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Controls on development and diversity of Early Archean stromatolites
The ≈3,450-million-year-old Strelley Pool Formation in Western Australia contains a reef-like assembly of laminated sedimentary accretion structures (stromatolites) that have macroscale characteristics suggestive of biological influence. However, direct microscale evidence of biology—namely, organic microbial remains or biosedimentary fabrics—has to date eluded discovery in the extensively-recrystallized rocks. Recently-identified outcrops with relatively good textural preservation record microscale evidence of primary sedimentary processes, including some that indicate probable microbial mat formation. Furthermore, we find relict fabrics and organic layers that covary with stromatolite morphology, linking morphologic diversity to changes in sedimentation, seafloor mineral precipitation, and inferred microbial mat development. Thus, the most direct and compelling signatures of life in the Strelley Pool Formation are those observed at the microscopic scale. By examining spatiotemporal changes in microscale characteristics it is possible not only to recognize the presence of probable microbial mats during stromatolite development, but also to infer aspects of the biological inputs to stromatolite morphogenesis. The persistence of an inferred biological signal through changing environmental circumstances and stromatolite types indicates that benthic microbial populations adapted to shifting environmental conditions in early oceans
Renormalization in Self-Consistent Approximations schemes at Finite Temperature I: Theory
Within finite temperature field theory, we show that truncated
non-perturbative self-consistent Dyson resummation schemes can be renormalized
with local counter-terms defined at the vacuum level. The requirements are that
the underlying theory is renormalizable and that the self-consistent scheme
follows Baym''s -derivable concept. The scheme generates both, the
renormalized self-consistent equations of motion and the closed equations for
the infinite set of counter terms. At the same time the corresponding
2PI-generating functional and the thermodynamical potential can be
renormalized, in consistency with the equations of motion. This guarantees the
standard -derivable properties like thermodynamic consistency and exact
conservation laws also for the renormalized approximation schemes to hold. The
proof uses the techniques of BPHZ-renormalization to cope with the explicit and
the hidden overlapping vacuum divergences.Comment: 22 Pages 1 figure, uses RevTeX4. The Revision concerns the correction
of some minor typos, a clarification concerning the real-time contour
structure of renormalization parts and some comments concerning symmetries in
the conclusions and outloo
Nucleate pool boiling in the long duration low gravity environment of the Space Shuttle
The results are presented of an experimental study of nucleate pool boiling performed in the low gravity environment of the space shuttle. Photographic observations of pool boiling in Freon 113 were obtained during the 'Tank Pressure Control Experiment,' flown on the Space Transportation System, STS-43 in August 1991. Nucleate boiling data from large (relative to bubble size) flat heating surfaces (0.1046 by 0.0742 m) was obtained at very low heat fluxes (0.22 to 1.19 kW/sq m). The system pressure and the bulk liquid subcooling varied in the range of 40 to 60 kPa and 3 to 5 C respectively. Thirty-eight boiling tests, each of 10-min duration for a given heat flux, were conducted. Measurements included the heater power, heater surface temperature, the liquid temperature and the system pressure as functions of heating time. Video data of the first 2 min of heating was recorded for each test. In some tests the video clearly shows the inception of boiling and the growth and departure of bubbles from the surface during the first 2 min of heating. In the absence of video data, the heater temperature variation during heating shows the inception of boiling and stable nucleate boiling. During the stable nucleate boiling, the wall superheat varied between 2.8 to 3.8 C for heat fluxes in the range of 0.95 to 1.19 kW/sq m. The wall superheat at the inception of boiling varied between 2 to 13 C
Calibration of the visible and near-infrared channels of the LANDSAT-5 Thematic Mapper using high-altitude aircraft measurements
Visible near-infrared sensors mounted on operational satellites now in use do not have on-board full aperture absolute calibration devices. One means of establishing an in-orbit calibration for a satellite sensor is to make simultaneous measurements of a bright, uniform scene along the satellite view vector from a calibrated instrument on board a high altitude aircraft. In the work reported here, aircraft data were recorded over White Sands, New Mexico at satellite overpass time for the LANDSAT-5 Thematic Mapper (TM). A comparison of the coincident aircraft and orbiting satellite data showed the radiometric gain for TM channel 1 had degraded 4.7 percent by August 28, 1985; gains for TM channels 2 and 3 were within 1 percent of prelaunch values
Approximate treatment of electron Coulomb distortion in quasielastic (e,e') reactions
In this paper we address the adequacy of various approximate methods of
including Coulomb distortion effects in (e,e') reactions by comparing to an
exact treatment using Dirac-Coulomb distorted waves. In particular, we examine
approximate methods and analyses of (e,e') reactions developed by Traini et al.
using a high energy approximation of the distorted waves and phase shifts due
to Lenz and Rosenfelder. This approximation has been used in the separation of
longitudinal and transverse structure functions in a number of (e,e')
experiments including the newly published 208Pb(e,e') data from Saclay. We find
that the assumptions used by Traini and others are not valid for typical (e,e')
experiments on medium and heavy nuclei, and hence the extracted structure
functions based on this formalism are not reliable. We describe an improved
approximation which is also based on the high energy approximation of Lenz and
Rosenfelder and the analyses of Knoll and compare our results to the Saclay
data. At each step of our analyses we compare our approximate results to the
exact distorted wave results and can therefore quantify the errors made by our
approximations. We find that for light nuclei, we can get an excellent
treatment of Coulomb distortion effects on (e,e') reactions just by using a
good approximation to the distorted waves, but for medium and heavy nuclei
simple additional ad hoc factors need to be included. We describe an explicit
procedure for using our approximate analyses to extract so-called longitudinal
and transverse structure functions from (e,e') reactions in the quasielastic
region.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, 16 reference
Coulomb Distortion Effects for (e,e'p) Reactions at High Electron Energy
We report a significant improvement of an approximate method of including
electron Coulomb distortion in electron induced reactions at momentum transfers
greater than the inverse of the size of the target nucleus. In particular, we
have found a new parametrization for the elastic electron scattering phase
shifts that works well at all electron energies greater than 300 . As an
illustration, we apply the improved approximation to the reaction
from medium and heavy nuclei. We use a relativistic ``single particle'' model
for as as applied to and to recently measured data
at CEBAF on to investigate Coulomb distortion effects while
examining the physics of the reaction.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, PRC submitte
Target mass number dependence of subthreshold antiproton production in proton-, deuteron- and alpha-particle-induced reactions
Data from KEK on subthreshold \bar{\mrm{p}} as well as on and
\mrm{K}^\pm production in proton-, deuteron- and -induced reactions
at energies between 2.0 and 12.0 A GeV for C, Cu and Pb targets are described
within a unified approach. We use a model which considers a nuclear reaction as
an incoherent sum over collisions of varying numbers of projectile and target
nucleons. It samples complete events and thus allows for the simultaneous
consideration of all final particles including the decay products of the
nuclear residues. The enormous enhancement of the \bar{\mrm{p}} cross
section, as well as the moderate increase of meson production in deuteron and
induced compared to proton-induced reactions, is well reproduced for
all target nuclei. In our approach, the observed enhancement near the
production threshold is mainly due to the contributions from the interactions
of few-nucleon clusters by simultaneously considering fragmentation processes
of the nuclear residues. The ability of the model to reproduce the target mass
dependence may be considered as a further proof of the validity of the cluster
concept.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Self-consistent Approach to Off-Shell Transport
The properties of two forms of the gradient expanded Kadanoff--Baym
equations, i.e. the Kadanoff--Baym and Botermans-Malfliet forms, suitable to
describe the transport dynamics of particles and resonances with broad spectral
widths, are discussed in context of conservation laws, the definition of a
kinetic entropy and the possibility of numerical realization. Recent results on
exact conservations of charge and energy-momentum within Kadanoff-Baym form of
quantum kinetics based on local coupling schemes are extended to two cases
relevant in many applications. These concern the interaction via a finite range
potential, and, relevant in nuclear and hadron physics, e.g. for the
pion--nucleon interaction, the case of derivative coupling.Comment: 35 pages, submitted to issue of Phys. Atom. Nucl. dedicated to S.T.
Belyaev on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Few references are adde
Propagation of gamma rays and production of free electrons in air
A new concept of remote detection of concealed radioactive materials has been
recently proposed \cite{Gr.Nusin.2010}-\cite{NusinSprangle}. It is based on the
breakdown in air at the focal point of a high-power beam of electromagnetic
waves produced by a THz gyrotron. To initiate the avalanche breakdown, seed
free electrons should be present in this focal region during the
electromagnetic pulse. This paper is devoted to the analysis of production of
free electrons by gamma rays leaking from radioactive materials. Within a
hundred meters from the radiation source, the fluctuating free electrons appear
with the rate that may exceed significantly the natural background ionization
rate. During the gyrotron pulse of about 10 microsecond length, such electrons
may seed the electric breakdown and create sufficiently dense plasma at the
focal region to be detected as an unambiguous effect of the concealed
radioactive material.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figure
Quantum Gravity Equation In Schroedinger Form In Minisuperspace Description
We start from classical Hamiltonian constraint of general relativity to
obtain the Einstein-Hamiltonian-Jacobi equation. We obtain a time parameter
prescription demanding that geometry itself determines the time, not the matter
field, such that the time so defined being equivalent to the time that enters
into the Schroedinger equation. Without any reference to the Wheeler-DeWitt
equation and without invoking the expansion of exponent in WKB wavefunction in
powers of Planck mass, we obtain an equation for quantum gravity in
Schroedinger form containing time. We restrict ourselves to a minisuperspace
description. Unlike matter field equation our equation is equivalent to the
Wheeler-DeWitt equation in the sense that our solutions reproduce also the
wavefunction of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation provided one evaluates the
normalization constant according to the wormhole dominance proposal recently
proposed by us.Comment: 11 Pages, ReVTeX, no figur
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