115 research outputs found
Effects of sea temperature and stratification changes on seabird breeding success
As apex predators in marine ecosystems, seabirds may primarily experience climate change impacts indirectly, via changes to their food webs. Observed seabird population declines have been linked to climate-driven oceanographic and food web changes. However, relationships have often been derived from relatively few colonies and consider only sea surface temperature (SST), so important drivers, and spatial variation in drivers, could remain undetected. Further, explicit climate change projections have rarely been made, so longer-term risks remain unclear. Here, we use tracking data to estimate foraging areas for eleven black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) colonies in the UK and Ireland, thus reducing reliance on single colonies and allowing calculation of colony-specific oceanographic conditions. We use mixed models to consider how SST, the potential energy anomaly (indicating density stratification strength) and the timing of seasonal stratification influence kittiwake productivity. Across all colonies, higher breeding success was associated with weaker stratification before breeding and lower SSTs during the breeding season. Eight colonies with sufficient data were modelled individually: higher productivity was associated with later stratification at three colonies, weaker stratification at two, and lower SSTs at one, whilst two colonies showed no significant relationships. Hence, key drivers of productivity varied among colonies. Climate change projections, made using fitted models, indicated that breeding success could decline by 21 – 43% between 1961-90 and 2070-99. Climate change therefore poses a longer-term threat to kittiwakes, but as this will be mediated via availability of key prey species, other marine apex predators could also face similar threats
Electroweak Radiative Corrections to Associated WH and ZH Production at Hadron Colliders
Higgs-boson production in association with W or Z bosons, p pbar -> WH/ZH +
X, is the most promising discovery channel for a light Standard Model Higgs
particle at the Fermilab Tevatron. We present the calculation of the
electroweak O(alpha) corrections to these processes. The corrections decrease
the theoretical prediction by up to 5-10%, depending in detail on the
Higgs-boson mass and the input-parameter scheme. We update the cross-section
prediction for associated WH and ZH production at the Tevatron and at the LHC,
including the next-to-leading order electroweak and QCD corrections, and study
the theoretical uncertainties induced by factorization and renormalization
scale dependences and by the parton distribution functions.Comment: 32 pages, LaTeX, 21 figures. Uses axodraw.sty and feynarts.sty. Added
reference
Search for Neutral Higgs Bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model in e+e- Interactions at sqrt(s) up to 209 GeV
A search for the lightest neutral CP-even and neutral CP-odd Higgs bosons of
the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model is performed using 216.6 pb-1 of data
collected with the L3 detector at LEP at centre-of-mass energies between 203
and 209 GeV. No indication of a signal is found. Including our results from
lower centre-of-mass energies, lower limits on the Higgs boson masses are set
as a function of tan(beta) for several scenarios. For tan(beta) greater than
0.7 they are mh > 84.5 GeV and mA > 86.3 GeV at 95% confidence level
Formation of dense partonic matter in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC: Experimental evaluation by the PHENIX collaboration
Extensive experimental data from high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions were
recorded using the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
(RHIC). The comprehensive set of measurements from the first three years of
RHIC operation includes charged particle multiplicities, transverse energy,
yield ratios and spectra of identified hadrons in a wide range of transverse
momenta (p_T), elliptic flow, two-particle correlations, non-statistical
fluctuations, and suppression of particle production at high p_T. The results
are examined with an emphasis on implications for the formation of a new state
of dense matter. We find that the state of matter created at RHIC cannot be
described in terms of ordinary color neutral hadrons.Comment: 510 authors, 127 pages text, 56 figures, 1 tables, LaTeX. Submitted
to Nuclear Physics A as a regular article; v3 has minor changes in response
to referee comments. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures
for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available
at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm
Interaction of inflammatory cytokines and erythropoeitin in iron metabolism and erythropoiesis in anaemia of chronic disease
In chronic inflammatory conditions increased endogenous release of specific cytokines (TNFα, IL-1, IL-6, IFNγ and others) is presumed. It has been shown that those of monocyte lineage play a key role in cytokine expression and synthesis. This may be associated with changes in iron metabolism and impaired erythropoiesis and may lead to development of anaemia in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Firstly, increased synthesis of acute phase proteins, like ferritin, during chronic inflammation is proposed as the way by which the toxic effect of iron and thereby the synthesis of free oxy-radicals causing the damage on the affected joints, may be reduced. This is associated with a shift of iron towards the mononuclear phagocyte system which may participate in the development of anaemia of chronic disease. Secondly, an inhibitory action of inflammatory cytokines (TNFα, IL-1), on proliferation and differentiation of erythroid progenitors as well as on synthesis of erythropoietin has been shown, thereby also contributing to anaemia. Finally, chronic inflammation causes multiple, complex disturbances in the delicate physiologic equilibrium of interaction between cytokines and cells (erythroid progenitors, cells of mononuclear phagocyte system and erythropoietin producing cells) leading to development of anaemia of chronic disease (Fig. 1)
Model-independent analysis of Higgs spin and CP properties in the process
In this paper we investigate methods to study the Higgs coupling.
The spin and CP properties of a Higgs boson are analysed in a model-independent
way in its associated production with a pair in high-energy
collisions. We study the prospects of establishing the CP quantum numbers of
the Higgs boson in the CP-conserving case as well as those of determining the
CP-mixing if CP is violated. We explore in this analysis the combined use of
the total cross section and its energy dependence, the polarisation asymmetry
of the top quark and the up-down asymmetry of the antitop with respect to the
top-electron plane. We find that combining all three observables remarkably
reduces the error on the determination of the CP properties of the Higgs Yukawa
coupling. Furthermore, the top polarisation asymmetry and the ratio of cross
sections at different collider energies are shown to be sensitive to the spin
of the particle produced in association with the top quark pair
Search for Supersymmetry in Di-Photon Final States at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV
We report results of a search for supersymmetry (SUSY) with gauge-mediated
symmetry breaking in di-photon events collected by the D0 experiment at the
Fermilab Tevatron Collider in 2002--2006. In 1.1 fb of data, we find no
significant excess beyond the background expected from the standard model and
set the most stringent lower limits to date for a standard benchmark model on
the lightest neutralino and chargino masses of 125 GeV and 229 GeV,
respectively, at 95% confidence
Search for scalar top quarks in the acoplanar charm jets and missing transverse energy final state in collisions at TeV
We present a search for the pair production of scalar top quarks,
, using 995 pb of data collected in collisions
with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider at
TeV. Both scalar top quarks are assumed to decay into a charm quark and a
neutralino (), where is the
lightest supersymmetric particle. This leads to a final state with two
acoplanar charm jets and missing transverse energy. We find the yield of such
events to be consistent with the standard model expectation, and exclude sets
of and masses at the 95% C.L. that
substantially extend the domain excluded by previous searches.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physics Letters
Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3b
We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 November 1 15:00 UTC-2020 March 27 17:00 UTC). We conduct two independent searches: A generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 GRBs and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short GRB progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these GRBs. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for subthreshold gravitational-wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB. Finally, we constrain the population of low-luminosity short GRBs using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society
Narrowband Searches for Continuous and Long-duration Transient Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars in the LIGO-Virgo Third Observing Run
Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo's third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range around those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours-months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society
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