The SPICE carbon isotope excursion in Siberia: a combined study of the upper Middle Cambrian-lowermost Ordovician Kulyumbe River section, northwestern Siberian Platform

An integrated, high-resolution chemostratigraphic (C, O and Sr isotopes) and magnetostratigraphic study through the upper Middle Cambrian–lowermost Ordovician shallowmarine carbonates of the northwestern margin of the Siberian Platform is reported. The interval was analysed at the Kulyumbe section, which is exposed along the Kulyumbe River, an eastern tributary of the Enisej River. It comprises the upper Ust’-Brus, Labaz, Orakta, Kulyumbe, Ujgur and lower Iltyk formations and includes the Steptoean positive carbon isotopic excursion (SPICE) studied here in detail from upper Cambrian carbonates of the Siberian Platform for the first time. The peak of the excursion, showing δ13C positive values as high as+4.6‰and least-altered 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.70909, is reported herein from the Yurakhian Horizon of the Kulyumbe Formation. The stratigraphic position of the SPICE excursion does not support traditional correlation of the boundary between theOrakta and Labaz formations at the Kulyumbe River with its supposedly equivalent level in Australia, Laurentia, South China and Kazakhstan, where the Glyptagnostus stolidotus and G. reticulatus biozones are known to immediately precede the SPICE excursion and span the Middle–Upper Cambrian boundary. The Cambrian–Ordovician boundary is probably situated in the middle Nyajan Horizon of the Iltyk Formation, in which carbon isotope values show a local maximum below a decrease in the upper part of the Nyajan Horizon, attributed herein to the Tremadocian Stage. A refined magnetic polarity sequence confirms that the geomagnetic reversal frequency was very high during Middle Cambrian times at 7–10 reversals per Ma, assuming a total duration of about 10 Ma and up to 100 magnetic intervals in the Middle Cambrian. By contrast, the sequence attributed herein to the Upper Cambrian on chemostratigraphic grounds contains only 10–11 magnetic intervals

Experience with the LHC beam dump post-operational checks system

After each beam dump in the LHC automatic post-operational checks are made to guarantee that the last beam dump has been executed correctly and that the system can be declared to be ‘as good as new’ before the next injection is allowed. The analysis scope comprises the kicker waveforms, redundancy in kicker generator signal paths and different beam instrumentation measurements. This paper describes the implementation and the operational experience of the internal and external post-operational checks of the LHC beam dumping system during the commissioning of the LHC without beam and during the first days of beam operation

Classification in sparse, high dimensional environments applied to distributed systems failure prediction

Network failures are still one of the main causes of distributed systems’ lack of reliability. To overcome this problem we present an improvement over a failure prediction system, based on Elastic Net Logistic Regression and the application of rare events prediction techniques, able to work with sparse, high dimensional datasets. Specifically, we prove its stability, fine tune its hyperparameter and improve its industrial utility by showing that, with a slight change in dataset creation, it can also predict the location of a failure, a key asset when trying to take a proactive approach to failure management

Results from the LHC Beam Dump Reliability Run

The LHC Beam Dumping System is one of the vital elements of the LHC Machine Protection System and has to operate reliably every time a beam dump request is made. Detailed dependability calculations have been made, resulting in expected rates for the different system failure modes. A 'reliability run' of the whole system, installed in its final configuration in the LHC, has been made to discover infant mortality problems and to compare the occurrence of the measured failure modes with their calculations

Charge distribution in two-dimensional electrostatics

We examine the stability of ringlike configurations of N charges on a plane interacting through the potential $V(z_1,...,z_N)=\sum_i |z_i|^2-\sum_{i<j} ln|z_i-z_j|^2$. We interpret the equilibrium distributions in terms of a shell model and compare predictions of the model with the results of numerical simulations for systems with up to 100 particles.Comment: LaTe

Computing the Roughening Transition of Ising and Solid-On-Solid Models by BCSOS Model Matching

We study the roughening transition of the dual of the 2D XY model, of the Discrete Gaussian model, of the Absolute Value Solid-On-Solid model and of the interface in an Ising model on a 3D simple cubic lattice. The investigation relies on a renormalization group finite size scaling method that was proposed and successfully tested a few years ago. The basic idea is to match the renormalization group flow of the interface observables with that of the exactly solvable BCSOS model. Our estimates for the critical couplings are $\beta_R^{XY}=1.1199(1)$, $K_R^{DG}=0.6653(2)$ and $K_R^{ASOS}=0.80608(2)$ for the XY-model, the Discrete Gaussian model and the Absolute Value Solid-On-Solid model, respectively. For the inverse roughening temperature of the Ising interface we find $K_R^{Ising}= 0.40758(1)$. To the best of our knowledge, these are the most precise estimates for these parameters published so far.Comment: 25 pages, LaTeX file, no figure

Facet ridge end points in crystal shapes

Equilibrium crystal shapes (ECS) near facet ridge end points (FRE) are generically complex. We study the body-centered solid-on-solid model on a square lattice with an enhanced uniaxial interaction range to test the stability of the so-called stochastic FRE point where the model maps exactly onto one dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang type growth and the local ECS is simple. The latter is unstable. The generic ECS contains first-order ridges extending into the rounded part of the ECS, where two rough orientations coexist and first-order faceted to rough boundaries terminating in Pokrovsky-Talapov type end points.Comment: Contains 4 pages, 5 eps figures. Uses RevTe

Magnetic field and prominences of the young, solar-like, ultra-rapid rotator V530 Persei

This work benefited from the support of Programme National de Physique Stellaire (PNPS). T.C. would like to acknowledge financial support from the China Scholarship Council (CSC). J.F.D. and A.A.V. acknowledges funding from from the European Research Council (ERC) under the H2020 research & innovation programme (grant agreement # 740651 NewWorlds and # 817540 ASTROFLOW).Context. Young solar analogs reaching the main sequence experience very strong magnetic activity, generating angular momentum losses through wind and mass ejections. Aims. We investigate signatures of magnetic fields and activity at the surface and in the prominence system of the ultra-rapid rotator V530 Per, a G-type solar-like member of the young open cluster α Persei. This object has a rotation period that is shorter than all stars with available magnetic maps. Methods. With a time-series of spectropolarimetric observations gathered with ESPaDOnS over two nights on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, we reconstructed the surface brightness and large-scale magnetic field of V530 Per using the Zeeman-Doppler imaging method, assuming an oblate stellar surface. We also estimated the short term evolution of the brightness distribution through latitudinal differential rotation. Using the same data set, we finally mapped the spatial distribution of prominences through tomography of the Hα emission.  Results. The brightness map is dominated by a large, dark spot near the pole, accompanied by a complex distribution of bright and dark features at lower latitudes. Taking the brightness map into account, the magnetic field map is reconstructed as well. Most of the large-scale magnetic field energy is stored in the toroidal field component. The main radial field structure is a positive region of about 500 G, at the location of the dark polar spot. The brightness map of V530 Per is sheared by solar-like differential rotation, with roughly a solar value for the difference in rotation rate between the pole and equator. It is important to note that Hα is observed in emission and it is mostly modulated by the stellar rotation period over one night. The prominence system is organized in a ring at the approximate location of the corotation radius, and displays significant evolution between the two observing nights.  Conclusions. V530 Per is the first example of a solar-type star to have its surface magnetic field and prominences mapped together, which will bring important observational constraints to better understand the role of slingshot prominences in the angular momentum evolution of the most active stars.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Initial results from beam commissioning of the LHC beam dump system

Initial commissioning of the LHC beam dump system with beam took place in August and September 2008. The preparation, setting-up and the tests performed are described together with results of the extractions of beam into the dump lines. Analysis of the first detailed aperture measurements of the extraction channels and kicker performance derived from dilution sweep shapes are presented. The performance of the other equipment subsystems is summarised, in particular that of the dedicated dump system beam instrumentation

Non-universal behaviour of helical two-dimensional three-component turbulence

The dynamics of two-dimensional three-component (2D3C) flows is relevant to describe the long-time evolution of strongly rotating flows and/or of conducting fluids with a strong mean magnetic field. We show that in the presence of a strong helical forcing, the out-of-plane component ceases to behave as a passive advected quantity and develops a nontrivial dynamics which deeply changes its large-scale properties. We show that a small-scale helicity injection correlates the input on the 2D component with the one on the out-of-plane component. As a result, the third component develops a nontrivial energy transfer. The latter is mediated by homochiral triads, confirming the strong 3D nature of the leading dynamical interactions. In conclusion, we show that the out-of-plane component in a 2D3C flow enjoys strong nonuniversal properties as a function of the degree of mirror symmetry of the small-scale forcing