model with special emphasis on the electron doped compounds. We show, that the ARPES results on the band structure and the Fermi surface of Nd{2-x}Ce_xCuOCl_{4-\delta} are naturally obtained within the t-t-U Hubbard model without further need for readjustment or fitting of parameters, as proposed in recent theoretical considerations. We present a theory for the photon energy and polarization dependence of ARPES intensities from the CuO2 plane in the framework of strong correlation models. The importance of surface states for the observed experimental facts is considered. We show that for electric field vector in the CuO_2 plane the ‘radiation characteristics’ of the O 2p_{\sigma} and Cu 3d_{x^2-y^2} orbitals are strongly peaked along the CuO_2 plane, i.e. most photoelectrons are emitted at grazing angles. This suggests that surface states play an important role in the observed ARPES spectra, consistent with recent data from Sr_2CuCl_2O_2. We show that a combination of surface state dispersion and Fano resonance between surface state and the continuum of LEED-states may produce a precipitous drop in the observed photoelectron current as a function of in-plane momentum, which may well mimic a Fermi-surface crossing. This effect may explain the simultaneous ‘observation’ of a hole-like and an electron-like Fermi surfaces in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta} at different photon energies.