2,743 research outputs found
CO2 capture by dry alkanolamines and an efficient microwave regeneration process
Removal of acidic gases such as H2S and CO2 is performed during the purification of raw natural gas, most commonly using amine gas treatment. However, this industrially entrenched method is limited by significant shortcomings including low operational capture efficiency, amine pipeline corrosion and a large energy penalty due to the sorbent regeneration process. To address these shortcomings, we have studied the use of perfluorinated silica-stabilized dry alkanolamines (DAf) for CO2 capture. Due to their micronized liquid domains, DAf display high operational CO2 capture efficiency. Further, to minimize energy requirements for sorbent regeneration, microwave-assisted regeneration of the spent DAf sorbent was also studied and shown to decrease the energy requirements by about ten times. In contrast to very recent work, our results show that the use of DAf exhibits extraordinary recyclability, with a negligible decrease in absorption capacity over at least ten absorption–regeneration cycles, indicating the potential of this material for gas treatment applications
Revealing the electroweak properties of a new scalar resonance
One or more new heavy resonances may be discovered in experiments at the CERN
Large Hadron Collider. In order to determine if such a resonance is the
long-awaited Higgs boson, it is essential to pin down its spin, CP, and
electroweak quantum numbers. Here we describe how to determine what role a
newly-discovered neutral CP-even scalar plays in electroweak symmetry breaking,
by measuring its relative decay rates into pairs of electroweak vector bosons:
WW, ZZ, \gamma\gamma, and Z\gamma. With the data-driven assumption that
electroweak symmetry breaking respects a remnant custodial symmetry, we perform
a general analysis with operators up to dimension five. Remarkably, only three
pure cases and one nontrivial mixed case need to be disambiguated, which can
always be done if all four decay modes to electroweak vector bosons can be
observed or constrained. We exhibit interesting special cases of Higgs
look-alikes with nonstandard decay patterns, including a very suppressed
branching to WW or very enhanced branchings to \gamma\gamma and Z\gamma. Even
if two vector boson branching fractions conform to Standard Model expectations
for a Higgs doublet, measurements of the other two decay modes could unmask a
Higgs imposter.Comment: 23 pages, two figures; v2: minor revision and version to appear in
JHE
Structure analysis of the virtual Compton scattering amplitude at low energies
We analyze virtual Compton scattering off the nucleon at low energies in a
covariant, model-independent formalism.
We define a set of invariant functions which, once the irregular nucleon pole
terms have been subtracted in a gauge-invariant fashion, is free of poles and
kinematical zeros.
The covariant treatment naturally allows one to implement the constraints due
to Lorentz and gauge invariance, crossing symmetry, and the discrete
symmetries.
In particular, when applied to the reaction,
charge-conjugation symmetry in combination with nucleon crossing generates four
relations among the ten originally proposed generalized polarizabilities of the
nucleon.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX2e/RevTeX, no figures, original sections IV.-VI.
removed, to be discussed in a separate publication, none of the conclusions
change
Rap1-mediated nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-κB) activity regulates the paracrine capacity of mesenchymal stem cells in heart repair following infarction
published_or_final_versio
A Statistical Study on Force-Freeness of Solar Magnetic Fields in the Photosphere
It is an indisputable fact that solar magnetic fields are force-free in the
corona, where force free fields means that current and magnetic fields are
parallel and there is no Lorentz force in the fields. While the force-free
extent of photospheric magnetic fields remains open. In this paper, the
statistical results about it is given. The vector magnetograms (namely,
, and in heliocentric coordinates) are employed, which
are deduced and calibrated from Stokes spectra, observed by Solar Magnetic
Field Telescope (SMFT) at Huairou Solar Observing Station (HSOS) are used. We
study and calibrated 925 magnetograms calibrated by two sets of calibration
coefficients, that indicate the relations between magnetic fields and the
strength of Stokes spectrum and can be calculated either theoretically or
empirically. The statistical results show that the majority of active region
magnetic fields are not consistent with the force-free model.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, has been accepted by PAS
Integer Quantum Hall Effect with Realistic Boundary Condition : Exact Quantization and Breakdown
A theory of integer quantum Hall effect(QHE) in realistic systems based on
von Neumann lattice is presented. We show that the momentum representation is
quite useful and that the quantum Hall regime(QHR), which is defined by the
propagator in the momentum representation, is realized. In QHR, the Hall
conductance is given by a topological invariant of the momentum space and is
quantized exactly. The edge states do not modify the value and topological
property of in QHR. We next compute distribution of current based
on effective action and find a finite amount of current in the bulk and the
edge, generally. Due to the Hall electric field in the bulk, breakdown of the
QHE occurs. The critical electric field of the breakdown is proportional to
and the proportional constant has no dependence on Landau levels in
our theory, in agreement with the recent experiments.Comment: 48 pages, figures not included, some additions and revision
UV friendly T-parity in the SU(6)/Sp(6) little Higgs model
Electroweak precision tests put stringent constraints on the parameter space
of little Higgs models. Tree-level exchange of TeV scale particles in a generic
little Higgs model produce higher dimensional operators that make contributions
to electroweak observables that are typically too large. To avoid this problem
a discrete symmetry dubbed T-parity can be introduced to forbid the dangerous
couplings. However, it was realized that in simple group models such as the
littlest Higgs model, the implementation of T-parity in a UV completion could
present some challenges. The situation is analogous to the one in QCD where the
pion can easily be defined as being odd under a new symmetry in the
chiral Lagrangian, but this is not a symmetry of the quark Lagrangian. In
this paper we examine the possibility of implementing a T-parity in the low
energy model that might be easier to realize in the UV. In our
model, the T-parity acts on the low energy non-linear sigma model field in way
which is different to what was originally proposed for the Littlest Higgs, and
lead to a different low energy theory. In particular, the Higgs sector of this
model is a inert two Higgs doublets model with an approximate custodial
symmetry. We examine the contributions of the various sectors of the model to
electroweak precision data, and to the dark matter abundance.Comment: 21 pages,4 figures. Clarifications added, typos corrected and
references added. Published in JHE
PCA-based lung motion model
Organ motion induced by respiration may cause clinically significant
targeting errors and greatly degrade the effectiveness of conformal
radiotherapy. It is therefore crucial to be able to model respiratory motion
accurately. A recently proposed lung motion model based on principal component
analysis (PCA) has been shown to be promising on a few patients. However, there
is still a need to understand the underlying reason why it works. In this
paper, we present a much deeper and detailed analysis of the PCA-based lung
motion model. We provide the theoretical justification of the effectiveness of
PCA in modeling lung motion. We also prove that under certain conditions, the
PCA motion model is equivalent to 5D motion model, which is based on physiology
and anatomy of the lung. The modeling power of PCA model was tested on clinical
data and the average 3D error was found to be below 1 mm.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. submitted to International Conference on the use
of Computers in Radiation Therapy 201
Electron pumping in graphene mechanical resonators
The combination of high frequency vibrations and metallic transport in
graphene makes it a unique material for nano-electromechanical devices. In this
letter, we show that graphene-based nano-electromechanical devices are
extremely well suited for charge pumping, due to the sensitivity of its
transport coefficients to perturbations in electrostatic potential and
mechanical deformations, with the potential for novel small scale devices with
useful applications
A Census of the High-Density Molecular Gas in M82
We present a three-pointing study of the molecular gas in the starburst
nucleus of M82 based on 190 - 307 GHz spectra obtained with Z-Spec at the
Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. We present intensity measurements,
detections and upper limits, for 20 transitions, including several new
detections of CS, HNC, C2H, H2CO, and CH3CCH lines. We combine our measurements
with previously-published measurements at other frequencies for HCN, HNC, CS,
C34S, and HCO+ in a multi-species likelihood analysis constraining gas mass,
density and temperature, and the species' relative abundances. We find some 1.7
- 2.7 x 10^8 M_sun of gas with n_H2 between 1 - 6 x 10^4 cm^-3 and T > 50 K.
While the mass and temperature are comparable to values inferred from mid-J CO
transitions, the thermal pressure is a factor of 10 - 20 greater. The molecular
interstellar medium is largely fragmented and is subject to ultraviolet
irradiation from the star clusters. It is also likely subject to cosmic rays
and mechanical energy input from the supernovae, and is warmer on average than
the molecular gas in the massive star formation regions in the Milky Way. The
typical conditions in the dense gas in M82's central kpc appear unfavorable for
further star formation; if any appreciable stellar populations are currently
forming, they are likely biased against low mass stars, producing a top-heavy
initial mass function.Comment: 15 pages (using emulateapj.cls), 6 figures, Astrophysical Journal, in
pres
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