Properties of potential eco-friendly gas replacements for particle detectors in high-energy physics

Gas detectors for elementary particles require F-based gases for optimal performance. Recent regulations demand the use of environmentally unfriendly F-based gases to be limited or banned. This work studies properties of potential eco-friendly gas replacements by computing the physical and chemical parameters relevant for use as detector media, and suggests candidates to be considered for experimental investigation

Properties of potential eco-friendly gas replacements for particle detectors in high-energy physics

Modern gas detectors for detection of particles require F-based gases for optimal performance. Recent regulations demand the use of environmentally unfriendly F-based gases to be limited or banned. This review studies properties of potential eco-friendly gas candidate replacements.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures, 8 tables. To be submitted to Journal of Instrumentatio

Candidate eco-friendly gas mixtures for MPGDs

Modern gas detectors for detection of particles require F-based gases for optimal performance.Recent regulations demand the use of environmentally unfriendly F-based gases t o be limited or banned. This review studies properties of potential eco-friendly gas candidate replacements

Effects of urbanization on regional meteorology and air quality in Southern California

Urbanization has a profound influence on regional meteorology and air quality in megapolitan Southern California. The influence of urbanization on meteorology is driven by changes in land surface physical properties and land surface processes. These changes in meteorology in turn influence air quality by changing temperature-dependent chemical reactions and emissions, gas–particle phase partitioning, and ventilation of pollutants. In this study we characterize the influence of land surface changes via historical urbanization from before human settlement to the present day on meteorology and air quality in Southern California using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model coupled to chemistry and the single-layer urban canopy model (WRF–UCM–Chem). We assume identical anthropogenic emissions for the simulations carried out and thus focus on the effect of changes in land surface physical properties and land surface processes on air quality. Historical urbanization has led to daytime air temperature decreases of up to 1.4&thinsp;K and evening temperature increases of up to 1.7&thinsp;K. Ventilation of air in the LA basin has decreased up to 36.6&thinsp;% during daytime and increased up to 27.0&thinsp;% during nighttime. These changes in meteorology are mainly attributable to higher evaporative fluxes and thermal inertia of soil from irrigation and increased surface roughness and thermal inertia from buildings. Changes in ventilation drive changes in hourly NOx concentrations with increases of up to 2.7&thinsp;ppb during daytime and decreases of up to 4.7&thinsp;ppb at night. Hourly O3 concentrations decrease by up to 0.94&thinsp;ppb in the morning and increase by up to 5.6&thinsp;ppb at other times of day. Changes in O3 concentrations are driven by the competing effects of changes in ventilation and precursor NOx concentrations. PM2.5 concentrations show slight increases during the day and decreases of up to 2.5&thinsp;µg&thinsp;m−3 at night. Process drivers for changes in PM2.5 include modifications to atmospheric ventilation and temperature, which impact gas–particle phase partitioning for semi-volatile compounds and chemical reactions. Understanding process drivers related to how land surface changes effect regional meteorology and air quality is crucial for decision-making on urban planning in megapolitan Southern California to achieve regional climate adaptation and air quality improvements.</p

NASSAM: a server to search for and annotate tertiary interactions and motifs in three-dimensional structures of complex RNA molecules

Similarities in the 3D patterns of RNA base interactions or arrangements can provide insights into their functions and roles in stabilization of the RNA 3D structure. Nucleic Acids Search for Substructures and Motifs (NASSAM) is a graph theoretical program that can search for 3D patterns of base arrangements by representing the bases as pseudo-atoms. The geometric relationship of the pseudo-atoms to each other as a pattern can be represented as a labeled graph where the pseudo-atoms are the graph's nodes while the edges are the inter-pseudo-atomic distances. The input files for NASSAM are PDB formatted 3D coordinates. This web server can be used to identify matches of base arrangement patterns in a query structure to annotated patterns that have been reported in the literature or that have possible functional and structural stabilization implications. The NASSAM program is freely accessible without any login requirement at http://mfrlab.org/grafss/nassam/

Cosmic-ray strangelets in the Earth's atmosphere

If strange quark matter is stable in small lumps, we expect to find such lumps, called ``strangelets'', on Earth due to a steady flux in cosmic rays. Following recent astrophysical models, we predict the strangelet flux at the top of the atmosphere, and trace the strangelets' behavior in atmospheric chemistry and circulation. We show that several strangelet species may have large abundances in the atmosphere; that they should respond favorably to laboratory-scale preconcentration techniques; and that they present promising targets for mass spectroscopy experiments.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures, revtex

Direct Measurements of the Branching Fractions for Inclusive K±K^\pm and Inclusive Semileptonic Decays of D+D^+ and D0D^0 Mesons

With singly-tagged $\bar D$ samples selected from the data collected at and around 3.773 GeV with the BESII detector at the BEPC collider, we have measured the branching fractions for the inclusive $K^\pm$ decays of $D^+$ and $D^0$ mesons, which are $BF(D^+\to K^-X) = (24.7 \pm 1.3 \pm 1.2)$, $BF(D^+\to K^+X) = (6.1 \pm 0.9 \pm 0.4)$, $BF(D^0\to K^-X) = (57.8 \pm 1.6 \pm 3.2)$ and $BF(D^0\to K^+X) = (3.5 \pm 0.7 \pm 0.3)$, respectively. We have also measured the branching fractions for the inclusive semileptonic decays of $D^+$ and $D^0$ mesons to be $BF(D^+ \to e^+ X)=(15.2 \pm 0.9 \pm 0.8)$ and $BF(D^0 \to e^+ X) =(6.3 \pm 0.7 \pm 0.4)$. These yield the ratio of their partial widths to be $\Gamma(D^+ \to e^+X)/\Gamma(D^0 \to e^+X)=0.95 \pm 0.12 \pm 0.07$.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Search for D to phi l nu and measurement of the branching fraction for D to phi pi

Using a data sample of integrated luminosity of about 33 pb$^{-1}$ collected around 3.773 GeV with the BESII detector at the BEPC collider, the semileptonic decays $D^+ \to \phi e ^+\nu_e$, $D^+ \to \phi \mu^+\nu_\mu$ and the hadronic decay $D^+ \to \phi \pi^+$ are studied. The upper limits of the branching fractions are set to be $BF(D^+ \to \phi e ^+\nu_e) <$ 2.01% and $BF(D^+ \to \phi \mu^+ \nu_\mu) <$ 2.04% at the 90% confidence level. The ratio of the branching fractions for $D^+ \to \phi \pi^+$ relative to $D^+ \to K^-\pi^+\pi^+$ is measured to be $0.057 \pm 0.011 \pm 0.003$. In addition, the branching fraction for $D^+ \to \phi \pi^+$ is obtained to be $(5.2 \pm 1.0 \pm 0.4) \times 10^{-3}$.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Eur.Phys.J.

Revised experimental upper limit on the electric dipole moment of the neutron

We present for the first time a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the experimental results that set the current world sensitivity limit on the magnitude of the electric dipole moment (EDM) of the neutron. We have extended and enhanced our earlier analysis to include recent developments in the understanding of the effects of gravity in depolarizing ultracold neutrons; an improved calculation of the spectrum of the neutrons; and conservative estimates of other possible systematic errors, which are also shown to be consistent with more recent measurements undertaken with the apparatus. We obtain a net result of dn=−0.21±1.82×10−26  e cm, which may be interpreted as a slightly revised upper limit on the magnitude of the EDM of 3.0×10−26  e cm (90% C.L.) or 3.6×10−26  e cm (95% C.L.)

Measurements of branching fractions for inclusive K0~/K0 and K*(892)+- decays of neutral and charged D mesons

Using the data sample of about 33 pb-1 collected at and around 3.773 GeV with the BES-II detector at the BEPC collider, we have studied inclusive K0~/K0 and K*(892)+- decays of D0 and D+ mesons. The branching fractions for the inclusive K0~/K0 and K*(892)- decays are measured to be BF(D0 to K0~/K0 X)=(47.6+-4.8+-3.0)%, BF(D+ to K0~/K0 X)=(60.5+-5.5+-3.3)%, BF(D0 to K*- X)=(15.3+- 8.3+- 1.9)% and BF(D+ to K*- X)=(5.7+- 5.2+- 0.7)%. The upper limits of the branching fractions for the inclusive K*(892)+ decays are set to be BF(D0 to K*+ X)<3.6% and BF(D+ to K*+ X) <20.3% at 90% confidence level