421 research outputs found
The limits to growth then and now
In this paper the indications of the 1972 report of the club of Rome about the relationship between environment and economic growth are reviewed and compared to the ideas debated nowadays on the same topic. The implications of the stages of growth approach and of the economic growth models are considered. Market failure has a central role when the environment is considered. Hence the main problems of policy design and evaluation and their implications for international cooperation, as studied in a burgeoning literature, are presented.
And how experiments begin: the international prototype kilogram and the Planck constant
The artefact that has defined the kilogram since 1889 is to be retired and the kilogram will instead be defined by fixing the value of the Planck constant. In this paper, I detail some of the elements of this reform, believing that the case study should prompt philosophers to reassess the role scientific standards play in the progress of the physical sciences. A metrological account of scientific standards should explain metrologyâs more theoretical motivations and also acknowledge its empirical contribution to the physical sciences. I present three theses towards this end. I develop a more thoroughgoing and yet much weaker version of Bridgmanâs operational attitude. I present a picture of the physical sciences united by metrology. Finally, I present the case for a quiet form of realism that attempts to accommodate both the more theoretical and the more pragmatic motivations of the metrologist
Challenges in Double Beta Decay
After nearly 80 years since the first guess on its existence, neutrino still
escapes our insight: the mass and the true nature (Majorana or Dirac) of this
particle is still unknown. In the past ten years, neutrino oscillation
experiments have finally provided the incontrovertible evidence that neutrinos
mix and have finite masses. These results represent the strongest demonstration
that the Standard Model of electroweak interactions is incomplete and that new
Physics beyond it must exist. None of these experimental efforts could however
shade light on some of the basic features of neutrinos. Indeed, absolute scale
and ordering of the masses of the three generations as well as charge
conjugation and lepton number conservation properties are still unknown. In
this scenario, a unique role is played by the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
searches: these experiments can probe lepton number conservation, investigate
the Dirac/Majorana nature of the neutrinos and their absolute mass scale
(hierarchy problem) with unprecedented sensitivity. Today Neutrinoless Double
Beta Decay faces a new era where large scale experiments with a sensitivity
approaching the so-called degenerate-hierarchy region are nearly ready to start
and where the challenge for the next future is the construction of detectors
characterized by a tonne-scale size and an incredibly low background, to fully
probe the inverted-hierarchy region. A number of new proposed projects took up
this challenge. These are based either on large expansions of the present
experiments or on new ideas to improve the technical performance and/or reduce
the background contributions. n this paper, a review of the most relevant
ongoing experiments is given. The most relevant parameters contributing to the
experimental sensitivity are discussed and a critical comparison of the future
projects is proposed.Comment: 70 pages, 16 figures, 6 tables. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1109.5515, arXiv:hep-ex/0501010, arXiv:0910.2994 by other author
Searches for Long Lived Neutral Particles
An intriguing possibility for TeV scale physics is the existence of neutral
long lived particles (LOLIPs) that subsequently decay into SM states. Such
particles are many cases indistinguishable from missing transverse energy (MET)
at colliders. We propose new methods to search for these particles using
neutrino telescopes. We study their detection prospects, assuming production
either at the LHC or through dark matter (DM) annihilations in the Sun and the
Earth. We find that the sensitivity for LOLIPs produced at the LHC is limited
by luminosity and detection energy thresholds. On the other hand, in the case
of DM annihilation into LOLIPs, the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes is
promising and may extend beyond the reach of upcoming direct detection
experiments. In the context of low scale hidden sectors weakly coupled to the
SM, such indirect searches allow to probe couplings as small as 10^-15.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Visible Light Driven Carbon Dioxide Conversion into Methanol Using Metal Doped Titanium Dioxide
Increasing energy crisis and declining climate caused by the excessive utilization of fossil fuel have increase exponentially on the research activities about Carbon Dioxide (CO2) capture, storage and utilization. Artificial photosynthesis that uses Ultraviolet light (UV-light) and solar light energy to convert CO2 to form value added chemical and renewable fuels such as methanol and methane has drawn the attention worldwide. It not only reduces the greenhouse effects caused by CO2 emission but as well produce value added chemicals for renewable energy. Titanium dioxide, (TiO2) nanoparticles were synthesized using Triton X-100 as surfactant. Copper (Cu) was doped into the TiO2 nanoparticles via wet impregnation method in order for the photocatalyst to absorb the light from UV region to visible region. In this experiment, 0-5wt% Cu was used to determine the optimum amount of Cu with 40ml of distilled water. From the result, 3wt% Cu/TiO2 shows significant result on the formation of methanol which give 2.574 ml. This report provides a brief information about the principles of artificial photosynthesis of CO2, method and materials needed for preparing the photocatalyst as well as the progress in exploring more efficient photocatalyst for the photoreduction process
Fully General Relativistic Simulations of Core-Collapse Supernovae with An Approximate Neutrino Transport
We present results from the first generation of multi-dimensional
hydrodynamic core-collapse simulations in full general relativity (GR) that
include an approximate treatment of neutrino transport. Using a M1 closure
scheme with an analytic variable Eddington factor, we solve the
energy-independent set of radiation energy and momentum based on the Thorne's
momentum formalism. To simplify the source terms of the transport equations, a
methodology of multiflavour neutrino leakage scheme is partly employed. Our
newly developed code is designed to evolve the Einstein field equation together
with the GR radiation hydrodynamic equations. We follow the dynamics starting
from the onset of gravitational core-collapse of a 15 star, through
bounce, up to about 100 ms postbounce in this study to study how the spacial
multi-dimensionality and GR would affect the dynamics in the early postbounce
phase. Our 3D results support the anticipation in previous 1D results that the
neutrino luminosity and average neutrino energy of any neutrino flavor in the
postbounce phase increase when switching from SR to GR hydrodynamics. This is
because the deeper gravitational well of GR produces more compact core
structures, and thus hotter neutrino spheres at smaller radii. By analyzing the
residency timescale to the neutrino-heating timescale in the gain region, we
show that the criterion to initiate neutrino-driven explosions can be most
easily satisfied in 3D models, irrespective of SR or GR hydrodynamics. Our
results suggest that the combination of GR and 3D hydrodynamics provides the
most favorable condition to drive a robust neutrino-driven explosion.Comment: 50pages, 20 figures, Accepted by ApJ. Latest version with following
the referee's suggestions and comment
A facility to Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) at the CERN SPS
A new general purpose fixed target facility is proposed at the CERN SPS
accelerator which is aimed at exploring the domain of hidden particles and make
measurements with tau neutrinos. Hidden particles are predicted by a large
number of models beyond the Standard Model. The high intensity of the SPS
400~GeV beam allows probing a wide variety of models containing light
long-lived exotic particles with masses below (10)~GeV/c,
including very weakly interacting low-energy SUSY states. The experimental
programme of the proposed facility is capable of being extended in the future,
e.g. to include direct searches for Dark Matter and Lepton Flavour Violation.Comment: Technical Proposa
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