851 research outputs found
Exopolymeric Substances (EPS) Produced by Petroleum Microbial Consortia
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Microbial consortia recuperated of crude oil samples from the Pampo Sul field, Campos Basin, RJ, produced biosurfactants in mineral media containing glucose and 9,10-dihydrophenantrene, n-nonadecane, nonadecanoic acid, slightly biodegraded crude oil (P1) or heavily biodegraded crude oil (P2) as carbon sources. The production of exopolimeric substances (EPS) and petroleum biodegradation do not necessarily occur simultaneously. The EPS analyses by infrared and eletronspray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) revealed a mixture of surfactine isoforms. The biosurfactants reduced the surface tension of water and Zinder medium from 72.4 and 55.7 to 28.6 mN m(-1). Additionally, this surfactant emulsified different oils in water with performances similar to or better than of a conventional surfactant, Tween 80.21815171523FINEPPETROBRASCoordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES
Structural and magnetic phase diagram of CeFeAsO1-xFx and its relationship to high-temperature superconductivity
We use neutron scattering to study the structural and magnetic phase
transitions in the iron pnictides CeFeAsO1-xFx as the system is tuned from a
semimetal to a high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductor through
Fluorine (F) doping x. In the undoped state, CeFeAsO develops a structural
lattice distortion followed by a stripe like commensurate antiferromagnetic
order with decreasing temperature. With increasing Fluorine doping, the
structural phase transition decreases gradually while the antiferromagnetic
order is suppressed before the appearance of superconductivity, resulting an
electronic phase diagram remarkably similar to that of the high-Tc copper
oxides. Comparison of the structural evolution of CeFeAsO1-xFx with other
Fe-based superconductors reveals that the effective electronic band width
decreases systematically for materials with higher Tc. The results suggest that
electron correlation effects are important for the mechanism of high-Tc
superconductivity in these Fe pnictides.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure
Solar-type dynamo behaviour in fully convective stars without a tachocline
In solar-type stars (with radiative cores and convective envelopes), the
magnetic field powers star spots, flares and other solar phenomena, as well as
chromospheric and coronal emission at ultraviolet to X-ray wavelengths. The
dynamo responsible for generating the field depends on the shearing of internal
magnetic fields by differential rotation. The shearing has long been thought to
take place in a boundary layer known as the tachocline between the radiative
core and the convective envelope. Fully convective stars do not have a
tachocline and their dynamo mechanism is expected to be very different,
although its exact form and physical dependencies are not known. Here we report
observations of four fully convective stars whose X-ray emission correlates
with their rotation periods in the same way as in Sun-like stars. As the X-ray
activity - rotation relationship is a well-established proxy for the behaviour
of the magnetic dynamo, these results imply that fully convective stars also
operate a solar-type dynamo. The lack of a tachocline in fully convective stars
therefore suggests that this is not a critical ingredient in the solar dynamo
and supports models in which the dynamo originates throughout the convection
zone.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Nature (28 July 2016).
Author's version, including Method
Realistic Standard Model Fermion Mass Relations in Generalized Minimal Supergravity (GmSUGRA)
Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) usually predict wrong Standard Model (SM)
fermion mass relation m_e/m_{\mu} = m_d/m_s toward low energies. To solve this
problem, we consider the Generalized Minimal Supergravity (GmSUGRA) models,
which are GUTs with gravity mediated supersymmetry breaking and higher
dimensional operators. Introducing non-renormalizable terms in the super- and
K\"ahler potentials, we can obtain the correct SM fermion mass relations in the
SU(5) model with GUT Higgs fields in the {\bf 24} and {\bf 75} representations,
and in the SO(10) model. In the latter case the gauge symmetry is broken down
to SU(3)_C X SU(2)_L X SU(2)_R X U(1)_{B-L}, to flipped SU(5)X U(1)_X, or to
SU(3)_C X SU(2)_L X U(1)_1 X U(1)_2. Especially, for the first time we generate
the realistic SM fermion mass relation in GUTs by considering the
high-dimensional operators in the K\"ahler potential.Comment: JHEP style, 29 pages, no figure,references adde
Flavor Violating Higgs Decays
We study a class of nonstandard interactions of the newly discovered 125 GeV
Higgs-like resonance that are especially interesting probes of new physics:
flavor violating Higgs couplings to leptons and quarks. These interaction can
arise in many frameworks of new physics at the electroweak scale such as two
Higgs doublet models, extra dimensions, or models of compositeness. We rederive
constraints on flavor violating Higgs couplings using data on rare decays,
electric and magnetic dipole moments, and meson oscillations. We confirm that
flavor violating Higgs boson decays to leptons can be sizeable with, e.g., h ->
tau mu and h -> tau e branching ratios of order 10% perfectly allowed by low
energy constraints. We estimate the current LHC limits on h -> tau mu and h ->
tau e decays by recasting existing searches for the SM Higgs in the tau-tau
channel and find that these bounds are already stronger than those from rare
tau decays. We also show that these limits can be improved significantly with
dedicated searches and we outline a possible search strategy. Flavor violating
Higgs decays therefore present an opportunity for discovery of new physics
which in some cases may be easier to access experimentally than flavor
conserving deviations from the Standard Model Higgs framework.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables; v2: Improved referencing, updated mu
-> 3e bounds to include large loop contributions, corrected single top
constraints; conclusions unchanged; matches version to be published in JHEP;
v3: included 2-loop contributions in mu -> e conversion, improved discussion
of tau -> 3 mu and of EDM constraints on FV top-Higgs couplings; conclusions
unchange
Neutron Scattering Studies of spin excitations in hole-doped Ba0.67K0.33Fe2As2 superconductor
We report inelastic neutron scattering experiments on single crystals of
superconducting Ba0.67K0.33Fe2As2 (Tc = 38 K). In addition to confirming the
resonance previously found in powder samples, we find that spin excitations in
the normal state form longitudinally elongated ellipses along the QAFM
direction in momentum space, consistent with density functional theory
predictions. On cooling below Tc, while the resonance preserves its momentum
anisotropy as expected, spin excitations at energies below the resonance become
essentially isotropic in the in-plane momentum space and dramatically increase
their correlation length. These results suggest that the superconducting gap
structures in Ba0.67Ka0.33Fe2As2 are more complicated than those suggested from
angle resolved photoemission experiments
Fermi surface dichotomy of the superconducting gap and pseudogap in underdoped pnictides
High-temperature superconductivity in iron-arsenic materials (pnictides) near
an antiferromagnetic phase raises the possibility of spin-fluctuation-mediated
pairing. However, the interplay between antiferromagnetic fluctuations and
superconductivity remains unclear in the underdoped regime, which is closer to
the antiferromagnetic phase. Here we report that the superconducting gap of the
underdoped pnictides scales linearly with the transition temperature, and that
a distinct pseudogap coexisting with the SC gap develops on underdoping. This
pseudogap occurs on Fermi surface sheets connected by the antiferromagnetic
wavevector, where the superconducting pairing is stronger as well, suggesting
that antiferromagnetic fluctuations drive both the pseudogap and
superconductivity. Interestingly, we found that the pseudogap and the spectral
lineshape vary with the Fermi surface quasi-nesting conditions in a fashion
that shares similarities with the nodal-antinodal dichotomous behaviour
observed in underdoped copper oxide superconductors.Comment: Main Manuscript: 19 pages, 3 figures; Supplementary Information: 10
pages, 7 figure
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