Hf isotope systematics of seamounts near the East Pacific Rise (EPR) and geodynamic implications

We report new Hf isotopic data for basaltic glasses from seamounts flanking the East Pacific Rise (EPR) between 5° and 15°N that have been previously analyzed for Sr–Nd–Pb isotopes as well as major and trace elements. The Hf isotopic data offer new perspectives on the petrogenesis of these samples in a broader context on mantle dynamics. The Hf isotope compositions show significant correlations with Sr–Nd–Pb isotopes and with both abundances and ratios of incompatible elements. The seamount lavas are thus best interpreted as products of melting-induced mixing in a two-component mantle. The range in composition of EPR seamount lavas cannot be generated by simple mixing of melt and melting of variably heterogeneous mantle in which enriched and depleted materials contribute equally to melting (source mixing). Instead, the trace element and isotope compositions of seamount lavas can be reproduced by melting models in which more enriched, fertile mantle component are preferentially melted during mantle upwelling. At progressively lower degrees of melting, erupted lavas are thus more enriched in incompatible trace elements, have higher 87Sr/86Sr, 208Pb/204Pb ratios and lower 143Nd/144Nd, 176Hf/177Hf ratios. The “EM1” and “pyroxenite” endmember might be the suitable enriched component. The Hf–Nd isotopic variations on global scale might result from the variations in amounts of residual continental lithospheric mantle that detached into upper mantle during continental rifting. The significant correlations of Rb/Sr vs 87Sr/86Sr, Sm/Nd vs 143Nd/144Nd and Lu/Hf vs 176Hf/177Hf give pseudochron ages of 182 ± 33 Ma, 276 ± 50 Ma and 387 ± 93 Ma, respectively. These different “ages” have no significance, but result from melting-induced mixing with the pseudochron slopes controlled by the compositions of enriched component and depleted end-membe

Topological Charge Fluctuations and Low-Lying Dirac Eigenmodes

We discuss the utility of low-lying Dirac eigenmodes for studying the nature of topological charge fluctuations in QCD. The implications of previous results using the local chirality histogram method are discussed, and the new results using the overlap Dirac operator in Wilson gauge backgrounds at lattice spacings ranging from a~0.04 fm to a~0.12 fm are reported. While the degree of local chirality does not change appreciably closer to the continuum limit, we find that the size and density of local structures responsible for chiral peaking do change significantly. The resulting values are in disagreement with the assumptions of the Instanton Liquid Model. We conclude that the fluctuations of topological charge in the QCD vacuum are not locally quantized.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, Lattice2001(confinement

Supercube grains leading to a strong cube texture and a broad grain size distribution after recrystallization

This work revisits the classical subject of recrystallization of cold-rolled copper. Two characterization techniques are combined: three-dimensional X-ray diffraction using synchrotron X-rays, which is used to measure the growth kinetics of individual grains in situ, and electron backscatter diffraction, which is used for statistical analysis of the microstructural evolution. As the most striking result, the strong cube texture after recrystallization is found to be related to a few super large cube grains, which were named supercube grains. These few supercube grains become large due to higher growth rates. However, most other cube grains do not grow preferentially. Because of the few supercube grains, the grain size distribution after recrystallization is broad. Reasons for the higher growth rates of supercube grains are discussed, and are related to the local deformed microstructure

Overlap Fermions on a 20420^4 Lattice

We report results on hadron masses, fitting of the quenched chiral log, and quark masses from Neuberger's overlap fermion on a quenched $20^4$ lattice with lattice spacing $a = 0.15$ fm. We used the improved gauge action which is shown to lower the density of small eigenvalues for $H^2$ as compared to the Wilson gauge action. This makes the calculation feasible on 64 nodes of CRAY-T3E. Also presented is the pion mass on a small volume ($6^3 \times 12$ with a Wilson gauge action at $\beta = 5.7$). We find that for configurations that the topological charge $Q \ne 0$, the pion mass tends to a constant and for configurations with trivial topology, it approaches zero possibly linearly with the quark mass.Comment: Lattice 2000 (Chiral Fermion), 4 pages, 4 figure

Topological Charge Correlators, Spectral Bounds, and Contact Terms

The structure of topological charge fluctuations in the QCD vacuum is strongly restricted by the spectral negativity of the Euclidean 2-point correlator for $x\neq 0$ and the presence of a positive contact term. Some examples are considered which illustrate the physical origin of these properties.Comment: Lattice 2002 Conference Proceeding

Low-dimensional long-range topological structure in the QCD vacuum

Lattice topological charge associated with Ginsparg-Wilson fermions exhibits generic topological stability over quantum ensemble of configurations contributing to the QCD path integral. Moreover, the underlying chiral symmetry leads to the suppression of ultraviolet noise in the associated topological charge densities ("chiral smoothing"). This provides a solid foundation for the direct study of the role of topological charge fluctuations in the physics of QCD vacuum. Using these tools it was recently demonstrated that: (a) there is a well-defined space-time structure (order) in topological charge density (defined through overlap fermions) for typical configurations contributing to QCD path integral; (b) this fundamental structure is low-dimensional, exhibiting sign-coherent behavior on subsets of dimension less than four and not less than one; (c) the structure has a long-range global character (spreading over maximal space-time distances) and is built around the locally one-dimensional network of strong fields (skeleton). In this talk we elaborate on certain aspects and implications of these results.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure; Lattice2003(topology

Baryon resonances from a novel fat-link fermion action

We present first results for masses of positive and negative parity excited baryons in lattice QCD using an O(a^2) improved gluon action and a Fat Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) fermion action in which only the irrelevant operators are constructed with fat links. The results are in agreement with earlier calculations of N^* resonances using improved actions and exhibit a clear mass splitting between the nucleon and its chiral partner, even for the Wilson fermion action. The results also indicate a splitting between the lowest J^P = 1/2^- states for the two standard nucleon interpolating fields.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, talk given by W.Melnitchouk at LHP 2001 workshop, Cairns, Australi

Spin-3/2 Nucleon and Delta Baryons in Lattice QCD

We present first results for masses of spin-3/2 N and Delta baryons in lattice QCD using Fat-Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) fermions. Spin-3/2 interpolating fields providing overlap with both spin-3/2 and spin-1/2 states are considered. In the isospin-1/2 sector, we observe, after appropriate spin and parity projection, a strong signal for the J^P=3/2^- state together with a weak but discernible signal for the 3/2^+ state with a mass splitting near that observed experimentally. We also find good agreement between the 1/2^+/- masses and earlier nucleon mass simulations with the standard spin-1/2 interpolating field. For the isospin-3/2 Delta states, clear mass splittings are observed between the various 1/2^+/- and 3/2^+/- channels, with the calculated level orderings in good agreement with those observed empirically.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

Novel fat-link fermion actions

The hadron mass spectrum is calculated in lattice QCD using a novel fat-link clover fermion action in which only the irrelevant operators of the fermion action are constructed using smeared links. The simulations are performed on a 16^3 X 32 lattice with a lattice spacing of a=0.125 fm. We compare actions with n=4 and 12 smearing sweeps with a smearing fraction of 0.7. The n=4 Fat Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) action provides scaling which is superior to mean-field improvement, and offers advantages over nonperturbative O(a) improvement.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, talk given by J.Zanotti at LHP 2001 workshop, Cairns, Australi