3,378 research outputs found
Production of butanol by fermentation in the presence of cocultures of clostridium
Sugars are converted to a mixture of solvents including butanol by a fermentation process employing a coculture of microorganisms of the Clostridium genus, one of said microorganisms favoring the production of butyric acid and the other of which converts the butyric acid so produced to butanol. The use of a coculture substantially increases the yield of butanol over that obtained using a culture employing only one microorganism
Looking for a light Higgs boson in the overlooked channel
The final state obtained when a Higgs boson decays to a photon and a Z boson
has been mostly overlooked in current searches for a light Higgs boson.
However, when the Z boson decays leptonically, all final state particles in
this channel can be measured, allowing for accurate reconstructions of the
Higgs mass and angular correlations. We determine the sensitivity of the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC) running at center of masses energies of 8 and 14 TeV to
Standard Model (SM) Higgs bosons with masses in the 120 - 130 GeV range. For
the 8 TeV LHC, sensitivity to several times the the SM cross section times
branching ratio may be obtained with 20 inverse femtobarns of integrated
luminosity, while for the 14 TeV LHC, the SM rate is probed with about 100
inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Improves on version 1 in that 8 and 14 TeV LHC
running is considered, the case of a 125 GeV Higgs is treated specifically,
and the effect of an additional jet in the final state has been taken into
account in studying experimental sensitivit
A proposed new policy for planetary protection
A critical review of the present policy was conducted with emphasis on its application to future planetary exploration. The probable impact of recent data on the implementation of the present policy was also assessed. The existing policy and its implementation were found to: be excessive for certain missions (e.g., Voyager), neglect the contamination hazard posed by the bulk constituent organics of spacecraft, be ambiguous for certain missions (e.g., Pioneer Venus), and treat all extraterrestrial sample return missions alike. The major features of the proposed policy are planet/mission combinations, a qualitative top level statement, and implementation by exception rather than rule. The concept of planet/mission categories permits the imposition of requirements according to both biological interest in the target planet and the relative contamination hazard of the mission type
Kinetic decoupling of neutralino dark matter
After neutralinos cease annihilating in the early Universe, they may still
scatter elastically from other particles in the primordial plasma. At some
point in time, however, they will eventually stop scattering. We calculate the
cross sections for neutralino elastic scattering from standard-model particles
to determine the time at which this kinetic decoupling occurs. We show that
kinetic decoupling occurs above a temperature MeV. Thereafter,
neutralinos act as collisionless cold dark matter.Comment: Replaced with revised version, new references adde
QED radiative corrections to the decay pi^0 to e^+e^-
We reconsider QED radiative corrections (RC) to the
decay width. One kind of RC investigated earlier has a renormalization group
origin and can be associated with the final state interaction of electron and
positron. It determines the distribution of lepton pair invariant masses in the
whole kinematic region. The other type of RC has a double-logarithmic character
and is related to almost on-mass-shell behavior of the lepton form factors. The
total effect of RC for the decay is estimated to be
3.2% and for the decay is 4.3%.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Distance-Redshift in Inhomogeneous Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker Cosmology
Distance--redshift relations are given in terms of associated Legendre
functions for partially filled beam observations inspatially flat
Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) cosmologies. These models are
dynamically pressure-free, flat FLRW on large scales but, due to mass
inhomogeneities, differ in their optical properties. The partially filled beam
area-redshift equation is a Lame equation for arbitrary FLRW and is
shown to simplify to the associated Legendre equation for the spatially flat,
i.e. case. We fit these new analytic Hubble curves to recent
supernovae (SNe) data in an attempt to determine both the mass parameter
and the beam filling parameter . We find that current data are
inadequate to limit . However, we are able to estimate what limits are
possible when the number of observed SNe is increased by factor of 10 or 100,
sample sizes achievable in the near future with the proposed SuperNova
Acceleration Probe satellite.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Can Heavy WIMPs Be Captured by the Earth?
If weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in bound solar orbits are
systematically driven into the Sun by solar-system resonances (as Farinella et
al. have shown is the case for many Earth-crossing asteroids), then the capture
of high-mass WIMPs by the Earth would be affected dramatically because
high-mass WIMPs are captured primarily from bound orbits. WIMP capture would be
eliminated for M_x>630 GeV and would be highly suppressed for M_x>~150 GeV.
Annihilation of captured WIMPs and anti-WIMPs is expected to give rise to
neutrinos coming from the Earth's center. The absence of such a neutrino signal
has been used to place limits on WIMP parameters. At present, one does not know
if typical WIMP orbits are in fact affected by these resonances. Until this
question is investigated and resolved, one must (conservatively) assume that
they are. Hence, limits on high-mass WIMP parameters are significantly weaker
than previously believed.Comment: 8 pages + 1 figure. Submitted to Ap
Degenerate Fermi gas perturbations at standard background cosmology
The hypothesis of a tiny fraction of the cosmic inventory evolving
cosmologically as a degenerate Fermi gas test fluid at some dominant
cosmological background is investigated. Our analytical results allow for
performing preliminary computations to the evolution of perturbations for
relativistic and non-relativistic test fluids. The density fluctuation,
, the fluid velocity divergence, , and an explicit expression
for the dynamics of the shear stress, , are obtained for a degenerate
Fermi gas in the background regime of radiation. Extensions to the dominance of
matter and to the CDM cosmological background are also investigated
and lessons concerning the formation of large structures of degenerate Fermi
gas are depicted.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure
Microscopic calculation of 6Li elastic and transition form factors
Variational Monte Carlo wave functions, obtained from a realistic Hamiltonian
consisting of the Argonne v18 two-nucleon and Urbana-IX three-nucleon
interactions, are used to calculate the 6Li ground-state longitudinal and
transverse form factors as well as transition form factors to the first four
excited states. The charge and current operators include one- and two-body
components, leading terms of which are constructed consistently with the
two-nucleon interaction. The calculated form factors and radiative widths are
in good agreement with available experimental data.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, REVTeX, submitted to Physical Review Letters,
with updated introduction and reference
Cosmic antiprotons as a probe for supersymmetric dark matter?
The flux of cosmic ray antiprotons from neutralino annihilations in the
galactic halo is computed for a large sample of models in the MSSM (the Minimal
Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model). We also revisit the problem of
estimating the background of low-energy cosmic ray induced secondary
antiprotons, taking into account their subsequent interactions (and energy
loss) and the presence of nuclei in the interstellar matter.
We consider a two-zone diffusion model, with and without a galactic wind. We
find that, given the uncertainties in the background predictions, there is no
need for a primary (exotic) component to explain present data. However,
allowing for a signal by playing with the uncertainties in the background
estimate, we discuss the characteristic features of the supersymmetric models
which give a satisfactory description of the data. We point out that in some
cases the optimal kinetic energy to search for a signal from supersymmetric
dark matter is above several GeV, rather than the traditional sub-GeV region.
The large astrophysical uncertainties involved do not, one the other hand,
allow the exclusion of any of the MSSM models we consider, on the basis of
data.
We present besides numerical results also convenient parameterizations of the
antiproton yields of all `basic' two-body final states. We also give examples
of the yield and differential energy spectrum for a set of supersymmetric
models with high rates.
We also remark that it is difficult to put a limit on the antiproton lifetime
from present measurements, since the injection of antiprotons from neutralino
annihilation can compensate the loss from decay.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, uses emulateapj.st
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