563 research outputs found
On the Relation between Solar Activity and Clear-Sky Terrestrial Irradiance
The Mauna Loa Observatory record of direct-beam solar irradiance measurements
for the years 1958-2010 is analysed to investigate the variation of clear-sky
terrestrial insolation with solar activity over more than four solar cycles.
The raw irradiance data exhibit a marked seasonal cycle, extended periods of
lower irradiance due to emissions of volcanic aerosols, and a long-term
decrease in atmospheric transmission independent of solar activity. After
correcting for these effects, it is found that clear-sky terrestrial irradiance
typically varies by about 0.2 +/- 0.1% over the course of the solar cycle, a
change of the same order of magnitude as the variations of the total solar
irradiance above the atmosphere. An investigation of changes in the clear-sky
atmospheric transmission fails to find a significant trend with sunspot number.
Hence there is no evidence for a yet unknown effect amplifying variations of
clear-sky irradiance with solar activity.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, in press at Solar Physics; minor changes to the
text to match final published versio
Advancing environmental risk assessment of regulated products under EFSA's remit
The preâmarket environmental risk assessment (ERA ) of regulated products such as genetically modified organisms, plant protection products and feed additives is an important process to safeguard the desired level of protection of the environment and biodiversity. ERA evaluates the potential adverse effects on the environment of certain actions, and is an important analytical scientific tool to support regulatory decisionâmaking. Significant advances have been made in the field in recent years. Potential avenues to the further advancement of ERA of regulated products under EFSA 's remit were discussed during the breakout session âAdvancing environmental risk assessmentâ held at the EFSA 2nd Scientific Conference âShaping the Future of Food Safety, Togetherâ (Milan, Italy, 14â16 October 2015). The value of ERA and its relevance to decisionâmaking can be increased by: (1) using the ecosystem services approach to make protection goals operational; (2) relying on problem formulation to enhance the relevance of ERA studies; (3) complying with quality standards to warrant the reliability of ERA studies; (4) making ERA more contextual by accounting for multiple stressors and environmental benefits; and (5) acknowledging the strengths and limitations of postâmarket environmental monitoring as a tool to resolve scientific uncertainties
M-theory on eight-manifolds revisited: N=1 supersymmetry and generalized Spin(7) structures
The requirement of supersymmetry for M-theory backgrounds of the
form of a warped product , where is an eight-manifold
and is three-dimensional Minkowski or AdS space, implies the
existence of a nowhere-vanishing Majorana spinor on . lifts to a
nowhere-vanishing spinor on the auxiliary nine-manifold , where
is a circle of constant radius, implying the reduction of the structure
group of to . In general, however, there is no reduction of the
structure group of itself. This situation can be described in the language
of generalized structures, defined in terms of certain spinors of
. We express the condition for supersymmetry
in terms of differential equations for these spinors. In an equivalent
formulation, working locally in the vicinity of any point in in terms of a
`preferred' structure, we show that the requirement of
supersymmetry amounts to solving for the intrinsic torsion and all irreducible
flux components, except for the one lying in the of , in
terms of the warp factor and a one-form on (not necessarily
nowhere-vanishing) constructed as a bilinear; in addition, is
constrained to satisfy a pair of differential equations. The formalism based on
the group is the most suitable language in which to describe
supersymmetric compactifications on eight-manifolds of structure,
and/or small-flux perturbations around supersymmetric compactifications on
manifolds of holonomy.Comment: 24 pages. V2: introduction slightly extended, typos corrected in the
text, references added. V3: the role of Spin(7) clarified, erroneous
statements thereof corrected. New material on generalized Spin(7) structures
in nine dimensions. To appear in JHE
On the complete classification of the unitary N=2 minimal superconformal field theories
Aiming at a complete classification of unitary N=2 minimal models (where the
assumption of space-time supersymmetry has been dropped), it is shown that each
modular invariant candidate of a partition function for such a theory is indeed
the partition function of a minimal model. A family of models constructed via
orbifoldings of either the diagonal model or of the space-time supersymmetric
exceptional models demonstrates that there exists a unitary N=2 minimal model
for every one of the allowed partition functions in the list obtained from
Gannon's work.
Kreuzer and Schellekens' conjecture that all simple current invariants can be
obtained as orbifolds of the diagonal model, even when the extra assumption of
higher-genus modular invariance is dropped, is confirmed in the case of the
unitary N=2 minimal models by simple counting arguments.Comment: 53 pages; Latex; minor changes in v2: intro expanded, references
added, typos corrected, footnote added on p31; renumbering of sections; main
theorem reformulated for clarity, but contents unchanged. Minor revisions in
v3: typos corrected, footnotes 5, 6 added, lemma 1 and section 3.3.2
rewritten for greater generality, section 3.3 review removed. To appear in
Comm. Math. Phy
Nongeometric Flux Compactifications
We investigate a simple class of type II string compactifications which
incorporate nongeometric "fluxes" in addition to "geometric flux" and the usual
H-field and R-R fluxes. These compactifications are nongeometric analogues of
the twisted torus. We develop T-duality rules for NS-NS geometric and
nongeometric fluxes, which we use to construct a superpotential for the
dimensionally reduced four-dimensional theory. The resulting structure is
invariant under T-duality, so that the distribution of vacua in the IIA and IIB
theories is identical when nongeometric fluxes are included. This gives a
concrete framework in which to investigate the possibility that generic string
compactifications may be nongeometric in any duality frame. The framework
developed in this paper also provides some concrete hints for how mirror
symmetry can be generalized to compactifications with arbitrary H-flux, whose
mirrors are generically nongeometric.Comment: 26 pages, JHEP3. v3: references, minor corrections, and
clarifications added. v4: sign correcte
News from the Muon (g-2) Experiment at BNL
The magnetic moment anomaly a_mu = (g_mu - 2) / 2 of the positive muon has
been measured at the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron with an
uncertainty of 0.7 ppm. The new result, based on data taken in 2000, agrees
well with previous measurements. Standard Model evaluations currently differ
from the experimental result by 1.6 to 3.0 standard deviations.Comment: Talk presented at RADCOR - Loops and Legs 2002, Kloster Banz,
Germany, September 8-13 2002, to be published in Nuclear Physics B (Proc.
Suppl.); 5 pages, 3 figure
Likelihood Functions for Supersymmetric Observables in Frequentist Analyses of the CMSSM and NUHM1
On the basis of frequentist analyses of experimental constraints from
electroweak precision data, g-2, B physics and cosmological data, we
investigate the parameters of the constrained MSSM (CMSSM) with universal soft
supersymmetry-breaking mass parameters, and a model with common non-universal
Higgs masses (NUHM1). We present chi^2 likelihood functions for the masses of
supersymmetric particles and Higgs bosons, as well as b to s gamma, b to mu mu
and the spin-independent dark matter scattering cross section. In the CMSSM we
find preferences for sparticle masses that are relatively light. In the NUHM1
the best-fit values for many sparticle masses are even slightly smaller, but
with greater uncertainties. The likelihood functions for most sparticle masses
are cut off sharply at small masses, in particular by the LEP Higgs mass
constraint. Both in the CMSSM and the NUHM1, the coannihilation region is
favoured over the focus-point region at about the 3-sigma level, largely but
not exclusively because of g-2. Many sparticle masses are highly correlated in
both the CMSSM and NUHM1, and most of the regions preferred at the 95% C.L. are
accessible to early LHC running. Some slepton and chargino/neutralino masses
should be in reach at the ILC. The masses of the heavier Higgs bosons should be
accessible at the LHC and the ILC in portions of the preferred regions in the
(M_A, tan beta) plane. In the CMSSM, the likelihood function for b to mu mu is
peaked close to the Standard Model value, but much larger values are possible
in the NUHM1. We find that values of the DM cross section > 10^{-10} pb are
preferred in both the CMSSM and the NUHM1. We study the effects of dropping the
g-2, b to s gamma, relic density and M_h constraints.Comment: 34 pages, 24 figure
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