Forest Phytomass and Carbon in European Russia.

Regression equations for basic fractions of forest phytomass have been developed for the European-Ural part of Russia based on available experimental data and publications (preliminarily examined 962 sample plots and aggregations). 8 main forest forming species (pine, spruce, oak, birch, beech, aspen, alder, lime) which were involved into analysis cover in European Russia about 95% of total forested areas. The equations allow to evaluate the ratio between phytomass fractions weight and growing stock by species, age and site indexes. The application of the equations to the Forest State Account data (1988) gives the total (living) phytomass in forest ecosystems of European Russia (forested area of 166.0 Mha, growing stock of 20.28 bln m3) of 15.47 Pg drt matter (density 9.32 kg/m2). The total carbon pool was estimated 7.64 Pg C with average density 4.60 kg C/m2 in 1988. Analysis of uncertainties of data and used methods showed that the results which based on FSA data probably underestimate real values for about 5% with standard error +/- 7-8% with confidential (apriori) probability 0.8-0.9. Used this assumption unbiased estimate of total storage of phytomass in forest vegetation were calculated for 1993 of 16.94 Pg (average density 10.36 kg/m2 ) and for C content respectively (8.37 Tg and 5.03 kg/m2 repectively). The changes of forest phytomass in 1966-1993 were esimated of 4.73 Pg (or about 174 Tg of dry matter/year) and for C - 2.34 Pg, i.e. the European Russian forests provided during 1966-1993 net sink of carbon in forest vegetation about 87 Tg C annually.

Mass-metallicity relation from z=5 to the present: Evidence for a transition in the mode of galaxy growth at z=2.6 due to the end of sustained primordial gas infall

We analyze the redshift evolution of the mass-metallicity relation in a sample of 110 Damped Ly$\alpha$ absorbers spanning the redshift range $z=0.11-5.06$ and find that the zero-point of the correlation changes significantly with redshift. The evolution is such that the zero-point is constant at the early phases of galaxy growth (i.e. no evolution) but then features a sharp break at $z=2.6\pm 0.2$ with a rapid incline towards lower redshifts such that damped absorbers of identical masses are more metal rich at later times than earlier. The slope of this mass metallicity correlation evolution is $0.35 \pm 0.07$ dex per unit redshift. We compare this result to similar studies of the redshift evolution of emission selected galaxy samples and find a remarkable agreement with the slope of the evolution of galaxies of stellar mass log$(M_{*}/M_\odot) \approx 8.5$. This allows us to form an observational tie between damped absorbers and galaxies seen in emission. We use results from simulations to infer the virial mass of the dark matter halo of a typical DLA galaxy and find a ratio $(M_{vir}/M_{*}) \approx 30$. We compare our results to those of several other studies that have reported strong transition-like events at redshifts around $z=2.5-2.6$ and argue that all those observations can be understood as the consequence of a transition from a situation where galaxies were fed more unprocessed infalling gas than they could easily consume to one where they suddenly become infall starved and turn to mainly processing, or re-processing, of previously acquired gas.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Rotating binary Bose-Einstein condensates and vortex clusters in quantum droplets

Quantum droplets may form out of a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate, stabilized by quantum fluctuations beyond mean field. We show that multiple singly-quantized vortices may form in these droplets at moderate angular momenta in two dimensions. Droplets carrying these precursors of an Abrikosov lattice remain self-bound for certain timescales after switching off an initial harmonic confinement. Furthermore, we examine how these vortex-carrying droplets can be formed in a more pertubation-resistant setting, by starting from a rotating binary Bose-Einstein condensate and inducing a metastable persistent current via a non-monotonic trapping potential.Comment: 5 page, 4 figure

Distributed Data Analysis in ATLAS

Data analysis using grid resources is one of the fundamental challenges to be addressed before the start of LHC data taking. The ATLAS detector will produce petabytes of data per year, and roughly one thousand users will need to run physics analyses on this data. Appropriate user interfaces and helper applications have been made available to ensure that the grid resources can be used without requiring expertise in grid technology. These tools enlarge the number of grid users from a few production administrators to potentially all participating physicists. ATLAS makes use of three grid infrastructures for the distributed analysis: the EGEE sites, the Open Science Grid, and NorduGrid. These grids are managed by the gLite workload management system, the PanDA workload management system, and ARC middleware; many sites can be accessed via both the gLite WMS and PanDA. Users can choose between two front-end tools to access the distributed resources. Ganga is a tool co-developed with LHCb to provide a common interface to the multitude of execution backends (local, batch, and grid). The PanDA workload management system provides a set of utilities called PanDA Client; with these tools users can easily submit Athena analysis jobs to the PanDA-managed resources. Distributed data is managed by Don Quixote 2, a system developed by ATLAS; DQ2 is used to replicate datasets according to the data distribution policies and maintains a central ca talog of file locations. The operation of the grid resources is continually monitored by the GangaRobot functional testing system, and infrequent site stress tests are performed using the HammerCloud system. In addition, the DAST shift team is a group of power users who take shifts to provide distributed analysis user support; this team has effectively relieved the burden of support from the developers

Towards a practical approach for self-consistent large amplitude collective motion

We investigate the use of an operatorial basis in a self-consistent theory of large amplitude collective motion. For the example of the pairing-plus-quadrupole model, which has been studied previously at equilibrium, we show that a small set of carefully chosen state-dependent basis operators is sufficient to approximate the exact solution of the problem accuratly. This approximation is used to study the interplay of quadrupole and pairing degrees of freedom along the collective path for realistic examples of nuclei. We show how this leads to a viable calculational scheme for studying nuclear structure, and discuss the surprising role of pairing collapse.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures Revised version To be published in Phys. Rev.

Central depression in nuclear density and its consequences for the shell structure of superheavy nuclei

The influence of the central depression in the density distribution of spherical superheavy nuclei on the shell structure is studied within the relativistic mean field theory. Large depression leads to the shell gaps at the proton Z=120 and neutron N=172 numbers, while flatter density distribution favors N=184 for neutrons and leads to the appearance of a Z=126 shell gap and to the decrease of the size of the Z=120 shell gap. The correlations between the magic shell gaps and the magnitude of central depression are discussed for relativistic and non-relativistic mean field theories.Comment: 5 page

RGB generation by four-wave mixing in small-core holey fibers

We report the generation of white light comprising red, green, and blue spectral bands from a frequency-doubled fiber laser by an efficient four-wave mixing process in submicron-sized cores of microstructured holey fibers. A master-oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) source based on Yb-doped fiber is employed to generate 80 ps pulses at 1060 nm wavelength with 32 MHz repetition rate, which are then frequency-doubled in an LBO crystal to generate up to 2 W average power of green light. The green pump is then carefully launched into secondary cores of the cladding of photonic bandgap fibers. These secondary cores with diameters of about 400 to 800 nm act as highly nonlinear waveguides. At the output, we observe strong red and blue sidebands which, together with the remaining green pump light, form a visible white light source of about 360 mW. The generating process is identified as four-wave mixing where phase matching is achieved by birefringence in the secondary cores which arises from non-symmetric deformation during the fiber fabrication. Numerical models of the fiber structure and of the nonlinear processes confirm our interpretation. Finally, we discuss power scaling and limitations of the white light source due to the damage threshold of silica fibers

Expansion of CORE-SINEs in the genome of the Tasmanian devil

Background: The genome of the carnivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii, Order: Dasyuromorphia), was sequenced in the hopes of finding a cure for or gaining a better understanding of the contagious devil facial tumor disease that is threatening the species’ survival. To better understand the Tasmanian devil genome, we screened it for transposable elements and investigated the dynamics of short interspersed element (SINE) retroposons. Results: The temporal history of Tasmanian devil SINEs, elucidated using a transposition in transposition analysis, indicates that WSINE1, a CORE-SINE present in around 200,000 copies, is the most recently active element. Moreover, we discovered a new subtype of WSINE1 (WSINE1b) that comprises at least 90% of all Tasmanian devil WSINE1s. The frequencies of WSINE1 subtypes differ in the genomes of two of the other Australian marsupial orders. A co-segregation analysis indicated that at least 66 subfamilies of WSINE1 evolved during the evolution of Dasyuromorphia. Using a substitution rate derived from WSINE1 insertions, the ages of the subfamilies were estimated and correlated with a newly established phylogeny of Dasyuromorphia. Phylogenetic analyses and divergence time estimates of mitochondrial genome data indicate a rapid radiation of the Tasmanian devil and the closest relative the quolls (Dasyurus) around 14 million years ago. Conclusions: The radiation and abundance of CORE-SINEs in marsupial genomes indicates that they may be a major player in the evolution of marsupials. It is evident that the early phases of evolution of the carnivorous marsupial order Dasyuromorphia was characterized by a burst of SINE activity. A correlation between a speciation event and a major burst of retroposon activity is for the first time shown in a marsupial genome

Description of superdeformed bands in light N=Z nuclei using the cranked HFB method

Superdeformed states in light $N=Z$ nuclei are studied by means of the self-consistent cranking calculation (i.e., the P + QQ model based on the cranked Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov method). Analyses are given for two typical cases of superdeformed bands in the $A \simeq 40$ mass region, that is, bands where backbending is absent ($^{40}$Ca) and present ($^{36}$Ar). Investigations are carried out, particularly for the following points: cross-shell excitations in the sd and pf shells; the role of the g$_{9/2}$ and d$_{5/2}$ orbitals; the effect of the nuclear pairing; and the interplay between triaxiality and band termination.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev.