Pre-Gondwanan-breakup origin of Beauprea (Proteaceae) explains its historical presence in New Caledonia and New Zealand

New Caledonia and New Zealand belong to the now largely submerged continent Zealandia. Their high levels of endemism and species richness are usually considered the result of transoceanic dispersal events followed by diversification after they re-emerged from the Pacific Ocean in the mid-Cenozoic. We explore the origin and evolutionary history of Beauprea (Proteaceae), which is now endemic to New Caledonia but was once spread throughout eastern Gondwana, including New Zealand. We review the extensive Beauprea-type pollen data in the fossil records and analyze the relationship of these fossil taxa to extant genera within Proteaceae. We further reconstruct the phylogenetic relations among nine extant species of Beauprea and estimate the age of the Beauprea clade. By incorporating extinct taxa into the Beauprea phylogenetic tree, we reconstruct the ancient distribution of this genus. Our analysis shows that Beauprea originated c. 88 Ma (million years ago) in Antarctica–Southeastern Australia and spread throughout Gondwana before its complete breakup. We propose that Beauprea, already existing as two lineages, was carried with Zealandia when it separated from the rest of Gondwana c. 82 Ma, thus supporting an autochthonous origin for Beauprea species now in New Caledonia and historically in New Zealand up to 1 Ma. We show that the presence of Beauprea through transoceanic dispersal is implausible. This means that neither New Caledonia nor New Zealand has been entirely submerged since the Upper Cretaceous; thus, possible vicariance and allopatry must be taken into account when considering the high levels of endemism and species richness of these island groups

The impact of the ATLAS zero-lepton, jets and missing momentum search on a CMSSM fit

Recent ATLAS data significantly extend the exclusion limits for supersymmetric particles. We examine the impact of such data on global fits of the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model (CMSSM) to indirect and cosmological data. We calculate the likelihood map of the ATLAS search, taking into account systematic errors on the signal and on the background. We validate our calculation against the ATLAS determinaton of 95% confidence level exclusion contours. A previous CMSSM global fit is then re-weighted by the likelihood map, which takes a bite at the high probability density region of the global fit, pushing scalar and gaugino masses up.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures. v2 has bigger figures and fixed typos. v3 has clarified explanation of our handling of signal systematic

Biogenic weathering bridges the nutrient gap in pristine ecosystems - a global comparison

In many pristine ecosystems there seems to be negative nutrient budget existent, meaning that export exceeds the input received by aeolian deposition and physico-chemical weathering. Such ecosystems should degrade rather quickly, but are often found surprisingly stable on the long run. Our hypothesis was that this nutrient gap is an artefact caused by not considering the contribution of photoassimilatory-mediated biogenic weathering to the overall nutrient input, which might constitute an additional, energetically directed and demand driven pathway. Here, we firstly evaluated the evolution of mutualistic biogenic weathering along an Antarctic chronosequence and secondly compared the biogenic weathering rates under mycorrhized ecosystems over a global gradient of contrasting states of soil development. We found the ability to perform biogenic weathering increasing along its evolutionary development in photoautotroph-symbiont interaction and furthermore a close relation between fungal biogenic weathering and available potassium across all 16 forested sites in the study, regardless of the dominant mycorrhiza type (AM or EM), climate, and plant-species composition. Our results point towards a general alleviation of nutrient limitation at ecosystem scale via directional, energy driven and on-demand biogenic weathering

Dark Matter in a Constrained NMSSM

We explore the parameter space of a Constrained Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with GUT scale boundary conditions (CNMSSM) and find regions where the relic density of the lightest neutralino is compatible with the WMAP measurement. We emphasize differences with the MSSM: cases where annihilation of the LSP occurs via a Higgs resonance at low values of tan\beta and cases where the LSP has a large singlino component. The particle spectrum as well as theoretical and collider constraints are calculated with NMSSMTools. All neutralino annihilation and coannihilation processes are then computed with micrOMEGAs, taking into account higher order corrections to the Higgs sector.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, references added, some comments added, version to be published in JCA

Naturalness and Fine Tuning in the NMSSM: Implications of Early LHC Results

We study the fine tuning in the parameter space of the semi-constrained NMSSM, where most soft Susy breaking parameters are universal at the GUT scale. We discuss the dependence of the fine tuning on the soft Susy breaking parameters M_1/2 and m0, and on the Higgs masses in NMSSM specific scenarios involving large singlet-doublet Higgs mixing or dominant Higgs-to-Higgs decays. Whereas these latter scenarios allow a priori for considerably less fine tuning than the constrained MSSM, the early LHC results rule out a large part of the parameter space of the semi-constrained NMSSM corresponding to low values of the fine tuning.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, bounds from Susy searches with ~1/fb include

Optimization of Planck/LFI on--board data handling

To asses stability against 1/f noise, the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) onboard the Planck mission will acquire data at a rate much higher than the data rate allowed by its telemetry bandwith of 35.5 kbps. The data are processed by an onboard pipeline, followed onground by a reversing step. This paper illustrates the LFI scientific onboard processing to fit the allowed datarate. This is a lossy process tuned by using a set of 5 parameters Naver, r1, r2, q, O for each of the 44 LFI detectors. The paper quantifies the level of distortion introduced by the onboard processing, EpsilonQ, as a function of these parameters. It describes the method of optimizing the onboard processing chain. The tuning procedure is based on a optimization algorithm applied to unprocessed and uncompressed raw data provided either by simulations, prelaunch tests or data taken from LFI operating in diagnostic mode. All the needed optimization steps are performed by an automated tool, OCA2, which ends with optimized parameters and produces a set of statistical indicators, among them the compression rate Cr and EpsilonQ. For Planck/LFI the requirements are Cr = 2.4 and EpsilonQ <= 10% of the rms of the instrumental white noise. To speedup the process an analytical model is developed that is able to extract most of the relevant information on EpsilonQ and Cr as a function of the signal statistics and the processing parameters. This model will be of interest for the instrument data analysis. The method was applied during ground tests when the instrument was operating in conditions representative of flight. Optimized parameters were obtained and the performance has been verified, the required data rate of 35.5 Kbps has been achieved while keeping EpsilonQ at a level of 3.8% of white noise rms well within the requirements.Comment: 51 pages, 13 fig.s, 3 tables, pdflatex, needs JINST.csl, graphicx, txfonts, rotating; Issue 1.0 10 nov 2009; Sub. to JINST 23Jun09, Accepted 10Nov09, Pub.: 29Dec09; This is a preprint, not the final versio

Off-line radiometric analysis of Planck/LFI data

The Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) is an array of 22 pseudo-correlation radiometers on-board the Planck satellite to measure temperature and polarization anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in three frequency bands (30, 44 and 70 GHz). To calibrate and verify the performances of the LFI, a software suite named LIFE has been developed. Its aims are to provide a common platform to use for analyzing the results of the tests performed on the single components of the instrument (RCAs, Radiometric Chain Assemblies) and on the integrated Radiometric Array Assembly (RAA). Moreover, its analysis tools are designed to be used during the flight as well to produce periodic reports on the status of the instrument. The LIFE suite has been developed using a multi-layered, cross-platform approach. It implements a number of analysis modules written in RSI IDL, each accessing the data through a portable and heavily optimized library of functions written in C and C++. One of the most important features of LIFE is its ability to run the same data analysis codes both using ground test data and real flight data as input. The LIFE software suite has been successfully used during the RCA/RAA tests and the Planck Integrated System Tests. Moreover, the software has also passed the verification for its in-flight use during the System Operations Verification Tests, held in October 2008.Comment: Planck LFI technical papers published by JINST: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.proc5/1748-022

Spontaneous R-Parity Violation, A4A_4 Flavor Symmetry and Tribimaximal Mixing

We explore the possibility of spontaneous R parity violation in the context of $A_4$ flavor symmetry. Our model contains $SU(3)_c \times SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ singlet matter chiral superfields which are arranged as triplet of $A_4$ and as well as few additional Higgs chiral superfields which are singlet under MSSM gauge group and belong to triplet and singlet representation under the $A_4$ flavor symmetry. R parity is broken spontaneously by the vacuum expectation values of the different sneutrino fields and hence we have neutrino-neutralino as well as neutrino-MSSM gauge singlet higgsino mixings in our model, in addition to the standard model neutrino- gauge singlet neutrino, gaugino-higgsino and higgsino-higgsino mixings. Because all of these mixings we have an extended neutral fermion mass matrix. We explore the low energy neutrino mass matrix for our model and point out that with some specific constraints between the sneutrino vacuum expectation values as well as the MSSM gauge singlet Higgs vacuum expectation values, the low energy neutrino mass matrix will lead to a tribimaximal mixing matrix. We also analyze the potential minimization for our model and show that one can realize a higher vacuum expectation value of the $SU(3)_c \times SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ singlet sneutrino fields even when the other sneutrino vacuum expectation values are extremely small or even zero.Comment: 18 page

Planck pre-launch status: Low Frequency Instrument calibration and expected scientific performance

We give the calibration and scientific performance parameters of the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) measured during the ground cryogenic test campaign. These parameters characterise the instrument response and constitute our best pre-launch knowledge of the LFI scientific performance. The LFI shows excellent $1/f$ stability and rejection of instrumental systematic effects; measured noise performance shows that LFI is the most sensitive instrument of its kind. The set of measured calibration parameters will be updated during flight operations through the end of the mission.Comment: Accepted for publications in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2010 (acceptance date: 12 Jan 2010