126 research outputs found
Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Rano Raraku crater lake basin: Geochemical characterization and implications for the Ahu-Moai Period
Rano Raraku, the crater lake constrained by basaltic tuff that served as the primary quarry used to construct the moai statues on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), has experienced fluctuations in lake level over the past centuries. As one of the only freshwater sources on the island, understanding the present and past geochemical characteristics of the lake water is critical to understand if the lake could have been a viable freshwater source for Rapa Nui. At the time of sampling in September 2017, the maximum lake depth was ~1 m. The lake level has substantially declined in the subsequent years, with the lake drying almost completely in January 2018. The lake is currently characterized by highly anoxic conditions, with a predominance of ammonium ions on nitrates, a high concentration of organic carbon in the water-sediment interface and reducing conditions of the lake, as evidenced by Mn/Fe and Cr/V ratios. Our estimates of past salinity inferred from the chloride mass balance indicates that it was unlikely that Rano Raraku provided a viable freshwater source for early Rapa Nui people. The installation of an outlet pipe around 1950 that was active until the late 1970s, as well as grazing of horses on the lake margins appear to have significantly impacted the geochemical conditions of Rano Raraku sediments and lake water in recent decades. Such impacts are distinct from natural environmental changes and highlight the need to consider the sensitivity of the lake geochemistry to human activities
Ferromagnetic Polarons in Manganites
Using the Lanczos method in linear chains we study the double exchange model
in the low concentration limit, including an antiferromagnetic super-exchange
K. In the strong coupling limit we find that the ground state contains
ferromagnetic polarons whose length is very sensitive to the value of K/t. We
investigate the dispersion relation, the trapping by impurities, and the
interaction between these polarons. As the overlap between polarons increases,
by decreasing K/t, the effective interaction between them changes from
antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic. The scaling to the thermodynamic limit
suggests an attractive interaction in the strong coupling regime (J_h > t) and
no binding in the weak limit (J_h \simeq t).Comment: 12 pages, accepted in PRB, to be published in Novembe
Single neutral pion production by charged-current interactions on hydrocarbon at 3.6 GeV
Single neutral pion production via muon antineutrino charged-current
interactions in plastic scintillator (CH) is studied using the \minerva
detector exposed to the NuMI low-energy, wideband antineutrino beam at
Fermilab. Measurement of this process constrains models of neutral pion
production in nuclei, which is important because the neutral-current analog is
a background for appearance oscillation experiments. The
differential cross sections for momentum and production angle, for
events with a single observed and no charged pions, are presented and
compared to model predictions. These results comprise the first measurement of
the kinematics for this process.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physics Letters
Spin Waves in Canted Phases: An Application to Doped Manganites
We present the effective lagrangian for low energy and momentum spin waves in
canted phases at next to leading order in the derivative expansion. The
symmetry breaking pattern SU(2) --> 1 of the internal spin group and that of
the crystallographic space group imply that there is one ferromagnetic and one
antiferromagnetic spin wave. The interaction of the spin waves with the charge
carriers is also discussed for canted, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic
phases. All this together allows us to write the doping dependence of the
dispersion relation parameters for doped manganites. We point out that the spin
waves posses distinctive characteristics which may allow us to experimentally
differentiate canted phases from phase separation regions in doped manganites.Comment: 34 pages, latex file, 1 eps included figure. Minor changes, published
versio
Measurement of the muon anti-neutrino double-differential cross section for quasi-elastic scattering on hydrocarbon at~ GeV
We present double-differential measurements of anti-neutrino quasi-elastic
scattering in the MINERvA detector. This study improves on a previous single
differential measurement by using updated reconstruction algorithms and
interaction models, and provides a complete description of observed muon
kinematics in the form of a double-differential cross section with respect to
muon transverse and longitudinal momentum. We include in our signal definition
zero-meson final states arising from multi-nucleon interactions and from
resonant pion production followed by pion absorption in the primary nucleus. We
find that model agreement is considerably improved by a model tuned to MINERvA
inclusive neutrino scattering data that incorporates nuclear effects such as
weak nuclear screening and two-particle, two-hole enhancements.Comment: 47 pages, 31 figure
First evidence of coherent meson production in neutrino-nucleus scattering
Neutrino-induced charged-current coherent kaon production,
, is a rare, inelastic electroweak process
that brings a on shell and leaves the target nucleus intact in its ground
state. This process is significantly lower in rate than neutrino-induced
charged-current coherent pion production, because of Cabibbo suppression and a
kinematic suppression due to the larger kaon mass. We search for such events in
the scintillator tracker of MINERvA by observing the final state ,
and no other detector activity, and by using the kinematics of the final state
particles to reconstruct the small momentum transfer to the nucleus, which is a
model-independent characteristic of coherent scattering. We find the first
experimental evidence for the process at significance.Comment: added ancillary file with information about the six kaon candidate
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