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Age, Depth, and Residual Depth Anomalies in the North Pacific: Implications for Thermal Models of the Lithosphere and Upper Mantle
We present an empirical basement depth versus age relation for the North Pacific Ocean, based on the statistical treatment of an ocean-wide gridded data set. The SYNBAPS bathymetry was averaged into half-degree intervals and corrected for the effects of sediment loading. The resulting basement depths were plotted against ages determined from a revised isochron chart based on a recent compilation of magnetic lineations and various published plate reconstructions. On crust older than 80 Ma, the depths are skewed to the shallow side of the depth versus age distribution by large numbers of seamounts. Therefore the mean and standard deviations are not useful representations of the data. A more appropriate representation is the mode (or greatest concentration of points) and contours around the mode. The contours around the mode show that most ocean floor increases in depth with the square root of age out to crust of 80 Ma. Beyond this the majority of the data oscillates about a line that remains essentially constant as the age in-creases. Approximately 56% of all the data points lie within a + 300m band about the mode. If the sediment thickness data in the older basins of the western North Pacific is correct then the flattening of the depths favor a model in which extra heat is supplied to the base of the lithosphere on older ocean floor. Residual depth anomalies were calculated by removing the depths predicted by such a model. These anomalies correlate with bathymetric features and occur predominantly on crust of 120 and 160 Ma. They account for the rises in the mode at these two ages. The overall subsidence of the ocean floor can be accounted for by the cooling of a thermo-mechanical boundary layer. Correlations between geoid height and depth are evidence that many of the residual depth anomalies result from convective plumes which reset the thermal structure of the lithosphere. It is possible that this process observed at different times after the initial resetting of the isotherms may account for many of the depth anomalies in the western North Pacific.Institute for Geophysic
Nonlinear surface plasmons
We derive an asymptotic equation for quasi-static, nonlinear surface plasmons
propagating on a planar interface between isotropic media. The plasmons are
nondispersive with a constant linearized frequency that is independent of their
wavenumber. The spatial profile of a weakly nonlinear plasmon satisfies a
nonlocal, cubically nonlinear evolution equation that couples its left-moving
and right-moving Fourier components. We prove short-time existence of smooth
solutions of the asymptotic equation and describe its Hamiltonian structure. We
also prove global existence of weak solutions of a unidirectional reduction of
the asymptotic equation. Numerical solutions show that nonlinear effects can
lead to the strong spatial focusing of plasmons. Solutions of the
unidirectional equation appear to remain smooth when they focus, but it is
unclear whether or not focusing can lead to singularity formation in solutions
of the bidirectional equation
Implications of Anomalous U(1) Symmetry in Unified Models: the Flipped SU(5) x U(1) Paradigm
A generic feature of string-derived models is the appearance of an anomalous
Abelian U(1)_A symmetry which, among other properties, constrains the Yukawa
couplings and distinguishes the three families from each other. In this paper,
we discuss in a model-independent way the general constraints imposed by such a
U(1)_A symmetry on fermion masses, R-violating couplings and proton-decay
operators in a generic flipped SU(5) x U(1)' model. We construct all possible
viable fermion mass textures and give various examples of effective low-energy
models which are distinguished from each other by their different predictions
for B-, L- and R-violating effects. We pay particular attention to predictions
for neutrino masses, in the light of the recent Super-Kamiokande data.Comment: 28 pages, reference adde
Raising the Dead: Clues to Type Ia Supernova Physics from the Remnant 0509-67.5
We present Chandra X-ray observations of the young supernova remnant (SNR)
0509-67.5 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), believed to be the product of a
Type Ia supernova (SN Ia). The remnant is very round in shape, with a distinct
clumpy shell-like structure. Our Chandra data reveal the remnant to be rich in
silicon, sulfur, and iron. The yields of our fits to the global spectrum
confirm that 0509-67.5 is the remnant of an SN Ia and show a clear preference
for delayed detonation explosion models for SNe Ia. We study the spectrum of
the single brightest isolated knot in the remnant and find that it is enhanced
in iron by a factor of roughly two relative to the global remnant abundances.
This feature, along with similar knots seen in Tycho's SNR, argues for the
presence of modest small-scale composition inhomogeneities in SNe Ia. The
presence of both Si and Fe, with abundance ratios that vary from knot to knot,
indicates that these came from the transition region between the Si- and
Fe-rich zones in the exploded star, possibly as a result of energy input to the
ejecta at late times due to the radioactive decay of 56Ni and 56Co. Two cases
for the continuum emission from the global spectrum were modeled: one where the
continuum is dominated by hydrogen thermal bremsstrahlung radiation; another
where the continuum arises from non-thermal synchrotron radiation. The former
case requires a relatively large value for the ambient density (~1 cm^-3).
Another estimate of the ambient density comes from using the shell structure of
the remnant in the context of dynamical models. This requires a much lower
value for the density (<0.05 cm^-3) which is more consistent with other
evidence known about 0509-67.5. We therefore conclude that the bulk of the
continuum emission from 0509-67.5 has a non-thermal origin.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures (1 color), accepted to ApJ (10 June 2004 issue);
correction made to calculation of magnetic field, small sentence change
Pseudo-potential treatment of two aligned dipoles under external harmonic confinement
Dipolar Bose and Fermi gases, which are currently being studied extensively
experimentally and theoretically, interact through anisotropic, long-range
potentials. Here, we replace the long-range potential by a zero-range
pseudo-potential that simplifies the theoretical treatment of two dipolar
particles in a harmonic trap. Our zero-range pseudo-potential description
reproduces the energy spectrum of two dipoles interacting through a
shape-dependent potential under external confinement very well, provided that
sufficiently many partial waves are included, and readily leads to a
classification scheme of the energy spectrum in terms of approximate angular
momentum quantum numbers. The results may be directly relevant to the physics
of dipolar gases loaded into optical lattices.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Impact of Reionization on the Stellar Populations of Nearby Dwarf Galaxies
Cold dark matter models for galaxy formation predict that low-mass systems
will be the first sites of star formation. As these objects have shallow
gravitational potential wells, the subsequent growth of their stellar
populations may be halted by heating and gas loss due to reionization. This
effect has been suggested to have profoundly influenced properties of
present-day dwarf galaxies, including their stellar populations and even
survival as visible galaxies. In this Letter we draw on results from
quantitative studies of Local Group dwarf galaxy star formation histories,
especially for Milky Way satellites, to show that no clear signature exists for
a widespread evolutionary impact from reionization. All nearby dwarf galaxies
studied in sufficient detail contain ancient populations indistinguishable in
age from the oldest Galactic globular clusters. Ancient star formation activity
proceeded over several Gyr, and some dwarf spheroidal galaxies even experienced
fairly continuous star formation until just a few Gyr ago. Despite their
uniformly low masses, their star formation histories differ considerably. The
evolutionary histories of nearby dwarf galaxies appear to reflect influences
from a variety of local processes rather than a dominant effect from
reionization.Comment: Accepted by The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 5 pages, one figur
Roles of Free Electrons and H2O2 in the Optical Breakdown-Induced Photochemical Reduction of Aqueous [AuCl4]-
Free electrons and H2O2 formed in an optical breakdown plasma are found to directly control the kinetics of [AuCl4]− reduction to form Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) during femtosecond laser-assisted synthesis of AuNPs. The formation rates of both free electrons and H2O2 strongly depend on the energy and duration of the 800 nm laser pulses over the ranges of 10−2400 μJ and 30−1500 fs. By monitoring the conversion of [AuCl4]− to AuNPs using in situ UV−vis spectroscopy during laser irradiation, the first- and second-order rate constants in the autocatalytic rate law, k1 and k2, were extracted and compared to the computed free electron densities and experimentally measured H2O2 formation rates. For laser pulse energies of 600 μJ and lower at all pulse durations, the first-order rate constant, k1, was found to be directly proportional to the theoretically calculated plasma volume, in which the electron density exceeds the threshold value of 1.8 × 1020 cm−3. The second-order rate constant, k2, was found to correlate with the measured H2O2 formation rate at all pulse energies and durations, resulting in the empirical relationship k2 ≈ H2O20.5. We have demonstrated that the relative composition of free electrons and H2O2 in the optical breakdown plasma may be controlled by changing the pulse energy and duration, which may make it possible to tune the size and dispersity of AuNPs and other metal nanoparticle products synthesized with femtosecond laser-based methods
Formation of rectifier with gold nanoclusters
Gold nanoclusters encapsulated with organic molecules are of great interest
for its possible applications in the fields of molecular electronics, catalysis
and medical science. Here we demonstrate that monolayer and bilayer films of
thiol-capped gold nanoclusters can exhibit diode-like properties provided
controlled spatial asymmetry exist between two tunnel junctions used to connect
a thiol capped gold nanoclusters. Current-voltage characteristics of this
rectifier were obtained from conducting probe atomic force microscopy
measurements and also from conventional two probe resistance measurements.
Systematic x-ray reflectivity and atomic force microscopy measurements were
carried out to characterize the spatial asymmetry introduced by a monolayer of
fatty acid salt gadolinium stearate used to deposit thiol-capped gold
nanocluster molecules on hydrophilic SiO2-Si(001) substrate by Langmuir
Blodgett technique. This information was used to explain prominent
rectification observed in these nano-structured films.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
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