552 research outputs found
Neutrinos in 5D SO(10) Unification
We study neutrino physics in a 5D supersymmetric SO(10) GUT. We analyze
several different choices for realizing the See-Saw mechanism. We find that the
"natural" scale for the Majorana mass of right-handed neutrinos depends
critically on whether the right-handed neutrinos are located in the bulk or
localized on a brane. In the former case, the effective Majorana mass is
"naturally" of order the compactification scale, about 10^{14} GeV. Note, this
is the value necessary for obtaining a light tau neutrino mass approximately
10^{-2} eV which, within the context of hierarchical neutrino masses, is the
right order of magnitude to explain atmospheric neutrino oscillations. On the
other-hand when the right-handed neutrino is localized on the brane, the
effective Majorana mass is typically larger than the compactification scale.
Nevertheless with small parameters of order 1/10 - 1/30, an effective Majorana
mass of order 10^{14} GeV can be accommodated. We also discuss the constraints
on model building resulting from the different scenarios for locating the
right-handed neutrinos.Comment: 24 page
Biomass offsets little or none of permafrost carbon release from soils, streams, and wildfire: an expert assessment
As the permafrost region warms, its large organic carbon pool will be increasingly vulnerable to decomposition, combustion, and hydrologic export. Models predict that some portion of this release will be offset by increased production of Arctic and boreal biomass; however, the lack of robust estimates of net carbon balance increases the risk of further overshooting international emissions targets. Precise empirical or model-based assessments of the critical factors driving carbon balance are unlikely in the near future, so to address this gap, we present estimates from 98 permafrost-region experts of the response of biomass, wildfire, and hydrologic carbon flux to climate change. Results suggest that contrary to model projections, total permafrost-region biomass could decrease due to water stress and disturbance, factors that are not adequately incorporated in current models. Assessments indicate that end-of-the-century organic carbon release from Arctic rivers and collapsing coastlines could increase by 75% while carbon loss via burning could increase four-fold. Experts identified water balance, shifts in vegetation community, and permafrost degradation as the key sources of uncertainty in predicting future system response. In combination with previous findings, results suggest the permafrost region will become a carbon source to the atmosphere by 2100 regardless of warming scenario but that 65%â85% of permafrost carbon release can still be avoided if human emissions are actively reduced
Massive Loop Amplitudes from Unitarity
We show, for previously uncalculated examples containing a uniform mass in
the loop, that it is possible to obtain complete massive one-loop gauge theory
amplitudes solely from unitarity and known ultraviolet or infrared mass
singularities. In particular, we calculate four-gluon scattering via massive
quark loops in QCD. The contribution of a heavy quark to five-gluon scattering
with identical helicities is also presented.Comment: Minor modifications, 27 pages including two figure
Analysis of rho-omega interference in the pion form-factor
The formalism underlying the analysis of e+e- -> pi+pi- in the rho-omega
interference region is carefully revisited. We show that the standard neglect
of the pure I=0 omega, omega_I, `direct'' coupling to pi-pi is not valid, and
extract those combinations of the direct coupling and \rho-omega mixing allowed
by experiment. The latter is shown to be only very weakly constrained by
experiment, and we conclude that data from the e+e- -> pi+pi- interference
region cannot be used to fix the value of rho-omega mixing in a
model-independent way unless the errors on the experimental phase can be
significantly reduced. Certain other modifications of the usual formalism
necessitated by the unavoidable momentum-dependence of rho-omega mixing are
also discussed.Comment: 15 pages of REVTEX, uses epsfig.sty with 1 figure. Entire manuscript
available as a ps file at http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/theory/home.html
or ftp://adelphi.adelaide.edu.au/pub/theory/ADP-95-50.T197.ps Minor changes
to text and some equations for publication in Physics Letters
Hypercrosslinked polymer microspheres decorated with anion- and cation-exchange groups for the simultaneous solid-phase extraction of acidic and basic analytes from environmental waters
Mixed-mode ion-exchange sorbents were introduced to improve the selectivity and retention of solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbents,. Mixed-mode ion-exchange sorbents integrate reversed-phase chemistry with ion-exchange groups to promote favourable interactions with ionic species. Nevertheless, a need to extract analytes with acidic and basic properties simultaneously within the same SPE cartridge led to the introduction of novel amphoteric/zwitterionic sorbents, which incorporate cation- and anion-exchange moieties within the same functional group attached to the polymeric network. In the present study, the development, preparation and SPE evaluation of two novel hypercrosslinked zwitterionic polymeric sorbents, functionalised with either strong anion-exchange (SAX) and weak cation-exchange (WCX) or weak anion-exchange (WAX) and strong cation-exchange (SCX) groups (namely HXLPP-SAX/WCX and the HXLPP-WAX/SCX), is presented for the simultaneous retention of acidic and basic compounds. The sorbents were prepared by a precipitation polymerisation route which yielded poly(divinylbenzene-co-vinylbenzylchloride) as a precursor polymer; subsequently, the precursor polymer was hypercrosslinked, to increase the specific surface areas and capacities of the sorbents, and then functionalised to impart the zwitterionic character. The HXLPP-SAX/WCX sorbent was decorated with quaternised sarcosine groups and the HXLPP-WAX/SCX sorbent was decorated with taurine moieties. The SPE parameters were optimised to exploit the ionic interactions between compounds and the functional groups. The optimal conditions involve a washing step to remove the compounds retained by hydrophobic interactions, thus increasing the selectivity. The optimised SPE protocol used the quaternised sarcosine-based sorbent followed by liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry, and was applied to determine compounds with acidic and basic properties from environmental samples, such as river water and effluent wastewater samples, with excellent selectivity and matrix effect values below -30% and apparent recovery results ranging from 52% to 105% for most of the compounds. The analytical method was validated for environmental water samples and used in the analysis of samples in which some of the target compounds were found at ng Lâ1 concentration levels
Static quantities of the W boson in the SU_L(3) X U_X(1) model with right-handed neutrinos
The static electromagnetic properties of the boson, and
, are calculated in the SU_L(3)} \times U_X(1) model with
right-handed neutrinos. The new contributions from this model arise from the
gauge and scalar sectors. In the gauge sector there is a new contribution from
a complex neutral gauge boson and a singly-charged gauge boson .
The mass of these gauge bosons, called bileptons, is expected to be in the
range of a few hundreds of GeV according to the current bounds from
experimental data. If the bilepton masses are of the order of 200 GeV, the size
of their contribution is similar to that obtained in other weakly coupled
theories. However the contributions to both and are
negligible for very heavy or degenerate bileptons. As for the scalar sector, an
scenario is examined in which the contribution to the form factors is
identical to that of a two-Higgs-doublet model. It is found that this sector
would not give large corrections to and .Comment: New material included. Final version to apppear in Physical Review
SUSY GUTs under Siege : Proton Decay
SO(10) supersymmetric grand unified theories [SUSY GUTs] provide a beautiful
framework for physics beyond the standard model. Experimental measurements of
the three gauge couplings are consistent with unification at a scale GeV. In addition predictive models for fermion masses and
mixing angles have been found which fit the low energy data, including the
recent data for neutrino oscillations. SO(10) boundary conditions can be tested
via the spectrum of superparticles. The simplest models also predict neutron
and proton decay rates. In this paper we discuss nucleon decay rates and obtain
reasonable upper bounds. A clear picture of the allowed SUSY spectra as
constrained by nucleon decay is presented.Comment: 13 page
Microporous polymer microspheres with amphoteric character for the solid-phase extraction of acidic and basic analytes
Solid-phase extraction (SPE) is a widely-used and very well-established sample preparation technique for liquid samples. An area of on-going focus for innovation in this field concerns the development of new and improved SPE sorbents that can enhance the sensitivity and/or the selectivity of SPE processes. In this context, mixed-mode ion-exchange sorbents have been developed and commercialised, thereby allowing enhanced capacity and selectivity to be offered by one single material. The ion-selectivity of these materials is such that either anion-exchange or cation-exchange is possible, however one limitation to their use is that more than one sorbent type is required to capture both anions and cations. In this paper, we disclose the design, synthesis and exploitation of a novel SPE sorbent based on microporous polymer microspheres with amphoteric character. We show that it is possible to switch the ion-exchange retention mechanism of the sorbent simply by changing the pH of the loading solution; anion-exchange dominates at low pH, cation-exchange dominates at high pH, and both mechanisms can contribute to retention when the polymer-bound amphoteric species, which are based on the 뱉amino acid sarcosine (N-methylglycine), are in a zwitterionic state. This is an interesting and useful feature, since it allows distinctly different groups of analytes (acids and bases) to be fractionated using one single amphoteric sorbent with dual-functionality. The sarcosine-based sorbent was applied to the SPE of acidic, basic and amphoteric analytes from ultrapure water, river water and effluent wastewater samples. Under optimised conditions (loading 100 mL of sample at pH 6, washing with 1 mL of MeOH and eluting with an acidic or basic additive in MeOH) the recoveries for most of the compounds were from 57% to 87% for river water and from 61% to 88% for effluent wastewater. We anticipate that these results will lay the basis for the development of a new family of multifunctional sorbents, where two or more separation mechanisms can be embedded within one single, bespoke material optimised for application to challenging chemical separations to give significant selectivity advantages over essentially all other state-of-the-art SPE sorbents
Testing the Copernican Principle via Cosmological Observations
Observations of distances to Type-Ia supernovae can be explained by
cosmological models that include either a gigaparsec-scale void, or a cosmic
flow, without the need for Dark Energy. Instead of invoking dark energy, these
inhomogeneous models instead violate the Copernican Principle. we show that
current cosmological observations (Supernovae, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and
estimates of the Hubble parameters based on the age of the oldest stars) are
not able to rule out inhomogeneous anti-Copernican models. The next generation
of surveys for baryonic acoustic oscillations will be sufficiently precise to
either validate the Copernican Principle or determine the existence of a local
Gpc scale inhomogeneity.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication in JCA
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