The Charge Quantum Numbers of Gauge Invariant Quasi-free Endomorphisms

The representations of a group of gauge automorphisms of the canonical commutation or anticommutation relations which appear on the Hilbert spaces of isometries H_\rho implementing quasi-free endomorphisms \rho on Fock space are studied. Such a representation, which characterizes the "charge" of \rho in local quantum field theory, is determined by the Fock space structure of H_\rho itself: Together with a "basic" representation of the group, all higher symmetric or antisymmetric tensor powers thereof also appear. Hence \rho is reducible unless it is an automorphism. It is further shown by the example of the massless Dirac field in two dimensions that localization and implementability of quasi-free endomorphisms are compatible with each other.Comment: 15 pages, no figure

The future of shale

Master's Project (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016This project examines the various drivers that led to the U.S. shale oil revolution in order to predict its place in the energy industry going forward and to analyze its effects on Alaska. The shale boom flooded the market with oil causing a dramatic decrease in crude oil prices in late 2014. With this price drop threatening to send Alaska into an economic recession, the future of shale should be of primary concern to all Alaskans as well as other entities that rely heavily on oil revenue. The primary driver leading to the shale revolution is technology. Advances in hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, and 3D seismic mapping made producing shale oil and gas possible for the first time. New technologies like rotary steerable systems and measurements while drilling continue to make shale production more efficient, and technology will likely continue to improve. Infrastructure helps to explain why the shale revolution was mostly an American phenomenon. Many countries with shale formations have political infrastructure too unstable to risk shale investment. Capital infrastructure is a primary strength of the U.S. and also helps to explain why shale development didn't find its way up to Alaska despite having political stability. Financial infrastructure allowed oil companies to receive the funding necessary to quickly bring shale to the market. The final driver explored is crude oil prices. High oil prices helped spark the shale revolution, but with the recent price crash, there is uncertainty about its future. With production costs continually falling due to technology improvements and analysts predicting crude oil prices to stabilize above most project breakeven points, the future of shale looks bright.Introduction -- Shale & Alaska North Slope Crude Oil Prices -- Seeds of its own destruction? Technology -- Hydraulic Fracturing -- History of fracking -- Directional drilling -- History of drilling -- Benefits of directional drilling -- 3D seismic mapping -- Creating a shockwave -- Recording the data -- Interpreting the results -- The birth of a revolution -- Current/future developments -- Rotary steerable system -- Measurements while drilling -- Future developments. Infrastructure -- Political risk -- Financial markets -- Over investment -- Capital infrastructure. Crude prices -- The price crash -- Breakeven prices -- Future prices -- Alaska -- Conclusion -- Bibliography

The Economic and Budgetary Effects of Producing Oil and Natural Gas From Shale

[Excerpt] Recent advances in combining two drilling techniques, hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, have allowed access to large deposits of shale resources—that is, crude oil and natural gas trapped in shale and certain other dense rock formations. As a result, the cost of that “tight oil” and “shale gas” has become competitive with the cost of oil and gas extracted from other sources. Virtually nonexistent a decade ago, the development of shale resources has boomed in the United States, producing about 3.5 million barrels of tight oil per day and about 9.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of shale gas per year. Those amounts equal about 30 percent of U.S. production of liquid fuels (which include crude oil, biofuels, and natural gas liquids) and 40 percent of U.S. production of natural gas. Shale development has also affected the federal budget, chiefly by increasing tax revenues. The production of tight oil and shale gas will continue to grow over the next 10 years—by about 30 percent and about 60 percent, respectively, according to a recent projection by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Another EIA estimate shows that the amount of tight oil and shale gas in the United States that could be extracted with today’s technology would satisfy domestic oil consumption at current rates for approximately 8 years and domestic gas consumption for 25

Devonian Sandstone Lithostratigraphy, Northern Arkansas

Two areas of Devonian sandstone development may be recognized in northern Arkansas. In northwestern Arkansas, the Clifty Formation comprises a massively bedded, super mature quartz arenite of Middle Devonian age overlain by thinner bedded, phosphatic quartz arenite and chert breccia of the Sylamore Sandstone Member, Chattanooga Shale (Upper Devonian). This sequence overlies Ordovician strata (Powell or Everton) and is succeeded by the Chattanooga Shale and strata of Lower Mississippian age. In north-central Arkansas, the Clifty Formation is absent and the Chattanooga Shale may develop sandstone at its base and top. Occasionally the Chattanooga Shale is absent and the entire interval may be Upper Devonian sandstone. These Upper Devonian sandstones are phosphatic, mature quartz arenites referred to the Sylamore Member except where they overlie the Chattanooga Shale. In these cases, the sandstone is recognized as an informal upper member of the Chattanooga. Reports of Lower Mississippian Sylamore Sandstone in north-central Arkansas are regarded as misidentification of the Bachelor Formation (Middle Kinderhookian

In-situ laser retorting of oil shale

Oil shale formations are retorted in situ and gaseous hydrocarbon products are recovered by drilling two or more wells into an oil shale formation underneath the surface of the ground. A high energy laser beam is directed into the well and fractures the region of the shale formation. A compressed gas is forced into the well that supports combustion in the flame front ignited by the laser beam, thereby retorting the oil shale. Gaseous hydrocarbon products which permeate through the fractured region are recovered from one of the wells that were not exposed to the laser system

Examining the advocacy coalition framework for insight into shale gas development in US and UK political systems

Master's Project (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2014The project considers the Advocacy Coalition Framework from the discipline of policymaking which is used to examine contentious and politically complex policy issues, particularly in energy and environmental development and planning. Shale gas development in the United States has been noted for its dramatic economic and political effects, leading some countries to pursue development of their own shale resources. The United Kingdom's tentative steps into the industry have engendered efforts to understand American experiences and conceptualize how their own country may or may not accommodate such development. The project attempts to highlight the current or potential issues or benefits entering the discourse and extrapolate insights from the Advocacy Coalition Framework to enhance and inform shale gas development as a social issue in addition to existing as an economic or technological disruption. Thoughts on attitudes between disciplines tangent to shale gas development are also expressed

Scattering matrix in external field problems

We discuss several aspects of second quantized scattering operators $\hat S$ for fermions in external time dependent fields. We derive our results on a general, abstract level having in mind as a main application potentials of the Yang--Mills type and in various dimensions. We present a new and powerful method for proving existence of $\hat S$ which is also applicable to other situations like external gravitational fields. We also give two complementary derivations of the change of phase of the scattering matrix under generalized gauge transformations which can be used whenever our method of proving existence of $\hat S$ applies. The first is based on a causality argument i.e.\ $\hat S$ (including phase) is determined from a time evolution, and the second exploits the geometry of certain infinite-dimensional group extensions associated with the second quantization of 1-particle operators. As a special case we obtain a Hamiltonian derivation of the the axial Fermion-Yang-Mills anomaly and the Schwinger terms related to it via the descent equations, which is on the same footing and traces them back to a common root.Comment: AmsTex file (uses amstex.tex and amsppt.sty) 22 ouput page

Existence of a stable polarized vacuum in the Bogoliubov-Dirac-Fock approximation

According to Dirac's ideas, the vacuum consists of infinitely many virtual electrons which completely fill up the negative part of the spectrum of the free Dirac operator $D^0$. In the presence of an external field, these virtual particles react and the vacuum becomes polarized. In this paper, following Chaix and Iracane ({\it J. Phys. B}, 22, 3791--3814, 1989), we consider the Bogoliubov-Dirac-Fock model, which is derived from no-photon QED. The corresponding BDF-energy takes the polarization of the vacuum into account and is bounded from below. A BDF-stable vacuum is defined to be a minimizer of this energy. If it exists, such a minimizer is solution of a self-consistent equation. We show the existence of a unique minimizer of the BDF-energy in the presence of an external electrostatic field, by means of a fixed-point approach. This minimizer is interpreted as the polarized vacuum.Comment: final version, to appear in Commun. Math. Phy

The Oil Shale Transformation in the Presence of an Acidic BEA Zeolite under Microwave Irradiation

The transformation of an oil shale sample from the Autun Basin in the Massif Central, France, was studied using two different heating strategies: microwave irradiation and conventional heating. Microwave heating was performed using a single-mode cavity operating at a frequency of 2.45 GHz under an inert atmosphere. Heating of the sample generated liquid products of similar composition using either microwave or conventional heating. The yields of liquid products were similar in the two cases, while the overall energy requirements were much lower using microwave irradiation. The influence of water vapor on the oil shale decomposition was also studied under microwave energy. In order to simulate conversion of the organic fraction of the oil shale in the presence of an acidic zeolite catalyst, the oil shale sample was mixed with 5 wt % BEA zeolite and heated under microwave irradiation. It was found that the liquid products yield decreased along with an increase in the amount of coke produced. Gaseous and liquid products recovered showed a tendency for the production of lighter components in the presence of zeolite. The aromatic character of the oils was more important when microwaves were used, especially in the presence of zeolite