Mass mortality and extraterrestrial impacts

The discovery of iridium enrichment at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary resulted in formulation of hypothesis of a cometary or asteroid impact as the cause of the biological extinctions at this boundary. Subsequent discoveries of geochemical anomalies at major stratigraphic boundaries like the Precambrian/Cambrian, Permian/Triassic, Middle/Late Jurassic, resulted in the application of similar extraterrestrial impact theories to explain biological changes at these boundaries. Until recently the major physical evidence, as is the location of the impact crater site, to test the impact induced biological extinction was lacking. The diameter of such a crater would be in the range of 60 to 100 km. The recent discovery of the first impact crater in the ocean provide the first opportunity to test the above theory. The crater, named Montagnais and located on the outer shelf off Nova Scotia, Canada, has a minimum diameter of 42 km, with some evidence to a diameter of more than 60 km. At the Montagnais impact site, micropaleontological analysis of the uppermost 80 m of the fall-back breccia represented by a mixture of pre-impact sediments and basement rocks which fills the crater and of the basal 50 m of post-impact marine sediments which overly the impact deposits, revealed presence of diversified foraminiferal and nannoplankton assemblages. The sediments which are intercalated within the uppermost part of the fall-back breccia, had to be deposited before the meteorite impact. The post-impact deposits were laid down almost immediately after the impact as also supported by the micropaleontological data. In conclusion, micropaleontological studies of sediments from the first submarine impact crater site identified in the ocean did not reveal any mass extinction or significant biological changes at the impact site or in the proximal deep ocean basin

Electronic structure of unidirectional superlattices in crossed electric and magnetic fields and related terahertz oscillations

We have studied Bloch electrons in a perfect unidirectional superlattice subject to crossed electric and magnetic fields, where the magnetic field is oriented ``in-plane'', i.e. in parallel to the sample plane. Two orientation of the electric field are considered. It is shown that the magnetic field suppresses the intersubband tunneling of the Zener type, but does not change the frequency of Bloch oscillations, if the electric field is oriented perpendicularly to both the sample plane and the magnetic field. The electric field applied in-plane (but perpendicularly to the magnetic field) yields the step-like electron energy spectrum, corresponding to the magnetic-field-tunable oscillations alternative to the Bloch ones.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Vortex Plasma in a Superconducting Film with Magnetic Dots

We consider a superconducting film, placed upon a magnetic dot array. Magnetic moments of the dots are normal to the film and randomly oriented. We determine how the concentration of the vortices in the film depends on the magnetic moment of a dot at low temperatures. The concentration of the vortices, bound to the dots, is proportional to the density of the dots and depends on the magnetization of a dot in a step-like way. The concentration of the unbound vortices oscillates about a value, proportional to the magnetic moment of the dots. The period of the oscillations is equal to the width of a step in the concentration of the bound vortices.Comment: RevTeX, 4 page

Local density approximation for a perturbative equation of state

The knowledge of a series expansion of the equation of state provides a deep insight into the physical nature of a quantum system. Starting from a generic ``perturbative'' equation of state of a homogeneous ultracold gas we make predictions for the properties of the gas in the presence of harmonic confinement. The local density approximation is used to obtain the chemical potential, total and release energies, Thomas-Fermi size and density profile of a trapped system in three-, two-, and one- dimensional geometries. The frequencies of the lowest breathing modes are calculated using scaling and sum-rule approaches and could be used in an experiment as a high precision tool for obtaining the expansion terms of the equation of state. The derived formalism is applied to dilute Bose and Fermi gases in different dimensions and to integrable one-dimensional models. Physical meaning of expansion terms in a number of systems is discussed.Comment: 3 Figure

Spin relaxation at the singlet-triplet crossing in a quantum dot

We study spin relaxation in a two-electron quantum dot in the vicinity of the singlet-triplet crossing. The spin relaxation occurs due to a combined effect of the spin-orbit, Zeeman, and electron-phonon interactions. The singlet-triplet relaxation rates exhibit strong variations as a function of the singlet-triplet splitting. We show that the Coulomb interaction between the electrons has two competing effects on the singlet-triplet spin relaxation. One effect is to enhance the relative strength of spin-orbit coupling in the quantum dot, resulting in larger spin-orbit splittings and thus in a stronger coupling of spin to charge. The other effect is to make the charge density profiles of the singlet and triplet look similar to each other, thus diminishing the ability of charge environments to discriminate between singlet and triplet states. We thus find essentially different channels of singlet-triplet relaxation for the case of strong and weak Coulomb interaction. Finally, for the linear in momentum Dresselhaus and Rashba spin-orbit interactions, we calculate the singlet-triplet relaxation rates to leading order in the spin-orbit interaction, and find that they are proportional to the second power of the Zeeman energy, in agreement with recent experiments on triplet-to-singlet relaxation in quantum dots.Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures, 1 tabl

Finite size effects in quantum field theories with boundary from scattering data

We derive a relation between leading finite size corrections for a 1+1 dimensional quantum field theory on a strip and scattering data, which is very similar in spirit to the approach pioneered by Luscher for periodic boundary conditions. The consistency of the results is tested both analytically and numerically using thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz, Destri-de Vega nonlinear integral equation and classical field theory techniques. We present strong evidence that the relation between the boundary state and the reflection factor one-particle couplings, noticed earlier by Dorey et al. in the case of the Lee-Yang model extends to any boundary quantum field theory in 1+1 dimensions.Comment: 24 pages, 1 eps figure. Clarifying comments and a reference adde

Local Geometry of the Fermi Surface and Magnetoacoustic Responce of Two-Dimensional Electron Systems in Strong Magnetic Fields

A semiclassical theory for magnetotrasport in a quantum Hall system near filling factor $\nu = 1/2$ based on the Composite Fermions physical picture is used to analyze the effect of local flattening of the Composite Fermion Fermi surface (CF-FS) upon magnetoacoustic oscllations. We report on calculations of the velocity shift and attenuation of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) which travels above the two-dimensional electron system, and we show that local geometry of the CF-FS could give rise to noticeable changes in the magnitude and phase of the oscillations. We predict these changes to be revealed in experiments, and to be used in further studies of the shape and symmetries of the CF-FS. Main conclusions reported here could be applied to analyze magnetotransport in quantum Hall systems at higher filling factors $\nu = 3/2, 5/2$ provided the Fermi-liquid-like state of the system.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Large distance behaviour of light cone operator product in perturbative and nonperturbative QCD regimes

We evaluate the coordinate space dependence of the matrix elements of the commutator of the electromagnetic and gluon currents in the vicinity of the light-cone but at large distances within the parton model, DGLAP, the resummation approaches to the small x behaviour of DIS processes, and for the Unitarity Bound. We find that an increase of the commutator with relative distance $py$ as $\propto (py)f(py,y^2=t^2-r^2)$ is the generic property of QCD at small but fixed space-time interval $y^2=t^2-r^2$ in perturbative and nonperturbative QCD regimes. We explain that the factor $py$ follows within the dipole model (QCD factorization theorem) from the properties of Lorents transformation. The increase of $f(r)$ disappeares at central impact parameters if cross section of DIS may achieve the Unitarity Limit. We argue that such long range forces are hardly consistent with thermodynamic equilibrium while a Unitarity Limit may signal equilibration. Possible implications of this new long range interaction are briefly discussed.Comment: 23 page

Nemesis Reconsidered

The hypothesis of a companion object (Nemesis) orbiting the Sun was motivated by the claim of a terrestrial extinction periodicity, thought to be mediated by comet showers. The orbit of a distant companion to the Sun is expected to be perturbed by the Galactic tidal field and encounters with passing stars, which will induce variation in the period. We examine the evidence for the previously proposed periodicity, using two modern, greatly improved paleontological datasets of fossil biodiversity. We find that there is a narrow peak at 27 My in the cross-spectrum of extinction intensity time series between these independent datasets. This periodicity extends over a time period nearly twice that for which it was originally noted. An excess of extinction events are associated with this periodicity at 99% confidence. In this sense we confirm the originally noted feature in the time series for extinction. However, we find that it displays extremely regular timing for about 0.5 Gy. The regularity of the timing compared with earlier calculations of orbital perturbation would seem to exclude the Nemesis hypothesis as a causal factor.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Orthogonal Linear Combinations of Gaussian Type Orbitals

The set of Gaussian Type Orbitals g(n1,n2,n3) of order (n+1)(n+2)/2, of common n=n1+n2+n3<=7, common center and exponential, is customized to define a set of 2n+1 linear combinations t(n,m) (-n<=m<=n) such that each t(n,m) depends on the azimuthal and polar angle of the spherical coordinate system like the real or imaginary part of the associated Spherical Harmonic. (Results cover both Hermite and Cartesian Gaussian Type Orbitals.) Overlap, kinetic energy and Coulomb energy matrix elements are presented for generalized basis functions of the type r^s*t(n,m) (s=0,2,4,...). In addition, normalization integrals int |g(n1,n2,n3)|d^3r are calculated up to n=7 and normalization integrals int |r^s*t(n,m)|d^3r up to n=5.Comment: 13 pages, no figures, REVTeX4. Corrected eqs. (23) and (C4