932 research outputs found
The World Bank, the Grant Program, and the CGIAR: A Retrospective Review
A paper published as OED Working Paper Series No. 1 by the Operations Evaluation Department of the World Bank. It was prepared by Jock Anderson of the Bank and Dana Dalrymple of USAID as background for an OED study of the Bank's Special Grant Program, which is the source of the World Bank contribution to the CGIAR. The paper describes the CGIAR, its role in development, and the involvement of the World Bank in the CGIAR. A chapter analyzes the planning, review and evaluation process of the CGIAR, and others assess the Group's achievements and the constraints and challenges that it faces. There is an assessment both of the performance of the CGIAR and its centers, and of the World Bank and other donors. The authors conclude that the CGIAR System cannot be taken for granted and requires close attention.There are annexes on World Bank contributions to agricultural research centers not affiliated with the CGIAR and to the Special Program on African Agricultural Research (SPAAR)
A Compact Microchip-Based Atomic Clock Based on Ultracold Trapped Rb Atoms
We propose a compact atomic clock based on ultracold Rb atoms that are
magnetically trapped near the surface of an atom microchip. An interrogation
scheme that combines electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) with
Ramsey's method of separated oscillatory fields can achieve atomic shot-noise
level performance of 10^{-13}/sqrt(tau) for 10^6 atoms. The EIT signal can be
detected with a heterodyne technique that provides noiseless gain; with this
technique the optical phase shift of a 100 pW probe beam can be detected at the
photon shot-noise level. Numerical calculations of the density matrix equations
are used to identify realistic operating parameters at which AC Stark shifts
are eliminated. By considering fluctuations in these parameters, we estimate
that AC Stark shifts can be canceled to a level better than 2*10^{-14}. An
overview of the apparatus is presented with estimates of duty cycle and power
consumption.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, 5 table
Unlocking CO Depletion in Protoplanetary Disks II. Primordial C/H Predictions Inside the CO Snowline
CO is thought to be the main reservoir of volatile carbon in protoplanetary
disks, and thus the primary initial source of carbon in the atmospheres of
forming giant planets. However, recent observations of protoplanetary disks
point towards low volatile carbon abundances in many systems, including at
radii interior to the CO snowline. One potential explanation is that gas phase
carbon is chemically reprocessed into less volatile species, which are frozen
on dust grain surfaces as ice. This mechanism has the potential to change the
primordial C/H ratio in the gas. However, current observations primarily probe
the upper layers of the disk. It is not clear if the low volatile carbon
abundances extend to the midplane, where planets form. We have run a grid of
198 chemical models, exploring how the chemical reprocessing of CO depends on
disk mass, dust grain size distribution, temperature, cosmic ray and X-ray
ionization rate, and initial water abundance. Building on our previous work
focusing on the warm molecular layer, here we analyze the results for our grid
of models in the disk midplane at 12 au. We find that either an ISM level
cosmic ray ionization rate or the presence of UV photons due to a low dust
surface density are needed to chemically reduce the midplane CO gas abundance
by at least an order of magnitude within 1 Myr. In the majority of our models
CO does not undergo substantial reprocessing by in situ chemistry and there is
little change in the gas phase C/H and C/O ratios over the lifetime of the
typical disk. However, in the small sub-set of disks where the disk midplane is
subject to a source of ionization or photolysis, the gas phase C/O ratio
increases by up to nearly 9 orders of magnitude due to conversion of CO into
volatile hydrocarbons.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 15 pages, 10 figures, 3 table
Herschel observations of EXtra-Ordinary Sources: Analysis of the HIFI 1.2 THz Wide Spectral Survey Toward Orion KL II. Chemical Implications
We present chemical implications arising from spectral models fit to the
Herschel/HIFI spectral survey toward the Orion Kleinmann-Low nebula (Orion KL).
We focus our discussion on the eight complex organics detected within the HIFI
survey utilizing a novel technique to identify those molecules emitting in the
hottest gas. In particular, we find the complex nitrogen bearing species
CHCN, CHCN, CHCN, and NHCHO systematically
trace hotter gas than the oxygen bearing organics CHOH, CHOH,
CHOCH, and CHOCHO, which do not contain nitrogen. If these
complex species form predominantly on grain surfaces, this may indicate
N-bearing organics are more difficult to remove from grain surfaces than
O-bearing species. Another possibility is that hot (T300 K)
gas phase chemistry naturally produces higher complex cyanide abundances while
suppressing the formation of O-bearing complex organics. We compare our derived
rotation temperatures and molecular abundances to chemical models, which
include gas-phase and grain surface pathways. Abundances for a majority of the
detected complex organics can be reproduced over timescales 10
years, with several species being under predicted by less than 3.
Derived rotation temperatures for most organics, furthermore, agree reasonably
well with the predicted temperatures at peak abundance. We also find that
sulfur bearing molecules which also contain oxygen (i.e. SO, SO, and OCS)
tend to probe the hottest gas toward Orion KL indicating the formation pathways
for these species are most efficient at high temperatures.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures, 1 Table, accepted to the Astrophysical Journa
An Atom Michelson Interferometer on a Chip Using a Bose-Einstein Condensate
An atom Michelson interferometer is implemented on an "atom chip." The chip
uses lithographically patterned conductors and external magnetic fields to
produce and guide a Bose-Einstein condensate. Splitting, reflecting, and
recombining of condensate atoms are achieved by a standing-wave light field
having a wave vector aligned along the atom waveguide. A differential phase
shift between the two arms of the interferometer is introduced by either a
magnetic-field gradient or with an initial condensate velocity. Interference
contrast is still observable at 20% with atom propagation time of 10 ms
Application of Shaken Lattice Interferometry Based Sensors to Space Navigation
High-sensitivity shaken lattice interferometry (SLI) based sensors have the
potential to provide deep space missions with the ability to precisely measure
non-gravitational perturbing forces. This work considers the simulation of the
OSIRIS-REx mission navigation in the vicinity of Bennu with the addition of
measurements from onboard SLI-based accelerometers. The simulation is performed
in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Mission Analysis, Operations and
Navigation Toolkit (MONTE) and incorporates OSIRIS-REx reconstructed trajectory
and attitude data from the Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF)
database. The use of the reconstructed data from NAIF provides realistic true
dynamical errors and JPL's MONTE software allows for a high-fidelity simulation
of a nominal reference for the filter. The navigation performance and reduction
of tracking and complex modeling enabled by the onboard SLI-based sensor are
presented for two orbital phases of the OSIRIS-REx mission. Overall, the
results show that the addition of SLI-based accelerometer measurements improves
navigation performance, when compared to a radiometric tracking only
configuration. In addition, results demonstrate that highly-precise
accelerometer measurements can effectively replace at least one day of DSN
passes over a three-day period, thereby reducing tracking requirements.
Furthermore, it is shown that lower-fidelity surface force modeling and
parameter estimation is required when using onboard SLI-based accelerometers.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figure
Revealing buried information: Statistical processing techniques for ultracold gas image analysis
The techniques of principal and independent component analysis are applied to
images of ultracold atoms. As an illustrative example, we present the use of
these model-independent methods to rapidly determine the differential phase of
a BEC interferometer from large sets of images of interference patterns. These
techniques have been useful in the calibration of the experiment and in the
investigation of phase randomization. The details of the algorithms are
provided.Comment: v2: Many changes made to answer reviewer comments and improve
clarity. 29 pages, 9 figures v3: Small change to emphasize role of models in
result interpretation. 29 pages, 9 figure
Probing the Gas Content of Late-stage Protoplanetary Disks with N_2H^+
The lifetime of gas in circumstellar disks is a fundamental quantity that informs our understanding of planet formation. Studying disk gas evolution requires measurements of disk masses around stars of various ages. Because H_2 gas is unobservable under most disk conditions, total disk masses are based on indirect tracers such as sub-mm dust and CO emission. The uncertainty in the relation between these tracers and the disk mass increases as the disk evolves. In a few well-studied disks, CO exhibits depletions of up to 100× below the assumed interstellar value. Thus, additional tracers are required to accurately determine the total gas mass. The relative lack of nitrogen found in solid solar system bodies may indicate that it persists in volatile form, making nitrogen-bearing species more robust tracers of gas in more evolved disks. Here we present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array detections of N_2H^+ in two mature, ~5–11 Myr old disks in the Upper Scorpius OB Association. Such detections imply the presence of H_2-rich gas and sources of ionization, both required for N_2H^+ formation. The Upper Sco disks also show elevated N_2H^+/CO flux ratios when compared to previously observed disks with ≳10× higher CO fluxes. Based on line ratio predictions from a grid of thermochemical disk models, a significantly reduced CO/H_2 abundance of <10^(−6) for a gas-to-dust ratio of ≳100 is required to produce the observed N_2H^+ fluxes. These systems appear to maintain H_2 gas reservoirs and indicate that carbon- and nitrogen-bearing species follow distinct physical or chemical pathways as disks evolve
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