2,499 research outputs found
Photoluminescence and Terahertz Emission from Femtosecond Laser-Induced Plasma Channels
Luminescence as a mechanism for terahertz emission from femtosecond
laser-induced plasmas is studied. By using a fully microscopic theory, Coulomb
scattering between electrons and ions is shown to lead to luminescence even for
a spatially homogeneous plasma. The spectral features introduced by the rod
geometry of laser-induced plasma channels in air are discussed on the basis of
a generalized mode-function analysis.Comment: 4 pages with 2 figures
New Additions to the Flora of San Nicolas Island, Ventura County, California
Ongoing collecting efforts on San Nicolas Island have substantially increased the number of plant species documented from the island. Here we report thirty-one plants previously unrecorded from the island. The list includes six eudicots, one monocot, four liverworts and twenty mosses. Five of these species are understood to be introduced on San Nicolas and the remainder are believed to be native. The native vascular plants are Logfia filaginoides, Cistanthe maritima and Muhlenbergia microsperma. Of the twenty-four new bryophytes, oneâAsterella bolanderiâis the first record from the Channel Islands. Specific ecological and locality information are provided for the new vascular plant finds and general patterns of bryophyte richness and ecological preferences are discussed
Recommended from our members
Seshat: The Global History Databank
The vast amount of knowledge about past human societies has not been systematically organized and, therefore, remains inaccessible for empirically testing theories about cultural evolution and historical dynamics. For example, what evolutionary mechanisms were involved in the transition from the small-scale, uncentralized societies, in which humans lived 10,000 years ago, to the large-scale societies with an extensive division of labor, great differentials in wealth and power, and elaborate governance structures of today? Why do modern states sometimes fail to meet the basic needs of their populations? Why do economies decline, or fail to grow? In this article, we describe the structure and uses of a massive databank of historical and archaeological information, Seshat: The Global History Databank. The data that we are currently entering in Seshat will allow us and others to test theories explaining how modern societies evolved from ancestral ones, and why modern societies vary so much in their capacity to satisfy their membersâ basic human needsPeer reviewedFinal Published versio
On the entropy production of time series with unidirectional linearity
There are non-Gaussian time series that admit a causal linear autoregressive
moving average (ARMA) model when regressing the future on the past, but not
when regressing the past on the future. The reason is that, in the latter case,
the regression residuals are only uncorrelated but not statistically
independent of the future. In previous work, we have experimentally verified
that many empirical time series indeed show such a time inversion asymmetry.
For various physical systems, it is known that time-inversion asymmetries are
linked to the thermodynamic entropy production in non-equilibrium states. Here
we show that such a link also exists for the above unidirectional linearity.
We study the dynamical evolution of a physical toy system with linear
coupling to an infinite environment and show that the linearity of the dynamics
is inherited to the forward-time conditional probabilities, but not to the
backward-time conditionals. The reason for this asymmetry between past and
future is that the environment permanently provides particles that are in a
product state before they interact with the system, but show statistical
dependencies afterwards. From a coarse-grained perspective, the interaction
thus generates entropy. We quantitatively relate the strength of the
non-linearity of the backward conditionals to the minimal amount of entropy
generation.Comment: 16 page
Correlated errors in Hipparcos parallaxes towards the Pleiades and the Hyades
We show that the errors in the Hipparcos parallaxes towards the Pleiades and
the Hyades open clusters are spatially correlated over angular scales of 2 to 3
deg, with an amplitude of up to 2 mas. This correlation is stronger than
expected based on the analysis of the Hipparcos catalog. We predict the
parallaxes of individual cluster members, pi_pm, from their Hipparcos proper
motions, assuming that all cluster members have the same space velocity. We
compare pi_pm with their Hipparcos parallaxes, pi_Hip, and find that there are
significant spatial correlations in pi_Hip. We derive a distance modulus to the
Pleiades of 5.58 +- 0.18 mag using the radial-velocity gradient method. This
value, agrees very well with the distance modulus of 5.60 +- 0.04 mag
determined using the main-sequence fitting technique, compared with the value
of 5.33 +- 0.06 inferred from the average of the Hipparcos parallaxes of the
Pleiades members. We show that the difference between the main-sequence fitting
distance and the Hipparcos parallax distance can arise from spatially
correlated errors in the Hipparcos parallaxes of individual Pleiades members.
Although the Hipparcos parallax errors towards the Hyades are spatially
correlated in a manner similar to those of the Pleiades, the center of the
Hyades is located on a node of this spatial structure. Therefore, the parallax
errors cancel out when the average distance is estimated, leading to a mean
Hyades distance modulus that agrees with the pre-Hipparcos value. We speculate
that these spatial correlations are also responsible for the discrepant
distances that are inferred using the mean Hipparcos parallaxes to some open
clusters. Finally, we note that our conclusions are based on a purely geometric
method and do not rely on any models of stellar isochrones.Comment: 33 pages including 10 Figures, revised version accepted for
publication in Ap
Hadroproduction and Polarization of Charmonium
In the limit of heavy quark mass, the production cross section and
polarization of quarkonia can be calculated in perturbative QCD. We study the
-averaged production of charmonium states in collisions at
fixed target energies. The data on the relative production rates of \jp and
is found to disagree with leading twist QCD. The polarization of the
\jp indicates that the discrepancy is not due to poorly known parton
distributions nor to the size of higher order effects (-factors). Rather,
the disagreement suggests important higher twist corrections, as has been
surmised earlier from the nuclear target -dependence of the production cross
section.Comment: 19 page
Recognising barriers to implementation of Blue-Green infrastructure: a Newcastle case study
There is a recognised need for a fundamental change in how the UK manages urban water and flood risk in response to increasingly frequent rainfall events coupled with planned urban expansion. Approaches centred on âliving with and making space for waterâ are increasingly adopted internationally. Nonetheless, widespread implementation of Blue-Green infrastructure (BGI) is currently hampered by barriers that impede uptake and innovation. We investigate the barriers to implementation of BGI in Newcastle, UK, through a series of semi-structured interviews with professional stakeholders. We identify and categorise 17 types of barrier and identify targeted strategies to overcome the dominant barriers. We recommend promotion of BGIâs capacity to meet the objectives of multiple organisations and Local Authority departments, in addition to managing urban water. We conclude that strong business cases, supported by monetised evidence of benefits, and collaborative, inter-agency working could advance implementation of BGI within the current flood risk management legislation
Composition Dependence of the Structure and Electronic Properties of Liquid Ga-Se Alloys Studied by Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Simulation
Ab initio molecular dynamics simulation is used to study the structure and
electronic properties of the liquid Ga-Se system at the three compositions
GaSe, GaSe and GaSe, and of the GaSe and GaSe crystals. The
calculated equilibrium structure of GaSe crystal agrees well with available
experimental data. The neutron-weighted liquid structure factors calculated
from the simulations are in reasonable agreement with recent neutron
diffraction measurements. Simulation results for the partial radial
distribution functions show that the liquid structure is closely related to
that of the crystals. A close similarity between solid and liquid is also found
for the electronic density of states and charge density. The calculated
electronic conductivity decreases strongly with increasing Se content, in
accord with experimental measurements.Comment: REVTeX, 8 pages and 12 uuencoded PostScript figures, submitted to
Phys. Rev. B. corresponding author: [email protected]
Psi' to J/Psi Ratio in Diffractive Photoproduction
We evaluate the Psi' to J/Psi ratio in diffractive photoproduction in a
light-cone framework, using charmonium wave functions extracted from
non-relativistic potential models. Contrary to current belief, we find that the
best estimate for the ratio is a factor 2 to 5 below the data. The measured
ratio constrains the distribution of the charm quark-antiquark component of the
charmonium light-cone wave function and indicates that it is more compact than
in potential models. We predict that the inelastic photoproduction ratio will
be bigger than the elastic one, and will equal that measured in
hadroproduction.Comment: 4 pages, revte
- âŠ