918 research outputs found
Towards the Establishment of Water Market Institutions for Effective and Efficient Water Allocation in South Africa
This study was commissioned by the Water Research Commission of South Africa to contribute to the establishment of institutions through which water markets can operate efficiently and help to ensure the effective allocation of water-use rights. In this context, institutions refer to the rules that govern economic actions. These rules are provided by, amongst others, laws, norms and regulations and administrative structures. Depending on their design, they can facilitate or constrain the activities of economic actors. The National Water Act (1998) discerns between eleven types of water-use rights. This document focuses mainly on the transfer, via a regulated market, of abstraction water-use rights, although mention is also made of transfers, via a market, of discharge water-use rights
VLT-SINFONI observations of Mrk 609 - A showcase for X-ray active galaxies chosen from a sample of AGN suitable for adaptive optics observations with natural guide stars
We will present first results of ESO-VLT AO-assisted integral-field
spectroscopy of a sample of X-ray bright AGN with redshifts of 0.04 < z < 1. We
constructed this sample by cross-correlating the SDSS and ROSAT surveys and
utilizing typical AO constraints. This sample allows for a detailed study of
the NIR properties of the nuclear and host environments with high spectral
resolution on the 100 pc scale. These objects can then be compared directly to
the local (z<0.01) galaxy populations (observed without AO) at the same linear
scale. As a current example, we will present observations of the z=0.034
Seyfert 1.8 galaxy Mrk 609 with the new AO-assisted integral-field spectrometer
SINFONI at the VLT. The successful observations show, that in the future -
while having observed more objects - we will be able to determine the presence,
frequency and importance of nuclear bars and/or circum-nuclear star forming
rings in these objects and address the question of how these X-ray luminous AGN
and their hosts are linked to optically/UV-bright QSOs, low-z QSOs/radio
galaxies, or ULIRGs.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, submitted to "Adaptive Optics-Assisted
Integral-Field Spectroscopy", Rutten R.G.M., Benn C.R., Mendez J., eds., May
2005, La Palma (Spain), New Astr. Re
Simultaneous Water Vapor and Dry Air Optical Path Length Measurements and Compensation with the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer
The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer uses a near-infrared camera to
measure the optical path length variations between the two AO-corrected
apertures and provide high-angular resolution observations for all its science
channels (1.5-13 m). There is however a wavelength dependent component to
the atmospheric turbulence, which can introduce optical path length errors when
observing at a wavelength different from that of the fringe sensing camera.
Water vapor in particular is highly dispersive and its effect must be taken
into account for high-precision infrared interferometric observations as
described previously for VLTI/MIDI or the Keck Interferometer Nuller. In this
paper, we describe the new sensing approach that has been developed at the LBT
to measure and monitor the optical path length fluctuations due to dry air and
water vapor separately. After reviewing the current performance of the system
for dry air seeing compensation, we present simultaneous H-, K-, and N-band
observations that illustrate the feasibility of our feedforward approach to
stabilize the path length fluctuations seen by the LBTI nuller.Comment: SPIE conference proceeding
Evolution of Quantum Criticality in CeNi_{9-x}Cu_xGe_4
Crystal structure, specific heat, thermal expansion, magnetic susceptibility
and electrical resistivity studies of the heavy fermion system
CeNi_{9-x}Cu_xGe_4 (0 <= x <= 1) reveal a continuous tuning of the ground state
by Ni/Cu substitution from an effectively fourfold degenerate non-magnetic
Kondo ground state of CeNi_9Ge_4 (with pronounced non-Fermi-liquid features)
towards a magnetically ordered, effectively twofold degenerate ground state in
CeNi_8CuGe_4 with T_N = 175 +- 5 mK. Quantum critical behavior, C/T ~ \chi ~
-ln(T), is observed for x about 0.4. Hitherto, CeNi_{9-x}Cu_xGe_4 represents
the first system where a substitution-driven quantum phase transition is
connected not only with changes of the relative strength of Kondo effect and
RKKY interaction, but also with a reduction of the effective crystal field
ground state degeneracy.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure
Free energy barrier for melittin reorientation from a membrane-bound state to a transmembrane state
An important step in a phospholipid membrane pore formation by melittin
antimicrobial peptide is a reorientation of the peptide from a surface into a
transmembrane conformation. In this work we perform umbrella sampling
simulations to calculate the potential of mean force (PMF) for the
reorientation of melittin from a surface-bound state to a transmembrane state
and provide a molecular level insight into understanding peptide and lipid
properties that influence the existence of the free energy barrier. The PMFs
were calculated for a peptide to lipid (P/L) ratio of 1/128 and 4/128. We
observe that the free energy barrier is reduced when the P/L ratio increased.
In addition, we study the cooperative effect; specifically we investigate if
the barrier is smaller for a second melittin reorientation, given that another
neighboring melittin was already in the transmembrane state. We observe that
indeed the barrier of the PMF curve is reduced in this case, thus confirming
the presence of a cooperative effect
Synthesis, structural and physical properties of -FeSe
We report on synthesis, structural characterization, resistivity, magnetic
and thermal expansion measurements on the as yet unexplored -phase of
FeSe, here synthesized under ambient- (AP) and high-pressure (HP)
conditions. We show that in contrast to -FeSe, monophasic
superconducting -FeSe can be obtained in off-stoichiometric
samples with excess Fe atoms preferentially residing in the van der Waals gap
between the FeSe layers. The AP -FeSe sample studied here
( 8.5\,K) possesses an unprecedented residual resistivity ratio
RRR 16. Thermal expansion data reveal a small feature around
90\,K, which resembles the anomaly observed at the structural and
magnetic transitions for other Fe-based superconductors, suggesting that some
kind of "magnetic state" is formed also in FeSe. %indicative of a fluctuating
magnetic ordering. For HP samples (RRR 3), the disorder within the
FeSe layers is enhanced through the introduction of vacancies, the saturated
magnetic moment of Fe is reduced and only spurious superconductivity is
observed.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, published versio
On the ground states of the Bernasconi model
The ground states of the Bernasconi model are binary +1/-1 sequences of
length N with low autocorrelations. We introduce the notion of perfect
sequences, binary sequences with one-valued off-peak correlations of minimum
amount. If they exist, they are ground states. Using results from the
mathematical theory of cyclic difference sets, we specify all values of N for
which perfect sequences do exist and how to construct them. For other values of
N, we investigate almost perfect sequences, i.e. sequences with two-valued
off-peak correlations of minimum amount. Numerical and analytical results
support the conjecture that almost perfect sequences do exist for all values of
N, but that they are not always ground states. We present a construction for
low-energy configurations that works if N is the product of two odd primes.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX2e; extended content, added references; submitted to
J.Phys.
Direct CP-asymmetry in Inclusive Rare B-decays in 2HDM
The direct CP-asymmetry in the inclusive and decays is investigated in the two-Higgs doublet extension of the
Standard Model (2HDM). The investigation is performed in the lowest
non-vanishing order of the perturbation theory using the existing restrictions
on the 2HDM parameters space. It is shown that the direct CP-asymmetry in the
decay can deviate significantly from the Standard Model
predictions. In the presence of only one source of CP-violation (the CKM matrix
weak phase) can have the sign opposite to that in
the SM. The new source of CP-violation can make
arbitrary small (unlike the SM case) and hence unmeasurable. Quantitatively,
the obtained results suffer from the uncertainty of the choice of
renormalization scale. As for the rate asymmetry, its
renormalization scale dependence in the lowest non-vanishing order does not
allow to conclude if this quantity is efficient for testing New Physics beyond
the Standard Model.Comment: 16 pages including 2 figure
Two-loop matching of the dipole operators for and
The order corrections to the Wilson coefficients of the dipole
operators () at the matching scale are a crucial ingredient
for a complete next- to-leading logarithmic calculation of the branching ratio
for . Given the phenomenological relevance and the fact that
this two-loop calculation has been done so far only by one group [1], we
present a detailed re-calculation using a different method. Our results are in
complete agreement with those in ref. [1].Comment: 24 pages, latex, 6 figures include
Phase fluctuations and the pseudogap in YBa2Cu3Ox
The thermodynamics of the superconducting transition is studied as a function
of doping using high-resolution expansivity data of YBa2Cu3Ox single crystals
and Monte-Carlo simulations of the anisotropic 3D-XY model. We directly show
that Tc of underdoped YBa2Cu3Ox is strongly suppressed from its mean-field
value (Tc-MF) by phase fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. For
overdoped YBa2Cu3Ox fluctuation effects are greatly reduced and Tc ~ Tc-MF . We
find that Tc-MF exhibits a similar doping dependence as the pseudogap energy,
naturally suggesting that the pseudogap arises from phase-incoherent Cooper
pairing.Comment: 9 pages, 3 Figure
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