Watersheds dynamics following wildfires: Nonlinear feedbacks and implications on hydrologic responses

In recent years, wildfires in the western United States have occurred with increasing frequency and scale. Climate change scenarios in California predict prolonged periods of droughts with even greater potential for conditions amenable to wildfires. The Sierra Nevada Mountains provide 70% of water resources in California, yet how wildfires will impact watershed-scale hydrology is highly uncertain. In this work, we assess the impacts of wildfires perturbations on watershed hydrodynamics using a physically based integrated hydrologic model in a high-performance-computing framework. A representative Californian watershed, the Cosumnes River, is used to demonstrate how postwildfire conditions impact the water and energy balance. Results from the high-resolution model show counterintuitive feedbacks that occur following a wildfire and allow us to identify the regions most sensitive to wildfires conditions, as well as the hydrologic processes that are most affected. For example, whereas evapotranspiration generally decreases in the postfire simulations, some regions experience an increase due to changes in surface water run-off patterns in and near burn scars. Postfire conditions also yield greater winter snowpack and subsequently greater summer run-off as well as groundwater storage in the postfire simulations. Comparisons between dry and wet water years show that climate is the main factor controlling the timing at which some hydrologic processes occur (such as snow accumulation) whereas postwildfire changes to other metrics (such as streamflow) show seasonally dependent impacts primarily due to the timing of snowmelt, illustrative of the integrative nature of hydrologic processes across the Sierra Nevada-Central Valley interface

Neutralino Annihilation into a Photon and a Z boson

A full one-loop calculation of neutralino S-wave annihilation into the $Z\gamma$ final state is performed in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. This process, like the similar one with two photons in the final state, may be of importance for the indirect detection of supersymmetric dark matter through the very narrow $\gamma$ ray line that would result from neutralino annihilations in the galactic halo. We give the complete analytical formulas for this loop-induced process and treat the case of a pure Higgsino as a first application of our expressions. Predictions for the gamma line flux are given for the halo model which is of the form suggested by Kravtsov et al. and for the profile proposed by Navarro, Frenk and White. For heavy neutralinos, the lines from $2\gamma$ and $Z\gamma$ would have indistiguishable energy in a realistic detector, making the fluxes add and facilitating discovery. For lighter neutralinos, the positions and relative strengths of the two lines would give valuable information on the nature of the supersymmetric dark matter particles.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 6 eps figures. Some formulas corrected, improved discussion of halo models, results and conclusions unchanged. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Running mass of the rho0 meson's implication for the dilepton mass spectrum and the mu+mu-/e+e- branching ratio in the K+ --> pi+l+l- decays

We make an attempt to resolve the discrepancy of the observed e+e- mass spectrum in the K+ --> pi+e+e- decay with that predicted by meson dominance. To this end we investigate the properties of the rho0 propagator. We use dispersion relations to evaluate the running mass squared m_rho^2(t) of the rho0 resonance without adjustable parameters. To improve the convergence of the dispersion integral, the momentum dependence of strong vertices is taken from the flux-tube-breaking model of Kokoski and Isgur. The obtained behavior of m_rho^2(t) at small momentum squared t makes the K+ --> pi+e+e- form factor rise faster with increasing $t$ than in the original meson-dominance calculation and more in agreement with the published data. As a consequence, the meson-dominance prediction of the mu+mu-/e+e- branching ratio changes slightly, from 0.224 to 0.236. We do not see any possibility to accommodate into the meson-dominance approach an even steeper e+e- spectrum, indicated by the preliminary data of the E865 collaboration at BNL AGS.Comment: 13 pages, RevTeX, epsf.sty, 4 embedded figure

Two photon annihilation of Kaluza-Klein dark matter

We investigate the fermionic one-loop cross section for the two photon annihilation of Kaluza-Klein (KK) dark matter particles in a model of universal extra dimensions (UED). This process gives a nearly mono-energetic gamma-ray line with energy equal to the KK dark matter particle mass. We find that the cross section is large enough that if a continuum signature is detected, the energy distribution of gamma-rays should end at the particle mass with a peak that is visible for an energy resolution of the detector at the percent level. This would give an unmistakable signature of a dark matter origin of the gamma-rays, and a unique determination of the dark matter particle mass, which in the case studied should be around 800 GeV. Unlike the situation for supersymmetric models where the two-gamma peak may or may not be visible depending on parameters, this feature seems to be quite robust in UED models, and should be similar in other models where annihilation into fermions is not helicity suppressed. The observability of the signal still depends on largely unknown astrophysical parameters related to the structure of the dark matter halo. If the dark matter near the galactic center is adiabatically contracted by the central star cluster, or if the dark matter halo has substructure surviving tidal effects, prospects for detection look promising.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures; slightly revised versio

To Give Chinese Children "a Memorable China":the Trend of Chinese Indigenous Picture Books

To investigate if drug solubility in pharmaceutical excipients used in lipid based formulations (LBFs) can be predicted from physicochemical properties. Solubility was measured for 30 structurally diverse drug molecules in soybean oil (SBO, long-chain triglyceride; TG(LC)), Captex355 (medium-chain triglyceride; TG(MC)), polysorbate 80 (PS80; surfactant) and PEG400 co-solvent and used as responses during PLS model development. Melting point and calculated molecular descriptors were used as variables and the PLS models were validated with test sets and permutation tests. Solvation capacity of SBO and Captex355 was equal on a mol per mol scale (R (2) = 0.98). A strong correlation was also found between PS80 and PEG400 (R (2) = 0.85), identifying the significant contribution of the ethoxylation for the solvation capacity of PS80. In silico models based on calculated descriptors were successfully developed for drug solubility in SBO (R (2) = 0.81, Q (2) = 0.76) and Captex355 (R (2) = 0.84, Q (2) = 0.80). However, solubility in PS80 and PEG400 were not possible to quantitatively predict from molecular structure. Solubility measured in one excipient can be used to predict solubility in another, herein exemplified with TG(MC) versus TG(LC), and PS80 versus PEG400. We also show, for the first time, that solubility in TG(MC) and TG(LC) can be predicted from rapidly calculated molecular descriptors

On the Conformal forms of the Robertson-Walker metric

All possible transformations from the Robertson-Walker metric to those conformal to the Lorentz-Minkowski form are derived. It is demonstrated that the commonly known family of transformations and associated conformal factors are not exhaustive and that there exists another relatively less well known family of transformations with a different conformal factor in the particular case that K = -1. Simplified conformal factors are derived for the special case of maximally-symmetric spacetimes. The full set of all possible cosmologically-compatible conformal forms is presented as a comprehensive table. A product of the analysis is the determination of the set-theoretical relationships between the maximally symmetric spacetimes, the Robertson-Walker spacetimes, and functionally more general spacetimes. The analysis is preceded by a short historical review of the application of conformal metrics to Cosmology.Comment: Historical review added. Accepted by J. Math. Phy

Particle Dark Matter Physics: An Update

This write--up gives a rather elementary introduction into particle physics aspects of the cosmological Dark Matter puzzle. A fairly comprehensive list of possible candidates is given; in each case the production mechanism and possible ways to detect them (if any) are described. I then describe detection of the in my view most promising candidates, weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs, in slightly more detail. The main emphasis will be on recent developments.Comment: Invited talk at the 5th Workshop on Particle Physics Phenomenology, Pune, India, January 1998; 21 pages, LaTeX with equation.st

Non-Baryonic Dark Matter - Observational Evidence and Detection Methods

The evidence for the existence of dark matter in the universe is reviewed. A general picture emerges, where both baryonic and non-baryonic dark matter is needed to explain current observations. In particular, a wealth of observational information points to the existence of a non-baryonic component, contributing between around 20 and 40 percent of the critical mass density needed to make the universe geometrically flat on large scales. In addition, an even larger contribution from vacuum energy (or cosmological constant) is indicated by recent observations. To the theoretically favoured particle candidates for non-baryonic dark matter belong axions, supersymmetric particles, and of less importance, massive neutrinos. The theoretical foundation and experimental situation for each of these is reviewed. Direct and indirect methods for detection of supersymmetric dark matter are described in some detail. Present experiments are just reaching the required sensitivity to discover or rule out some of these candidates, and major improvements are planned over the coming years.Comment: Submitted to Reports on Progress in Physics, 59 pages, LaTeX, iopart macro, 14 embedded postscript figure

Diffuse inverse Compton and synchrotron emission from dark matter annihilations in galactic satellites

Annihilating dark matter particles produce roughly as much power in electrons and positrons as in gamma ray photons. The charged particles lose essentially all of their energy to inverse Compton and synchrotron processes in the galactic environment. We discuss the diffuse signature of dark matter annihilations in satellites of the Milky Way (which may be optically dark with few or no stars), providing a tail of emission trailing the satellite in its orbit. Inverse Compton processes provide X-rays and gamma rays, and synchrotron emission at radio wavelengths might be seen. We discuss the possibility of detecting these signals with current and future observations, in particular EGRET and GLAST for the gamma rays.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Indirect signals from light neutralinos in supersymmetric models without gaugino mass unification

We examine indirect signals produced by neutralino self-annihilations, in the galactic halo or inside celestial bodies, in the frame of an effective MSSM model without gaugino-mass unification at a grand unification scale. We compare our theoretical predictions with current experimental data of gamma-rays and antiprotons in space and of upgoing muons at neutrino telescopes. Results are presented for a wide range of the neutralino mass, though our discussions are focused on light neutralinos. We find that only the antiproton signal is potentially able to set constraints on very low-mass neutralinos, below 20 GeV. The gamma-ray signal, both from the galactic center and from high galactic latitudes, requires significantly steep profiles or substantial clumpiness in order to reach detectable levels. The up-going muon signal is largely below experimental sensitivities for the neutrino flux coming from the Sun; for the flux from the Earth an improvement of about one order of magnitude in experimental sensitivities (with a low energy threshold) can make accessible neutralino masses close to O, Si and Mg nuclei masses, for which resonant capture is operative.Comment: 17 pages, 1 tables and 5 figures, typeset with ReVTeX4. The paper may also be found at http://www.to.infn.it/~fornengo/papers/indirect04.ps.gz or through http://www.astroparticle.to.infn.it/. Limit from BR(Bs--> mu+ mu-) adde