Earth observation tool for monitoring coastal eutrophication

ISECA is an Interreg project running until September 2014 that aims to advance and disseminate scientific knowledge related to eutrophication in the 2Seas area (English Channel and North Sea).The main objective of ISECA is to develop a demonstration prototype of an information system for monitoring eutrophication of coastal waters.This information system combines in-situ, satellite information and models outputs

Bottom-up control of common octopus Octopus vulgaris in the Galician upwelling system, northeast Atlantic Ocean

This paper investigates the possible underlying causes of the wide interannual fluctuations in catch of the common octopus Octopus vulgaris Cuvier, 1797 in one of the main small-scale fisheries off the coast of Galicia (northwest Spain). Galicia is at the northern boundary of the Iberian–Canary current upwelling system in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, where local winds induce seasonal upwelling, largely driving the annual cycles of primary and secondary production. We hypothesize that such dynamics are also fundamental for the survival of the planktonic stages of octopus and set the year class strength. We address this hypothesis by investigating the influence of upwelling on time-series of octopus fishery data. Wind stress structure during the spring–summer (prior to the hatching peak) and autumn–winter (during the planktonic stage) was found to affect the early life phase of this species, and explains up to 85% of the total variance of the year-to-year variability of the adult catch. Despite this bottom-up modulation via environmental conditions, our results also provide evidence for a between-cohort density-dependent interaction, probably caused by cannibalism and competition for habitat.Postprin

Z boson pair production at LHC in a stabilized Randall-Sundrum scenario

We study the Z boson pair production at LHC in the Randall-Sundrum scenario with the Goldberger-Wise stabilization mechanism. It is shown that comprehensive account of the Kaluza-Klein graviton and radion effects is crucial to probe the model: The KK graviton effects enhance the cross section of $g g \to Z Z$ on the whole so that the resonance peak of the radion becomes easy to detect, whereas the RS effects on the $q\bar{q} \to Z Z$ process are rather insignificant. The $p_T$ and invariant-mass distributions are presented to study the dependence of the RS model parameters. The production of longitudinally polarized Z bosons, to which the SM contributions are suppressed, is mainly due to KK gravitons and the radion, providing one of the most robust methods to signal the RS effects. The $1 \sigma$ sensitivity bounds on $(\Lambda_\pi, m_\phi)$ with $k/M_{\rm Pl} =0.1$ are also obtained such that the effective weak scale $\Lambda_\pi$ of order 5 TeV can be experimentally probed.Comment: 28 pages, LaTex file, 18 eps figure

Photo-production of Nucleon Resonances and Nucleon Spin Structure Function in the Resonance Region

The photo-production of nucleon resonances is calculated based on a chiral constituent quark model including both relativistic corrections H{rel} and two-body exchange currents, and it is shown that these effects play an important role. We also calculate the first moment of the nucleon spin structure function g1 (x,Q^2) in the resonance region, and obtain a sign-changing point around Q^2 ~ 0.27 {GeV}^2 for the proton.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure

Mass Suppression in Octet Baryon Production

There is a striking suppression of the cross section for production of octet baryons in $e^+ e ^-$ annihilation, as the mass of the produced hadron increases. We present a simple parametrization for the fragmentation functions into octet baryons guided by two input models: the SU(3) flavor symmetry part is given by a quark-diquark model, and the baryon mass suppression part is inspired by the string model. We need only eight free parameters to describe the fragmentation functions for all octet baryons. These free parameters are determined by a fit to the experimental data of octet baryon production in $e^+ e ^-$ annihilation. Then we apply the obtained fragmentation functions to predict the cross section of the octet baryon production in charged lepton DIS and find consistency with the available experimental data. Furthermore, baryon production in $pp$ collisions is suggested to be an ideal domain to check the predicted mass suppression.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Leading and higher twists in the proton polarized structure function at large Bjorken x

A phenomenological parameterization of the proton polarized structure function has been developed for x > 0.02 using deep inelastic data up to ~ 50 (GeV/c)**2 as well as available experimental results on both photo- and electro-production of proton resonances. According to the new parameterization the generalized Drell-Hearn-Gerasimov sum rule is predicted to have a zero-crossing point at Q**2 = 0.16 +/- 0.04 (GeV/c)**2. Then, low-order polarized Nachtmann moments have been estimated and their Q**2-behavior has been investigated in terms of leading and higher twists for Q**2 > 1 (GeV/c)**2. The leading twist has been treated at NLO in the strong coupling constant and the effects of higher orders of the perturbative series have been estimated using soft-gluon resummation techniques. In case of the first moment higher-twist effects are found to be quite small for Q**2 > 1 (GeV/c)**2, and the singlet axial charge has been determined to be a0[10 (GeV/c)**2] = 0.16 +/- 0.09. In case of higher order moments, which are sensitive to the large-x region, higher-twist effects are significantly reduced by the introduction of soft gluon contributions, but they are still relevant at Q**2 ~ few (GeV/c)**2 at variance with the case of the unpolarized transverse structure function of the proton. Our finding suggests that spin-dependent correlations among partons may have more impact than spin-independent ones. As a byproduct, it is also shown that the Bloom-Gilman local duality is strongly violated in the region of polarized electroproduction of the Delta(1232) resonance.Comment: revised version to appear in Phys. Rev. D; extended discussion on the generalized DHG sum rul

Vector meson production and nucleon resonance analysis in a coupled-channel approach for energies m_N < sqrt(s) < 2 GeV II: photon-induced results

We present a nucleon resonance analysis by simultaneously considering all pion- and photon-induced experimental data on the final states gamma N, pi N, 2 pi N, eta N, K Lambda, K Sigma, and omega N for energies from the nucleon mass up to sqrt(s) = 2 GeV. In this analysis we find strong evidence for the resonances P_{31}(1750), P_{13}(1900), P_{33}(1920), and D_{13}(1950). The omega N production mechanism is dominated by large P_{11}(1710) and P_{13}(1900) contributions. In this second part we present the results on the photoproduction reactions and the electromagnetic properties of the resonances. The inclusion of all important final states up to sqrt(s) = 2 GeV allows for estimates on the importance of the individual states for the GDH sum rule.Comment: 41 pages, 26 figures, discussion extended, typos corrected, references updated, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Measurement of the Ds lifetime

We report precise measurement of the Ds meson lifetime. The data were taken by the SELEX experiment (E781) spectrometer using 600 GeV/c Sigma-, pi- and p beams. The measurement has been done using 918 reconstructed Ds. The lifetime of the Ds is measured to be 472.5 +- 17.2 +- 6.6 fs, using K*(892)0K+- and phi pi+- decay modes. The lifetime ratio of Ds to D0 is 1.145+-0.049.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures submitted to Phys. Lett.

The final season reimagined: 30 tidal disruption events from the ZTF-I survey

High Energy Astrophysic