Darkness visible: reflections on underground ecology

1 Soil science and ecology have developed independently, making it difficult for ecologists to contribute to urgent current debates on the destruction of the global soil resource and its key role in the global carbon cycle. Soils are believed to be exceptionally biodiverse parts of ecosystems, a view confirmed by recent data from the UK Soil Biodiversity Programme at Sourhope, Scotland, where high diversity was a characteristic of small organisms, but not of larger ones. Explaining this difference requires knowledge that we currently lack about the basic biology and biogeography of micro-organisms. 2 It seems inherently plausible that the high levels of biological diversity in soil play some part in determining the ability of soils to undertake ecosystem-level processes, such as carbon and mineral cycling. However, we lack conceptual models to address this issue, and debate about the role of biodiversity in ecosystem processes has centred around the concept of functional redundancy, and has consequently been largely semantic. More precise construction of our experimental questions is needed to advance understanding. 3 These issues are well illustrated by the fungi that form arbuscular mycorrhizas, the Glomeromycota. This ancient symbiosis of plants and fungi is responsible for phosphate uptake in most land plants, and the phylum is generally held to be species-poor and non-specific, with most members readily colonizing any plant species. Molecular techniques have shown both those assumptions to be unsafe, raising questions about what factors have promoted diversification in these fungi. One source of this genetic diversity may be functional diversity. 4 Specificity of the mycorrhizal interaction between plants and fungi would have important ecosystem consequences. One example would be in the control of invasiveness in introduced plant species: surprisingly, naturalized plant species in Britain are disproportionately from mycorrhizal families, suggesting that these fungi may play a role in assisting invasion. 5 What emerges from an attempt to relate biodiversity and ecosystem processes in soil is our extraordinary ignorance about the organisms involved. There are fundamental questions that are now answerable with new techniques and sufficient will, such as how biodiverse are natural soils? Do microbes have biogeography? Are there rare or even endangered microbes

A High Statistics Search for Ultra-High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from Cygnus X-3 and Hercules X-1

We have carried out a high statistics (2 Billion events) search for ultra-high energy gamma-ray emission from the X-ray binary sources Cygnus X-3 and Hercules X-1. Using data taken with the CASA-MIA detector over a five year period (1990-1995), we find no evidence for steady emission from either source at energies above 115 TeV. The derived upper limits on such emission are more than two orders of magnitude lower than earlier claimed detections. We also find no evidence for neutral particle or gamma-ray emission from either source on time scales of one day and 0.5 hr. For Cygnus X-3, there is no evidence for emission correlated with the 4.8 hr X-ray periodicity or with the occurrence of large radio flares. Unless one postulates that these sources were very active earlier and are now dormant, the limits presented here put into question the earlier results, and highlight the difficulties that possible future experiments will have in detecting gamma-ray signals at ultra-high energies.Comment: 26 LaTeX pages, 16 PostScript figures, uses psfig.sty to be published in Physical Review

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper reports a measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is based on a data sample recorded with the ATLAS detector with an integrated luminosity of 0.30 pb^-1 for jets with transverse momentum between 25 and 70 GeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta| < 2.5. D*+/- mesons found in jets are fully reconstructed in the decay chain: D*+ -> D0pi+, D0 -> K-pi+, and its charge conjugate. The production rate is found to be N(D*+/-)/N(jet) = 0.025 +/- 0.001(stat.) +/- 0.004(syst.) for D*+/- mesons that carry a fraction z of the jet momentum in the range 0.3 < z < 1. Monte Carlo predictions fail to describe the data at small values of z, and this is most marked at low jet transverse momentum.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (22 pages total), 5 figures, 1 table, matches published version in Physical Review

Search for supersymmetry in final states with jets, missing transverse momentum and one isolated lepton in sqrt{s} = 7 TeV pp collisions using 1 fb-1 of ATLAS data

We present an update of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing jets, missing transverse momentum, and one isolated electron or muon, using 1.04 fb^-1 of proton-proton collision data at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in the first half of 2011. The analysis is carried out in four distinct signal regions with either three or four jets and variations on the (missing) transverse momentum cuts, resulting in optimized limits for various supersymmetry models. No excess above the standard model background expectation is observed. Limits are set on the visible cross-section of new physics within the kinematic requirements of the search. The results are interpreted as limits on the parameters of the minimal supergravity framework, limits on cross-sections of simplified models with specific squark and gluino decay modes, and limits on parameters of a model with bilinear R-parity violation.Comment: 18 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 9 figures, 4 tables, final version to appear in Physical Review

Reducing heterotic M-theory to five dimensional supergravity on a manifold with boundary

This paper constructs the reduction of heterotic $M$-theory in eleven dimensions to a supergravity model on a manifold with boundary in five dimensions using a Calabi-Yau three-fold. New results are presented for the boundary terms in the action and for the boundary conditions on the bulk fields. Some general features of dualisation on a manifold with boundary are used to explain the origin of some topological terms in the action. The effect of gaugino condensation on the fermion boundary conditions leads to a `twist' in the chirality of the gravitino which can provide an uplifting mechanism in the vacuum energy to cancel the cosmological constant after moduli stabilisation.Comment: 16 pages, RevTe

Understanding the Spatial Clustering of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong

We applied cartographic and geostatistical methods in analyzing the patterns of disease spread during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Hong Kong using geographic information system (GIS) technology. We analyzed an integrated database that contained clinical and personal details on all 1,755 patients confirmed to have SARS from 15 February to 22 June 2003. Elementary mapping of disease occurrences in space and time simultaneously revealed the geographic extent of spread throughout the territory. Statistical surfaces created by the kernel method confirmed that SARS cases were highly clustered and identified distinct disease “hot spots.” Contextual analysis of mean and standard deviation of different density classes indicated that the period from day 1 (18 February) through day 16 (6 March) was the prodrome of the epidemic, whereas days 86 (15 May) to 106 (4 June) marked the declining phase of the outbreak. Origin-and-destination plots showed the directional bias and radius of spread of superspreading events. Integration of GIS technology into routine field epidemiologic surveillance can offer a real-time quantitative method for identifying and tracking the geospatial spread of infectious diseases, as our experience with SARS has demonstrated

Measurement of tau polarization in W->taunu decays with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

In this paper, a measurement of tau polarization in W->taunu decays is presented. It is measured from the energies of the decay products in hadronic tau decays with a single final state charged particle. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 24 pb^-1, were collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in 2010. The measured value of the tau polarization is Ptau = -1.06 +/- 0.04 (stat) + 0.05 (syst) - 0.07 (syst), in agreement with the Standard Model prediction, and is consistent with a physically allowed 95% CL interval [-1,-0.91]. Measurements of tau polarization have not previously been made at hadron colliders.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (25 pages total), 4 figures, 4 tables, revised author list, matches published EPJC versio

Measurement of the correlation between flow harmonics of different order in lead-lead collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Correlations between the elliptic or triangular flow coefficients vm (m=2 or 3) and other flow harmonics vn (n=2 to 5) are measured using √sNN=2.76 TeV Pb+Pb collision data collected in 2010 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 7 μb−1. The vm−vn correlations are measured in midrapidity as a function of centrality, and, for events within the same centrality interval, as a function of event ellipticity or triangularity defined in a forward rapidity region. For events within the same centrality interval, v3 is found to be anticorrelated with v2 and this anticorrelation is consistent with similar anticorrelations between the corresponding eccentricities, ε2 and ε3. However, it is observed that v4 increases strongly with v2, and v5 increases strongly with both v2 and v3. The trend and strength of the vm−vn correlations for n=4 and 5 are found to disagree with εm−εn correlations predicted by initial-geometry models. Instead, these correlations are found to be consistent with the combined effects of a linear contribution to vn and a nonlinear term that is a function of v22 or of v2v3, as predicted by hydrodynamic models. A simple two-component fit is used to separate these two contributions. The extracted linear and nonlinear contributions to v4 and v5 are found to be consistent with previously measured event-plane correlations

Search for W′→tb→qqbb decays in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for a massive W′ gauge boson decaying to a top quark and a bottom quark is performed with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at the LHC. The dataset was taken at a centre-of-mass energy of √s=8 TeV and corresponds to 20.3 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. This analysis is done in the hadronic decay mode of the top quark, where novel jet substructure techniques are used to identify jets from high-momentum top quarks. This allows for a search for high-mass W′ bosons in the range 1.5–3.0 TeV. b-tagging is used to identify jets originating from b-quarks. The data are consistent with Standard Model background-only expectations, and upper limits at 95 % confidence level are set on the W′→tb cross section times branching ratio ranging from 0.16pb to 0.33pb for left-handed W′ bosons, and ranging from 0.10pb to 0.21pb for W′ bosons with purely right-handed couplings. Upper limits at 95 % confidence level are set on the W′-boson coupling to tb as a function of the W′ mass using an effective field theory approach, which is independent of details of particular models predicting a W′boson