28,224 research outputs found
Assessing effects of permafrost thaw on C fluxes based on multiyear modeling across a permafrost thaw gradient at Stordalen, Sweden
Northern peatlands in permafrost regions contain a large amount of organic carbon (C) in the soil. Climate warming and associated permafrost degradation are expected to have significant impacts on the C balance of these ecosystems, but the magnitude is uncertain. We incorporated a permafrost model, Northern Ecosystem Soil Temperature (NEST), into a biogeochemical model, DeNitrificationDeComposition (DNDC), to model C dynamics in highlatitude peatland ecosystems. The enhanced model was applied to assess effects of permafrost thaw on C fluxes of a subarctic peatland at Stordalen, Sweden. DNDC simulated soil freeze–thaw dynamics, net ecosystem exchange of CO2 (NEE), and CH4 fluxes across three typical land cover types, which represent a gradient in the process of ongoing permafrost thaw at Stordalen. Model results were compared with multiyear field measurements, and the validation indicates that DNDC was able to simulate observed differences in seasonal soil thaw, NEE, and CH4 fluxes across the three land cover types. Consistent with the results from field studies, the modeled C fluxes across the permafrost thaw gradient demonstrate that permafrost thaw and the associated changes in soil hydrology and vegetation not only increase net uptake of C from the atmosphere but also increase the annual to decadal radiative forcing impacts on climate due to increased CH4 emissions. This study indicates the potential of utilizing biogeochemical models, such as DNDC, to predict the soil thermal regime in permafrost areas and to investigate impacts of permafrost thaw on ecosystem C fluxes after incorporating a permafrost component into the model framework
Limitations of the Standard Gravitational Perfect Fluid Paradigm
We show that the standard perfect fluid paradigm is not necessarily a valid
description of a curved space steady state gravitational source. Simply by
virtue of not being flat, curved space geometries have to possess intrinsic
length scales, and such length scales can affect the fluid structure. For modes
of wavelength of order or greater than such scales eikonalized geometrical
optics cannot apply and rays are not geodesic. Covariantizing thus entails not
only the replacing of flat space functions by covariant ones, but also the
introduction of intrinsic scales that were absent in flat space. In principle
it is thus unreliable to construct the curved space energy-momentum tensor as
the covariant generalization of a geodesic-based flat spacetime energy-momentum
tensor. By constructing the partition function as an incoherent average over a
complete set of modes of a scalar field propagating in a curved space
background, we show that for the specific case of a static, spherically
symmetric geometry, the steady state energy-momentum tensor that ensues will in
general be of the form
where the
anisotropic is a symmetric, traceless rank two tensor which
obeys . Such a type term is absent for an
incoherently averaged steady state fluid in a spacetime where there are no
intrinsic length scales, and in principle would thus be missed in a
covariantizing of a flat spacetime . While the significance of such
type terms would need to be evaluated on a case by case basis,
through the use of kinetic theory we reassuringly find that the effect of such
type terms is small for weak gravity stars where perfect fluid
sources are commonly used.Comment: Final version to appear in General Relativity and Gravitation (the
final publication is available at http://www.springerlink.com). 29 pages, 1
figur
Object Contour and Edge Detection with RefineContourNet
A ResNet-based multi-path refinement CNN is used for object contour
detection. For this task, we prioritise the effective utilization of the
high-level abstraction capability of a ResNet, which leads to state-of-the-art
results for edge detection. Keeping our focus in mind, we fuse the high, mid
and low-level features in that specific order, which differs from many other
approaches. It uses the tensor with the highest-levelled features as the
starting point to combine it layer-by-layer with features of a lower
abstraction level until it reaches the lowest level. We train this network on a
modified PASCAL VOC 2012 dataset for object contour detection and evaluate on a
refined PASCAL-val dataset reaching an excellent performance and an Optimal
Dataset Scale (ODS) of 0.752. Furthermore, by fine-training on the BSDS500
dataset we reach state-of-the-art results for edge-detection with an ODS of
0.824.Comment: Keywords: Object Contour Detection, Edge Detection, Multi-Path
Refinement CN
Interaction-induced Interlayer Charge Transfer in the Extreme Quantum Limit
An interacting bilayer electron system provides an extended platform to study
electron-electron interaction beyond single layers. We report here experiments
demonstrating that the layer densities of an asymmetric bilayer electron system
oscillate as a function of perpendicular magnetic field that quantizes the
energy levels. At intermediate fields, this interlayer charge transfer can be
well explained by the alignment of the Landau levels in the two layers. At the
highest fields where both layers reach the extreme quantum limit, however,
there is an anomalous, enhanced charge transfer to the majority layer.
Surprisingly, when the minority layer becomes extremely dilute, this charge
transfer slows down as the electrons in the minority layer condense into a
Wigner crystal. Furthermore, by examining the quantum capacitance of the dilute
layer at high fields, the screening induced by the composite fermions in an
adjacent layer is unveiled. The results highlight the influence of strong
interaction in interlayer charge transfer in the regime of very high fields and
low Landau level filling factors.Comment: Please see the formal version on PR
Period halving of Persistent Currents in Mesoscopic Mobius ladders
We investigate the period halving of persistent currents(PCs) of
non-interacting electrons in isolated mesoscopic M\"{o}bius ladders without
disorder, pierced by Aharonov-Bhom flux. The mechanisms of the period halving
effect depend on the parity of the number of electrons as well as on the
interchain hopping. Although the data of PCs in mesoscopic systems are
sample-specific, some simple rules are found in the canonical ensemble average,
such as all the odd harmonics of the PCs disappear, and the signals of even
harmonics are non-negative. {PACS number(s): 73.23.Ra, 73.23.-b, 68.65.-k}Comment: 6 Pages with 3 EPS figure
Preliminary Study on Chemical Figuring and Finishing of Sintered SiC Substrate Using Atmospheric Pressure Plasma
AbstractChemical figuring and finishing techniques using atmospheric pressure plasma were proposed for realizing damage free processing of a reaction sintered SiC substrate. Open-air type plasma chemical vaporization machining (PCVM) utilizing He based CF4/O2 mixture process gas demonstrated good linearity of the relationship between removal volume and plasma irradiation time which required in numerically controlled figuring. However, the surface roughness of the substrate processed by PCVM increased with an increase in removal depth by forming pores on the surface because etching rate of residual Si was about 3 times greater than that of SiC
Environment, morphology and stellar populations of bulgeless low surface brightness galaxies
Based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR 7, we investigate the environment,
morphology and stellar population of bulgeless low surface brightness (LSB)
galaxies in a volume-limited sample with redshift ranging from 0.024 to 0.04
and . The local density parameter is used to
trace their environments. We find that, for bulgeless galaxies, the surface
brightness does not depend on the environment. The stellar populations are
compared for bulgeless LSB galaxies in different environments and for bulgeless
LSB galaxies with different morphologies. The stellar populations of LSB
galaxies in low density regions are similar to those of LSB galaxies in high
density regions. Irregular LSB galaxies have more young stars and are more
metal-poor than regular LSB galaxies. These results suggest that the evolution
of LSB galaxies may be driven by their dynamics including mergers rather than
by their large scale environment.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, Accepted by A&
Spectrum Analysis of the Type Ib Supernova 1999dn: Probable Identifications of C II and H-alpha
Low resolution spectra of SN 1999dn at early times are presented and compared
with synthetic spectra generated with the parameterized supernova
synthetic-spectrum code SYNOW. We find that the spectra of SN 1999dn strongly
resemble those of SN 1997X and SN 1984L, and hence we classify it as a Type Ib
event. Line-identifications are established through spectrum synthesis. Strong
evidence of both H-alpha and C II 6580 is found. We infer that H-alpha appears
first, before the time of maximum brightness, and then is blended with and
finally overwhelmed by the C II line after maximum; this favors a thin
high-velocity hydrogen skin in this Type Ib supernova.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
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