Autoplot: A browser for scientific data on the web

Autoplot is software developed for the Virtual Observatories in Heliophysics to provide intelligent and automated plotting capabilities for many typical data products that are stored in a variety of file formats or databases. Autoplot has proven to be a flexible tool for exploring, accessing, and viewing data resources as typically found on the web, usually in the form of a directory containing data files with multiple parameters contained in each file. Data from a data source is abstracted into a common internal data model called QDataSet. Autoplot is built from individually useful components, and can be extended and reused to create specialized data handling and analysis applications and is being used in a variety of science visualization and analysis applications. Although originally developed for viewing heliophysics-related time series and spectrograms, its flexible and generic data representation model makes it potentially useful for the Earth sciences.Comment: 16 page

Plant biomass nitrogen and effects on the risk of nitrate leaching of intercrops under organic farming in Eastern Austria

Data on the potential of intercrops to reduce soil nitrate contents, on their N accumulation and biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) are lacking for organic farming in the dry, pannonic region of Eastern Austria. The effect of legumes, non-legumes, and legumes + non-legumes used as intercrops on inorganic soil nitrogen, crop yield and biomass N, and BNF were tested in comparison to bare fallow. Non-legumes and legumes + non-legumes were more efficient than legumes in reducing inorganic soil N contents in autumn and nitrate contents in soil solution from the subsoil in winter. This reduction in inorganic soil N did not last until March of the following year due to an N mineralisation from the mulch. The legume + non-legume mixture contained a larger amount of crop N than both legumes and non-legumes. This was due to the combined effect of soil-N uptake by the non-legumes and BNF by the legumes in the mixture

Nearsightedness of Electronic Matter in One Dimension

The concept of nearsightedeness of electronic matter (NEM) was introduced by W. Kohn in 1996 as the physical principal underlining Yang's electronic structure alghoritm of divide and conquer. It describes the fact that, for fixed chemical potential, local electronic properties at a point $r$, like the density $n(r)$, depend significantly on the external potential $v$ only at nearby points. Changes $\Delta v$ of that potential, {\it no matter how large}, beyond a distance $\textsf{R}$, have {\it limited} effects on local electronic properties, which tend to zero as function of $\textsf{R}$. This remains true even if the changes in the external potential completely surrounds the point $r$. NEM can be quantitatively characterized by the nearsightedness range, $\textsf{\textsf{R}}(r,\Delta n)$, defined as the smallest distance from $r$, beyond which {\it any} change of the external potential produces a density change, at $r$, smaller than a given $\Delta n$. The present paper gives a detailed analysis of NEM for periodic metals and insulators in 1D and includes sharp, explicit estimates of the nearsightedness range. Since NEM involves arbitrary changes of the external potential, strong, even qualitative changes can occur in the system, such as the discretization of energy bands or the complete filling of the insulating gap of an insulator with continuum spectrum. In spite of such drastic changes, we show that $\Delta v$ has only a limited effect on the density, which can be quantified in terms of simple parameters of the unperturbed system.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

Self-energy corrections to anisotropic Fermi surfaces

The electron-electron interactions affect the low-energy excitations of an electronic system and induce deformations of the Fermi surface. These effects are especially important in anisotropic materials with strong correlations, such as copper oxides superconductors or ruthenates. Here we analyze the deformations produced by electronic correlations in the Fermi surface of anisotropic two-dimensional systems, treating the regular and singular regions of the Fermi surface on the same footing. Simple analytical expressions are obtained for the corrections, based on local features of the Fermi surface. It is shown that, even for weak local interactions, the behavior of the self-energy is non trivial, showing a momentum dependence and a self-consistent interplay with the Fermi surface topology. Results are compared to experimental observations and to other theoretical results.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Auswirkungen variierter Nutzungstermine auf den Ertrag und die Stickstofffixierleistung in ökologisch bewirtschafteten Luzernebeständen im pannonischen Klimaraum Ostösterreichs

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde untersucht, ob und in welchem Umfang die aus wildtierbiologischer Sicht sinnvolle Vorverlegung des 1. Nutzungstermins (zwei Wochen früher als der produktionsoptimierte, praxisübliche Nutzungstermin) und die Verzögerung des 2. Nutzungstermins (zwei Wochen später als in der produktionsoptimierte Variante) die Ertrags- und biologische N2 – Fixierleistung von Luzerne verringert und den Beikrautdruck auf den untersuchten Flächen erhöht. Der Feldversuch zur Untersuchung von Stickstofffixierleistung und Ertrag wurde auf den ökologisch bewirtschafteten Flächen der Universität für Bodenkultur in Raasdorf (Marchfeld, östlich von Wien) durchgeführt. Der gesamtpflanzliche Trockenmasseertrag war sowohl bei der 1. Mulchnutzung (Spross und Stoppel; naturschutzoptimierte Variante = 3640 kg/ha; produktionsoptimierte Variante = 5266 kg/ha) als auch insgesamt beim naturschutzoptimierten Nutzungsregime signifikant geringer als beim produktionsoptimierten Nutzungsregime. Die Jahres-N2-Fixierleistung betrug in der naturschutzoptimierten Variante 154 kg N/ha gegenüber 208 kg N/ha bei der produktionsoptimierten Variante. Weder die Jahres-N2-Fixierleistung noch der Anteil des Leguminosen-N aus der Luft unterscheiden sich signifikant zwischen den Varianten. Die Vorverlegung des 1. Mulchtermins um 2 Wochen und die Verzögerung des 2. Mulchtermins um 2 Wochen erhöhte den Beikrautdruck in den Luzernebeständen nicht. Eine an den Bedürfnissen der Wildtiere orientierte Verschiebung der Nutzungstermine von Luzerne hat aus pflanzenbaulicher Sicht daher weder für die Versorgung der Fruchtfolge mit Stickstoff noch für die Beikrautregulierung einen deutlichen, nachteiligen Effekt

Disclinations, dislocations and continuous defects: a reappraisal

Disclinations, first observed in mesomorphic phases, are relevant to a number of ill-ordered condensed matter media, with continuous symmetries or frustrated order. They also appear in polycrystals at the edges of grain boundaries. They are of limited interest in solid single crystals, where, owing to their large elastic stresses, they mostly appear in close pairs of opposite signs. The relaxation mechanisms associated with a disclination in its creation, motion, change of shape, involve an interplay with continuous or quantized dislocations and/or continuous disclinations. These are attached to the disclinations or are akin to Nye's dislocation densities, well suited here. The notion of 'extended Volterra process' takes these relaxation processes into account and covers different situations where this interplay takes place. These concepts are illustrated by applications in amorphous solids, mesomorphic phases and frustrated media in their curved habit space. The powerful topological theory of line defects only considers defects stable against relaxation processes compatible with the structure considered. It can be seen as a simplified case of the approach considered here, well suited for media of high plasticity or/and complex structures. Topological stability cannot guarantee energetic stability and sometimes cannot distinguish finer details of structure of defects.Comment: 72 pages, 36 figure

Landauer-type transport theory for interacting quantum wires: Application to carbon nanotube Y junctions

We propose a Landauer-like theory for nonlinear transport in networks of one-dimensional interacting quantum wires (Luttinger liquids). A concrete example of current experimental focus is given by carbon nanotube Y junctions. Our theory has three basic ingredients that allow to explicitly solve this transport problem: (i) radiative boundary conditions to describe the coupling to external leads, (ii) the Kirchhoff node rule describing charge conservation, and (iii) density matching conditions at every node.Comment: final version, to be published in PR

Heat capacity of the quantum magnet TiOCl

Measurements of the heat capacity C(T,H) of the one-dimensional quantum magnet TiOCl are presented for temperatures 2K < T < 300K and magnetic fields up to 5T. Distinct anomalies at 91K and 67K signal two subsequent phase transitions. The lower of these transitions clearly is of first order and seems to be related to the spin degrees of freedom. The transition at 92K probably involves the lattice and/or orbital moments. A detailed analysis of the data reveals that the entropy change through both transitions is surprisingly small (~ 0.1R), pointing to the existence strong fluctuations well into the non-ordered high-temperature phase. No significant magnetic field dependence was detected.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Friedel Oscillations and Charge-density Waves Pinning in Quasi-one-dimensional Conductors: An X-ray Access

We present an x-ray diffraction study of the Vanadium-doped blue bronze K0.3(Mo0.972V0.028)O3. At low temperature, we have observed both an intensity asymmetry of the +-2kF satellite reflections relative to the pure compound, and a profile asymmetry of each satellite reflections. We show that the profile asymmetry is due to Friedel oscillation around the V substituant and that the intensity asymmetry is related to the charge density wave (CDW) pinning. These two effects, intensity and profile asymmetries, gives for the first time access to the local properties of CDW in disordered systems, including the pinning and even the phase shift of FOs.Comment: 4 pages REVTEX, 5 figure

Dynamic coexistence of various configurations: clusters vs.nuclei

The presence of energy shells in metallic clusters and atomic nuclei leads to a peculiar relation between the number of particles N and the structure, and this leads to a strong correlation between the energy spectrum and N. An analysis of experimental data leads to the conclusion that, in addition to the static Jahn-Teller effect, the dynamic effect leading to the quantum coexistence of different configurations (quantum oscillations) plays an important role. Such suggested coexistence is an essential feature of clusters as well as nuclei, both finite Fermi systems.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure