A tree-ring and C-14 chronology of the key Sayan-Altai monuments

We present a radiocarbon chronology of key Sayan-Altai monuments from the Scythian period, based on a statistical analysis of dates produced in the 1980s and now supplemented with new dates. These new C-14 dates were produced for samples from the Tuekta-1 barrows (burial mounds) and were measured both in St. Petersburg and Groningen. These tree-ring samples were fitted to the calibration curve. Chronologies were established for the Arzhan, Tuekta-1 and Pazyryk-5 barrows. The time of the construction of the Arzhan and Pazyryk-5 barrows is the 9th and late 5th-4th centuries BC, respectively, and agrees with archaeology. According to new data obtained, the time of the Tuekta-1 barrow construction is some years older than has been accepted thus far by archaeologists.</p

Effective action in a higher-spin background

We consider a free massless scalar field coupled to an infinite tower of background higher-spin gauge fields via minimal coupling to the traceless conserved currents. The set of Abelian gauge transformations is deformed to the non-Abelian group of unitary operators acting on the scalar field. The gauge invariant effective action is computed perturbatively in the external fields. The structure of the various (divergent or finite) terms is determined. In particular, the quadratic part of the logarithmically divergent (or of the finite) term is expressed in terms of curvatures and related to conformal higher-spin gravity. The generalized higher-spin Weyl anomalies are also determined. The relation with the theory of interacting higher-spin gauge fields on anti de Sitter spacetime via the holographic correspondence is discussed.Comment: 40 pages, Some errors and typos corrected, Version published in JHE

A Note on Vectorial AdS5_5/CFT4_4 Duality for Spin-jj Boundary Theory

The vectorial holographic correspondences between higher-spin theories in AdS$_5$ and free vector models on the boundary are extended to the cases where the latter is described by free massless spin-$j$ field. The dual higher-spin theory in the bulk does not include gravity and can only be defined on rigid AdS$_5$ background with $S^4$ boundary. We discuss various properties of these rather special higher-spin theories and calculate their one-loop free energies. We show that the result is proportional to the same quantity for spin-$j$ doubleton treated as if it is a AdS$_5$ field. Finally, we consider even more special case where the boundary theory itself is given by an infinite tower of massless higher-spin fields.Comment: 27 pages, version to appear in JHE

Thawing of permafrost may disturb historic cattle burial grounds in East Siberia

Climate warming in the Arctic may increase the risk of zoonoses due to expansion of vector habitats, improved chances of vector survival during winter, and permafrost degradation. Monitoring of soil temperatures at Siberian cryology control stations since 1970 showed correlations between air temperatures and the depth of permafrost layer that thawed during summer season. Between 1900s and 1980s, the temperature of surface layer of permafrost increased by 2–4°C; and a further increase of 3°C is expected. Frequent outbreaks of anthrax caused death of 1.5 million deer in Russian North between 1897 and 1925. Anthrax among people or cattle has been reported in 29,000 settlements of the Russian North, including more than 200 Yakutia settlements, which are located near the burial grounds of cattle that died from anthrax. Statistically significant positive trends in annual average temperatures were established in 8 out of 17 administrative districts of Yakutia for which sufficient meteorological data were available. At present, it is not known whether further warming of the permafrost will lead to the release of viable anthrax organisms. Nevertheless, we suggest that it would be prudent to undertake careful monitoring of permafrost conditions in all areas where an anthrax outbreak had occurred in the past