Methanogenic crude oil-degrading microbial consortia are not universally abundant in anoxic environments

Crude oil-amended microcosms were prepared with inocula from eleven anoxic environments (4 river sediments, 3 lake sediments, and 4 sludges from wastewater treatment reactors) to determine their ability to produce methane from the biodegradation of crude oil. Over incubation periods of up to 1150 days, oil-stimulated methanogenesis and concomitant loss of alkanes occurred in microcosms prepared with five of the inocula whereas six of the inocula did not show oil-stimulated methane production. Bacterial and archaeal communities from microcosms exhibiting high levels of oil-stimulated methanogenesis were distinct from communities where methanogenic crude oil degradation was not detected. Successional changes were consistent with the quantitative enrichment of syntrophic hydrocarbon degrading bacteria and methanogens over time. In conclusion, in oil-impacted environments methanogenic crude oil-degrading microbial consortia are present in relatively low abundance and exhibit slow growth, and while they may be ubiquitously distributed they may not be present at sufficiently high abundance to be detected

Anaerobic microbial communities and their potential for bioenergy production in heavily biodegraded petroleum reservoirs

Most of the oil in low temperature, non‐uplifted reservoirs is biodegraded due to millions of years of microbial activity, including via methanogenesis from crude oil. To evaluate stimulating additional methanogenesis in already heavily biodegraded oil reservoirs, oil sands samples were amended with nutrients and electron acceptors, but oil sands bitumen was the only organic substrate. Methane production was monitored for over 3000 days. Methanogenesis was observed in duplicate microcosms that were unamended, amended with sulfate or that were initially oxic, however methanogenesis was not observed in nitrate‐amended controls. The highest rate of methane production was 0.15 μmol CH4 g−1 oil d−1, orders of magnitude lower than other reports of methanogenesis from lighter crude oils. Methanogenic Archaea and several potential syntrophic bacterial partners were detected following the incubations. GC–MS and FTICR–MS revealed no significant bitumen alteration for any specific compound or compound class, suggesting that the very slow methanogenesis observed was coupled to bitumen biodegradation in an unspecific manner. After 3000 days, methanogenic communities were amended with benzoate resulting in methanogenesis rates that were 110‐fold greater. This suggests that oil‐to‐methane conversion is limited by the recalcitrant nature of oil sands bitumen, not the microbial communities resident in heavy oil reservoirs

Low Energy Chiral Lagrangian in Curved Space-Time from the Spectral Quark Model

We analyze the recently proposed Spectral Quark Model in the light of Chiral Perturbation Theory in curved space-time. In particular, we calculate the chiral coefficients $L_1, ..., L_{10}$, as well as the coefficients $L_{11}$, $L_{12}$, and $L_{13}$, appearing when the model is coupled to gravity. The analysis is carried for the SU(3) case. We analyze the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking as well as elaborate on the fulfillment of anomalies. Matching the model results to resonance meson exchange yields the relation between the masses of the scalar, tensor and vector mesons, $M_{f_0}=M_{f_2}=\sqrt{2} M_V= 4 \sqrt{3 /N_c} \pi f_\pi$. Finally, the large-$N_c$ limit suggests the dual relations in the vector and scalar channels, $M_V=M_S= 2 \sqrt{6 /N_c} \pi f_\pi$ and $^{1/2}_S = < r^2 >^{1/2}_V = 2 \sqrt{N_c} / f_\pi = 0.59 {\rm fm}$.Comment: 18 pages, no figure

Form factors in lattice QCD

Lattice simulations of QCD have produced precise estimates for the masses of the lowest-lying hadrons which show excellent agreement with experiment. By contrast, lattice results for the vector and axial vector form factors of the nucleon show significant deviations from their experimental determination. We present results from our ongoing project to compute a variety of form factors with control over all systematic uncertainties. In the case of the pion electromagnetic form factor we employ partially twisted boundary conditions to extract the pion charge radius directly from the linear slope of the form factor near vanishing momentum transfer. In the nucleon sector we focus specifically on the possible contamination from contributions of higher excited states. We argue that summed correlation functions offer the possibility of eliminating this source of systematic error. As an illustration of the method we discuss our results for the axial charge, gA, of the nucleon.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, presented at Conclusive Symposium, CRC443, "Many-body structure of strongly interacting systems", 23-25 Feb 2011, Mainz, German

Measurement of D*±, D± and Ds± meson production cross sections in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The production of D∗±, D± and D±s charmed mesons has been measured with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at √s= 7 TeV at the LHC, using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 280 nb−1. The charmed mesons have been reconstructed in the range of transverse momentum 3.5 <pT(D) <100 GeV and pseudorapidity |η(D)| <2.1. The differential cross sections as a function of transverse momentum and pseudorapidity were measured for D∗± and D± production. The next-to-leading-order QCD predictions are consistent with the data in the visible kinematic region within the large theoretical uncertainties. Using the visible D cross sections and an extrapolation to the full kinematic phase space, the strangeness-suppression factor in charm fragmentation, the fraction of charged non-strange D mesons produced in a vector state, and the total cross section of charm production at √s= 7 TeV were derived

B → ρ ℓ ν form factors in lattice QCD

We present results from quenched lattice QCD for the form factors for the decay B → ρ ℓ ν.  The calculations are performed using a nonperturbatively improved action and operators at two values of the lattice spacing. The bottom quark mass is reached by extrapolation from simulations performed with heavy quark masses around the charm mass. Our primary result is for the partially integrated decay rate ΓPI over the range 12.7 GeV2 &lt; q2 &lt; 18.2 GeV2 : ΓPI = 4.9 +12+0-10-14  ×  1012 s-1 |Vub|2