[Reverse remodelling of the heart after atrial fibrillation ablation in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction].

AIM: To evaluate the effect of atrial fibrillation (AF) catheter ablation (CA) on long-term freedom from AF and left heart reverse remodeling in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). METHODS: There were 47 patients (mean age 53.3 ± 10 years, 39 males) enrolled into single-center observational study, with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) <40 %. Patients underwent CA for AF refractory to antiarrhythmic drugs. Baseline clinical data and diagnostic tests results were obtained during personal visits and / or via secure telemedical services. Personal contact with evaluation of recurrence of AF and echocardiographic values was performed with 30 (64 %) patients. RESULTS: Paroxysmal AF was present in 12 (40 %) patients, persistent - in 18 (60 %). During mean follow-up of 3 years (0.5-6 years) redo ablation was performed in 9 patients (30 %) with average number of 1.3 procedures per patient. At 6 months 24 (80 %) patients were free from AF, at last follow-up - 16 (53 %). The mean time to first recurrence following CA was 15.6±13.3 months. Follow-up echocardiography revealed significant LVEF improvement (р<0,0001), reduction of left atrium size (р<0,0001), left ventricle end-diastolic volume (р<0,002) and left ventricle endsystolic volume (p<0,0001) and mitral regurgitation (р=0,001). CONCLUSION: AF CA in patients with HFrEF is associated with improvement in systolic function and left heart reverse remodeling. Durable long-term antiarrhythmic effect often requires repeated procedures.

Critical velocity of a mobile impurity in one-dimensional quantum liquids.

We study the notion of superfluid critical velocity in one spatial dimension. It is shown that, for heavy impurities with mass M exceeding a critical mass Mc, the dispersion develops periodic metastable branches resulting in dramatic changes of dynamics in the presence of an external driving force. In contrast to smooth Bloch oscillations for M

Doublon relaxation in the Bose-Hubbard model.

The decay of a high-energy double occupancy state, doublon, in a narrow-band lattice requires the creation of a coherent many-particle excitation. This leads to an exponentially long relaxation time of such a state. We show that, if the average occupation number is sufficiently small, the corresponding exponent may be evaluated exactly. To this end we develop the quasiclassical approach to calculation of the high-order tree-level decay amplitudes.

Quantum decay of dark solitons.

Unless protected by the exact integrability, solitons are subject to dissipative forces, originating from a thermally fluctuating background. At low enough temperatures T background fluctuations should be considered as being quantized which enables us to calculate finite lifetime of the solitons τ∼T(-4). We also find that the coherent nature of the quantum fluctuations leads to long-range interactions between the solitons mediated by the superradiation. Our results are of relevance to current experiments with ultracold atoms, while the approach may be extended to solitons in other media.

Bloch oscillations in a one-dimensional spinor gas.

A force applied to a spin-flipped particle in a one-dimensional spinor gas may lead to Bloch oscillations of the particle's position and velocity. The existence of Bloch oscillations crucially depends on the viscous friction force exerted by the rest of the gas on the spin excitation. We evaluate the friction in terms of the quantum fluid parameters. In particular, we show that the friction is absent for integrable cases, such as an SU(2) symmetric gas of bosons or fermions. For small deviations from the exact integrability the friction is very weak, opening the possibility to observe Bloch oscillations.

Spin-torque shot noise in magnetic tunnel junctions.

A spin polarized current may transfer angular momentum to a ferromagnet, resulting in a spin-torque phenomenon. At the same time the shot noise, associated with the current, leads to a nonequilibrium stochastic force acting on the ferromagnet. We derive a stochastic version of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation for a magnetization of a "free" ferromagnetic layer in contact with a "fixed" ferromagnet. We solve the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation and show that the nonequilibrium noise yields to a nonmonotonic dependence of the precession spectrum linewidth on the current.

Dynamics of excitations in a one-dimensional bose liquid.

We show that the dynamic structure factor of a one-dimensional Bose liquid has a power-law singularity defining the main mode of collective excitations. Using the Lieb-Liniger model, we evaluate the corresponding exponent as a function of the wave vector and the interaction strength.

Ion exchange phase transitions in water-filled channels with charged walls.

Ion transport through narrow water-filled channels is impeded by a high electrostatic barrier. The latter originates from the large ratio of the dielectric constants of the water and the surrounding media. We show that "doping," i.e., immobile charges attached to the walls of the channel, substantially reduces the barrier. This explains why most of the biological ion channels are "doped." We show that at rather generic conditions the channels may undergo ion exchange phase transitions (typically of the first order). Upon such a transition a finite latent concentration of ions may either enter or leave the channel, or be exchanged between the ions of different valences. We discuss possible implications of these transitions for the Ca-vs-Na selectivity of biological Ca channels. We also show that transport of divalent Ca ions is assisted by their fractionalization into two separate excitations.

Dynamic response of one-dimensional interacting fermions.

We evaluate the dynamic structure factor S(q, omega) of interacting one-dimensional spinless fermions with a nonlinear dispersion relation. The combined effect of the nonlinear dispersion and of the interactions leads to new universal features of S(q, omega). The sharp peak S(q, omega) approximately q(delta(omega -uq), characteristic for the Tomonaga-Luttinger model, broadens up; for a fixed becomes finite at arbitrarily large . The main spectral weight, however, is confined to a narrow frequency interval of the width deltaomega approximately q(2)/m. At the boundaries of this interval the structure factor exhibits power-law singularities with exponents depending on the interaction strength and on the wave number q.

Conductance of ion channels and nanopores with charged walls: a toy model.

We consider ion transport through protein ion channels in lipid membranes and water-filled nanopores in silicon films. It is known that, due to the large ratio of dielectric constants of water and the surrounding material, an ion placed inside the channel faces a large electrostatic self-energy barrier. The barrier leads to an exponentially large resistance of the channel. We study reduction of the electrostatic barrier by immobile charges located on the internal walls of the channel. We show that the barrier practically vanishes already at relatively small concentration of wall charges.

Weak dynamical localization in periodically kicked cold atomic gases.

Quantum kicked rotor was recently realized in experiments with cold atomic gases and standing optical waves. As predicted, it exhibits dynamical localization in the momentum space. Here we consider the weak-localization regime concentrating on the Ehrenfest time scale. The latter accounts for the spread time of a minimal wave packet and is proportional to the logarithm of the Planck constant. We show that the onset of the dynamical localization is essentially delayed by four Ehrenfest times, and give quantitative predictions suitable for an experimental verification.

Optical investigations on the biaxial smectic- A phase of a bent-core compound.

Several unique optical properties have been obtained from freestanding films of a bent-core compound. Our experimental results indicate the existence of the antiferroelectric biaxial smectic-A (Sm A) phase. The critical exponent associated with the biaxiality through the uniaxial-antiferroelectric biaxial Sm A transition has been measured to be 0.82+/-0.04 , which is in good agreement with our theoretical calculation. Our theoretical advances further demonstrate that the critical behavior of the optical biaxiality with the order parameter being a vector is described by the secondary-order parameter of the three-dimensional XY model. We also observe a remarkable even-odd layering effect exhibited by the surface layers of freestanding films under an applied electric field (approximately 20 V/cm) in the film plane.

Coulomb blockade with dispersive interfaces.

What quantity controls the Coulomb blockade oscillations if the dot-lead conductance is essentially frequency dependent? We argue that it is the conductance at the imaginary frequency given by the effective charging energy. The latter may be very different from the bare charging energy due to the interface-induced capacitance (or inductance). These observations are supported by a number of examples, considered from the weak and strong coupling (perturbation theory versus instanton calculus) perspectives.

Weak charge quantization as an instanton of the interacting sigma model.

Coulomb blockade in a quantum dot attached to a diffusive conductor is considered in the framework of the nonlinear sigma model. It is shown that the weak charge quantization on the dot is associated with instanton configurations of the Q field in the conductor. The instantons have a finite action and are replica nonsymmetric. It is argued that such instantons may play a role in the transition regime to the interacting insulator.

Counting statistics of an adiabatic pump

We use the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism to derive the charge counting statistics of an adiabatic pump based on an open quantum dot. The distribution function of the transmitted charge in terms of the time-dependent S matrix is obtained. It is applied to a few simple examples of the pumping cycles. By a chiral gauge transformation the problem is mapped onto a problem of pumping by voltage pulses. The role of the chiral anomaly arising in this mapping is emphasized. Conditions for the ideal noiseless quantized pump are discussed.

Wigner-Dyson statistics from the Keldysh sigma-model.

The level statistics of disordered metallic grains with broken time reversal invariance is obtained from the Keldysh nonlinear sigma-model. The basic strategy of the approach--a nonperturbative integration over all saddle points of the sigma-model manifold--might prove useful in the analysis of problems involving disorder and interactions.

[Fluorine level in the bone and cartilage in children treated with ciprofloxacin (data obtained from the femur distal part]. / Soderzhanie ftora v kosti i khriashche u detei, poluchavshikh tsiprofloksatsin (na modeli distal'nogo otdela bedrennoi kosti)

Comparative data on the content of fluorine in various sections of the left femur distal part, i.e. spongy bone, process zone and articular cartilage are presented. The examination was performed on postmortem sections from 10 pediatric cases (the average age of 9.5 years) with mucoviscidosis or aplastic anemia treated before the death for up to 12 months with ciprofloxacin in a dose of 20 to 40 mg/kg body weight. The control postmortem sections were from 10 practically healthy children (the average age of 10.4 years) killed in a car accident. The sections were subjected to 2-stage dry ashing with ionometric determination of the fluorine ions. The results were treated according to the V.Yu. Urbach procedure. It was shown that the content of fluorine in the sponge bone and process zone in both the groups did not significantly differ. A comparatively high content of fluorine was detected only in the postmortem sections of the articular cartilage from the children of the main group who however had no chondrotoxic symptoms while alive. That means that the difference is statistically and clinically insignificant.

Electroinjection analysis. The introduction of a new variant of flow-injection analysis and comparison with electrophoretically-mediated microanalysis.

A new method of mixing sample and reagent due to the difference in their electrophoretic mobilities is introduced. Unlike electrophoretically-mediated microanalysis, sample and reagent are injected from the opposite ends of a capillary tube. This method is compared with electrophoretically-mediated microanalysis. Experiments are performed showing the possibilities of this new method.