Cellular Models for River Networks

A cellular model introduced for the evolution of the fluvial landscape is revisited using extensive numerical and scaling analyses. The basic network shapes and their recurrence especially in the aggregation structure are then addressed. The roles of boundary and initial conditions are carefully analyzed as well as the key effect of quenched disorder embedded in random pinning of the landscape surface. It is found that the above features strongly affect the scaling behavior of key morphological quantities. In particular, we conclude that randomly pinned regions (whose structural disorder bears much physical meaning mimicking uneven landscape-forming rainfall events, geological diversity or heterogeneity in surficial properties like vegetation, soil cover or type) play a key role for the robust emergence of aggregation patterns bearing much resemblance to real river networks.Comment: 7 pages, revtex style, 14 figure

Observation of CP violation in the B0 meson system

We present an updated measurement of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in neutral B decays with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. This result uses an additional sample of Upsilon(4S) decays collected in 2001, bringing the data available to 32 million B-anti-B pairs. We select events in which one neutral B meson is fully reconstructed in a final state containing charmonium and the flavor of the other neutral B meson is determined from its decay products. The amplitude of the CP-violating asymmetry, which in the Standard Model is proportional to sin2beta, is derived from the decay time distributions in such events. The result sin2beta = 0.59 +/- 0.14 (stat) +/- 0.05 (syst) establishes CP violation in the B^0 meson system. We also determine |lambda| = 0.93 +/- 0.09 {stat} +/- 0.03 {syst}, consistent with no direct CP violation.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter