311 research outputs found
Hydrogeology and geochemistry of the sulfur karst springs at Santa Cesarea Terme (Apulia, southern Italy)
This work describes the geochemical and hydrogeological characteristics of Santa Cesarea Terme, an active sulfuric acid speleogenetic system located along the Adriatic coastline (Apulia, southern Italy). It represents a very peculiar site, where rising thermal and acidic waters mix with seawater creating undersaturated solutions with respect to CaCO3, able to dissolve and corrode limestone and create caves. The Santa Cesarea Terme system is composed of four caves: Fetida, Sulfurea, Gattulla, and Solfatara. Hypogene morphologies and abundant deposits of native sulfur (especially in Gattulla Cave) and sulfate minerals are present in these caves. Fetida and Gattulla caves were investigated primarily because they are easily accessible throughout the whole year through artificial entrances, the other caves being reachable only from the sea. Geochemical analysis of water, monitoring of cave atmosphere, and measurement of the stable isotopes of S, O, and H helped to identify the main processes occurring in this complex cave system. In particular, changes in Ba2+ and Sr2+ concentration allowed for the identification of two main domains of influence, characterized by marine and rising acidic waters
Next frontiers in cleaner synthesis: 3D printed graphene-supported CeZrLa mixed-oxide nanocatalyst for CO2 utilisation and direct propylene carbonate production
A rapidly-growing 3D printing technology is innovatively employed for the manufacture of a new class of heterogenous catalysts for the conversion of CO2 into industrially relevant chemicals such as cyclic carbonates. For the first time, directly printed graphene-based 3D structured nanocatalysts have been developed combining the exceptional properties of graphene and active CeZrLa mixed-oxide nanoparticles. It constitutes a significant advance on previous attempts at 3D printing graphene inks in that it does not merely explore the printability itself, but enhances the efficiency of industrially relevant reactions, such as CO2 utilisation for direct propylene carbonate (PC) production in the absence of organic solvents. In comparison to the starting powder, 3D printed GO-supported CeZeLa catalysts showed improved activity with higher conversion and no noticeable change in selectivity. This can be attributed to the spatially uniform distribution of nanoparticles over the 2D and 3D surfaces, and the larger surface area and pore volume of the printed structures. 3D printed GO-supported CeZeLa catalysts compared to unsupported 3D printed samples exhibited higher selectivity and yield owing to the great number of new weak acid sites appearing in the supported sample, as observed by NH3-TPD analysis. In addition, the catalyst's facile separation from the product has the capacity to massively reduce materials and operating costs resulting in increased sustainability. It convincingly shows the potential of these printing technologies in revolutionising the way catalysts and catalytic reactors are designed in the general quest for clean technologies and greener chemistry
Black String Entropy and Fourier-Mukai Transform
We propose a microscopic description of black strings in F-theory based on
string duality and Fourier-Mukai transform. These strings admit several
different microscopic descriptions involving D-brane as well as M2 or M5-brane
configurations on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds. In particular our
results can also be interpreted as an asymptotic microstate count for D6-D2-D0
configurations in the limit of large D2-charge on the elliptic fiber. The
leading behavior of the microstate degeneracy in this limit is shown to agree
with the macroscopic entropy formula derived from the black string supergravity
solution.Comment: 22 pages, latex; v2: substantial revision of the macroscopic
description of the system; results essentially unchange
Non-Perturbative Effects on a Fractional D3-Brane
In this note we study the N=1 abelian gauge theory on the world volume of a
single fractional D3-brane. In the limit where gravitational interactions are
not completely decoupled we find that a superpotential and a fermionic bilinear
condensate are generated by a D-brane instanton effect. A related situation
arises for an isolated cycle invariant under an orientifold projection, even in
the absence of any gauge theory brane. Moreover, in presence of supersymmetry
breaking background fluxes, such instanton configurations induce new couplings
in the 4-dimensional effective action, including non-perturbative contributions
to the cosmological constant and non-supersymmetric mass terms.Comment: 18 pages, v3: refs adde
Instanton Induced Neutrino Majorana Masses in CFT Orientifolds with MSSM-like spectra
Recently it has been shown that string instanton effects may give rise to
neutrino Majorana masses in certain classes of semi-realistic string
compactifications. In this paper we make a systematic search for supersymmetric
MSSM-like Type II Gepner orientifold constructions admitting boundary states
associated with instantons giving rise to neutrino Majorana masses and other L-
and/or B-violating operators. We analyze the zero mode structure of D-brane
instantons on general type II orientifold compactifications, and show that only
instantons with O(1) symmetry can have just the two zero modes required to
contribute to the 4d superpotential. We however discuss how the addition of
fluxes and/or possible non-perturbative extensions of the orientifold
compactifications would allow also instantons with and U(1) symmetries
to generate such superpotentials. In the context of Gepner orientifolds with
MSSM-like spectra, we find no models with O(1) instantons with just the
required zero modes to generate a neutrino mass superpotential. On the other
hand we find a number of models in one particular orientifold of the Gepner
model with instantons with a few extra uncharged
non-chiral zero modes which could be easily lifted by the mentioned effects. A
few more orientifold examples are also found under less stringent constraints
on the zero modes. This class of instantons have the interesting
property that R-parity conservation is automatic and the flavour structure of
the neutrino Majorana mass matrices has a simple factorized form.Comment: 68 pages, 2 figures; v2. typos corrected, refs adde
Characterization of a high throughput approach for large scale retention measurement in liquid chromatography
Many contemporary challenges in liquid chromatography—such as the need for “smarter” method development tools, and deeper understanding of chromatographic phenomena—could be addressed more efficiently and effectively with larger volumes of experimental retention data than are available. The paucity of publicly accessible, high-quality measurements needed for the development of retention models and simulation tools has largely been due to the high cost in time and resources associated with traditional retention measurement approaches. Recently we described an approach to improve the throughput of such measurements by using very short columns (typically 5 mm), while maintaining measurement accuracy. In this paper we present a perspective on the characteristics of a dataset containing about 13,000 retention measurements obtained using this approach, and describe a different sample introduction method that is better suited to this application than the approach we used in prior work. The dataset comprises results for 35 different small molecules, nine different stationary phases, and several mobile phase compositions for each analyte/phase combination. During the acquisition of these data, we have interspersed repeated measurements of a small number of compounds for quality control purposes. The data from these measurements not only enable detection of outliers but also assessment of the repeatability and reproducibility of retention measurements over time. For retention factors greater than 1, the mean relative standard deviation (RSD) of replicate (typically n=5) measurements is 0.4%, and the standard deviation of RSDs is 0.4%. Most differences between selectivity values measured six months apart for 15 non-ionogenic compounds were in the range of +/- 1%, indicating good reproducibility. A critically important observation from these analyses is that selectivity defined as retention of a given analyte relative to the retention of a reference compound (kx/kref) is a much more consistent measure of retention over a time span of months compared to the retention factor alone. While this work and dataset also highlight the importance of stationary phase stability over time for achieving reliable retention measurements, we are nevertheless optimistic that this approach will enable the compilation of large databases (>> 10,000 measurements) of retention values over long time periods (years), which can in turn be leveraged to address some of the most important contemporary challenges in liquid chromatography. All the data discussed in the manuscript are provided as Supplemental Information
FCNC Processes from D-brane Instantons
Low string scale models might be tested at the LHC directly by their Regge
resonances. For such models it is important to investigate the constraints of
Standard Model precision measurements on the string scale. It is shown that
highly suppressed FCNC processes like K0- bar K^0 oscillations or leptonic
decays of the D0-meson provide non-negligible lower bounds on both the
perturbatively and surprisingly also non-perturbatively induced string theory
couplings. We present both the D-brane instanton formalism to compute such
amplitudes and discuss various possible scenarios and their constraints on the
string scale for (softly broken) supersymmetric intersecting D-brane models.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures, reference added, 1 typo corrected, style file
adde
D-brane instantons and the effective field theory of flux compactifications
We provide a description of the effects of fluxes on euclidean D-brane
instantons purely in terms of the 4d effective action. The effect corresponds
to the dressing of the effective non-perturbative 4d effective vertex with 4d
flux superpotential interactions, generated when the moduli fields made massive
by the flux are integrated out. The description in terms of effective field
theory allows a unified description of non-perturbative effects in all flux
compactifications of a given underlying fluxless model, globally in the moduli
space of the latter. It also allows us to describe explicitly the effects on
D-brane instantons of fluxes with no microscopic description, like
non-geometric fluxes. At the more formal level, the description has interesting
connections with the bulk-boundary map of open-closed two-dimensional
topological string theory, and with the \NN=1 special geometry.Comment: 33 page
Non-perturbative effective interactions from fluxes
Motivated by possible implications on the problem of moduli stabilization and
other phenomenological aspects, we study D-brane instanton effects in flux
compactifications. We focus on a local model and compute non-perturbative
interactions generated by gauge and stringy instantons in a N = 1 quiver theory
with gauge group U(N_0) x U(N_1) and matter in the bifundamentals. This model
is engineered with fractional D3-branes at a C^3/(Z_2 x Z_2) singularity, and
its non-perturbative sectors are described by introducing fractional
D-instantons. We find a rich variety of instanton-generated F- and D-term
interactions, ranging from superpotentials and Beasley-Witten like
multi-fermion terms to non-supersymmetric flux-induced instanton interactions.Comment: 37 pages, 7 figures. Final version published on JHEP. Section 4
modified in several points regarding string corrections in absence of fluxes;
in particular, section 4.3 is removed. Some other minor changes and two
references adde
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