Controls on space–time distribution of soft-sediment deformation structures: Applying palaeomagnetic dating to approach the apparent recurrence period of paleoseisms at the Concud Fault (eastern Spain)

This work describes soft-sediment deformation structures (clastic dykes, load structures, diapirs, slumps, nodulizations or mudcracks) identified in three sections (Concud, Ramblillas and Masada Cociero) in the Iberian Range, Spain. These sections were logged from boreholes and outcrops in Upper Pliocene-Lower Pleistocene deposits of the Teruel-Concud Residual Basin, close to de Concud normal fault. Timing of the succession and hence of seismic and non-seismic SSDSs, covering a time span between ~ 3.6 and ~ 1.9 Ma, has been constrained from previous biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic information, then substantially refined from a new magnetostratigraphic study at Masada Cociero profile. Non-seismic SSDSs are relatively well-correlated between sections, while seismic ones are poorly correlated except for several clusters of structures. Between 29 and 35 seismic deformed levels have been computed for the overall stratigraphic succession. Factors controlling the lateral and vertical distribution of SSDSs are their seismic or non-seismic origin, the distance to the seismogenic source (Concud Fault), the sedimentary facies involved in deformation and the observation conditions (borehole core vs. natural outcrop). In the overall stratigraphic section, seismites show an apparent recurrence period of 56 to 108 ka. Clustering of seismic SSDSs levels within a 91-ka-long interval records a period of high paleoseismic activity with an apparent recurrence time of 4.8 to 6.1 ka, associated with increasing sedimentation rate and fault activity. Such activity pattern of the Concud Fault for the Late Pliocene-Early Pliocene, with alternating periods of faster and slower slip, is similar to that for the most recent Quaternary (last ca. 74 ka BP). Concerning the research methods, time occurrence patterns recognized for peaks of paleoseismic activity from SSDSs in boreholes are similar to those inferred from primary evidence in trenches. Consequently, apparent recurrence periods calculated from SSDS inventories collected in borehole logs close to seismogenic faults are comparable to actual recurrence times of large paleoearthquakes

Renormalization Ambiguities in Chern-Simons Theory

We introduce a new family of gauge invariant regularizations of Chern-Simons theories which generate one-loop renormalizations of the coupling constant of the form $k\to k+2 s c_v$ where $s$ can take any arbitrary integer value. In the particular case $s=0$ we get an explicit example of a gauge invariant regularization which does not generate radiative corrections to the bare coupling constant. This ambiguity in the radiative corrections to $k$ is reminiscent of the Coste-L\"uscher results for the parity anomaly in (2+1) fermionic effective actions.Comment: 10 pages, harvmac, no changes, 1 Postscript figure (now included

Gaseous time projection chambers for rare event detection: Results from the T-REX project. II. Dark matter

As part of the T-REX project, a number of R&D and prototyping activities have been carried out during the last years to explore the applicability of Micromegas-read gaseous TPCs in rare event searches like double beta decay (DBD), axion research and low-mass WIMP searches. While in the companion paper we focus on DBD, in this paper we focus on the results regarding the search for dark matter candidates, both axions and WIMPs. Small ultra-low background Micromegas detectors are used to image the x-ray signal expected in axion helioscopes like CAST at CERN. Background levels as low as $0.8\times 10^{-6}$ c keV$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ have already been achieved in CAST while values down to $\sim10^{-7}$ c keV$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ have been obtained in a test bench placed underground in the Laboratorio Subterr\'aneo de Canfranc. Prospects to consolidate and further reduce these values down to $\sim10^{-8}$ c keV$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$will be described. Such detectors, placed at the focal point of x-ray telescopes in the future IAXO experiment, would allow for 10$^5$ better signal-to-noise ratio than CAST, and search for solar axions with $g_{a\gamma}$ down to few 10$^{12}$ GeV$^{-1}$, well into unexplored axion parameter space. In addition, a scaled-up version of these TPCs, properly shielded and placed underground, can be competitive in the search for low-mass WIMPs. The TREX-DM prototype, with $\sim$0.300 kg of Ar at 10 bar, or alternatively $\sim$0.160 kg of Ne at 10 bar, and energy threshold well below 1 keV, has been built to test this concept. We will describe the main technical solutions developed, as well as the results from the commissioning phase on surface. The anticipated sensitivity of this technique might reach $\sim10^{-44}$ cm$^2$ for low mass ($<10$ GeV) WIMPs, well beyond current experimental limits in this mass range.Comment: Published in JCAP. New version with erratum incorporated (new figure 14

The inversion of spectral ratio H/V in a layered system using the Diffuse Field Assumption (DFA)

In order to evaluate the site effects on seismic ground motion and establish preventive measures to mitigate these effects, the dynamic characterization of sites is mandatory. Among the various geophysical tools aimed to this end, the horizontal to vertical spectral ratio (H/V) is a simple way to assess the dominant frequency of a site from seismic ambient noise. The aim of this communication is contributing to enhance the potential of this measurement with a novel method that allows extracting from the H/V the elastic properties of the subsoil, assumed here as a multilayer medium. For that purpose, we adopt the Diffuse Field Assumption from both the experimental and the modeling perspectives. At the experimental end, the idea is to define general criteria that make the data processing closely supported by theory. On the modeling front, the challenge is to compute efficiently the imaginary part of Green’s function. The Cauchy’s residue theory in the horizontal wavenumber complex plane is the selected approach. This method allows both identifying the contributions of body and surface waves and computing them separately. This permits exploring the theoretical properties of the H/V under different compositions of the seismic ambient noise. This answers some questions that historically aroused and gives new insights into the H/V method. The efficient forward calculation is the prime ingredient of an inversion scheme based on both gradient and heuristic searches. The availability of efficient forward calculation of H/V allows exploring some relevant relationships between the H/V curves and the parameters. This allows generating useful criteria to speed up inversion. As in many inverse problems, the non-uniqueness issues also emerge here. A joint inversion method that considers also the dispersion curves of surface waves extracted from seismic ambient noise is presented and applied to experimental data. This joint scheme mitigates effectively the non-uniqueness

CAST microbulk micromegas in the Canfranc Underground Laboratory

During the last taking data campaigns of the CAST experiment, the micromegas detectors have achieved background levels of $\approx 5 \times 10^{-6}$keV$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ between 2 and 9 keV. This performance has been possible thanks to the introduction of the microbulk technology, the implementation of a shielding and the development of discrimination algorithms. It has motivated new studies towards a deeper understanding of CAST detectors background. One of the working lines includes the construction of a replica of the set-up used in CAST by micromegas detectors and its installation in the Canfranc Underground Laboratory. Thanks to the comparison between the performance of the detectors underground and at surface, shielding upgrades, etc, different contributions to the detectors background have been evaluated. In particular, an upper limit $< 2 \times 10^{-7}$keV$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ for the intrinsic background of the detector has been obtained. This work means a first evaluation of the potential of the newest micromegas technology in an underground laboratory, the most suitable environment for Rare Event Searches.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures. To appear in the proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Technology and Instrumentation for Particle Physics (TIPP 2011

Systemic oncolytic adenovirus delivered in mesenchymal carrier cells modulate tumor infiltrating immune cells and tumor microenvironment in mice with neuroblastoma.

Celyvir (autologous mesenchymal cells -MSCs- that carry an oncolytic adenovirus) is a new therapeutic strategy for metastatic tumors developed by our research group over the last decade. There are limitations for studying the immune effects of human oncolytic adenoviruses in murine models since these viruses do not replicate naturally in these animals. The use of xenografts in immunodeficient mice prevent assessing important clinical aspects of this therapy such as the antiadenoviral immune response or the possible intratumoral immune changes, both of tumor infiltrating leukocytes and of the microenvironment. In our strategy, the presence of MSCs in the medicinal product adds an extra level of complexity. We present here a murine model that overcomes many of these limitations. We found that carrier cells outcompeted intravenous administration of naked particles in delivering the oncolytic virus into the tumor masses. The protection that MSCs could provide to the oncolytic adenovirus did not preclude the development of an antiadenoviral immune response. However, the presence of circulating antiadenoviral antibodies did not prevent changes detected at the tumor masses: increased infiltration and changes in the quality of immune cells per unit of tumor volume, and a less protumoral and more inflammatory profile of the tumor microenvironment. We believe that the model described here will enable the study of crucial events related to the immune responses affecting both the medicinal product and the tumor

Lessons from the operation of the "Penning-Fluorescent" TPC and prospects

We have recently reported the development of a new type of high-pressure Xenon time projection chamber operated with an ultra-low diffusion mixture and that simultaneously displays Penning effect and fluorescence in the near-visible region (300 nm). The concept, dubbed `Penning-Fluorescent' TPC, allows the simultaneous reconstruction of primary charge and scintillation with high topological and calorimetric fidelity

Nuevas cartografías temáticas del sector norte de la Fosa de Teruel

La Cuenca de Teruel tiene una dirección N-S y es la mayor estructura extensional intracontinental del Mioceno tardío-Cua- ternario ubicada dentro de la Cadena Ibérica centro-oriental. A pesar de esto, su estudio ha sido algo desigual a lo largo de los años, lo que también se refleja en las cartografías existentes de la cuenca. Los mapas geológicos anteriores a escala de cuenca muestran una carencia en el reconocimiento de las principales estructuras de borde e intracuencales (e.g. Godoy et al., 1983a,b). En este trabajo presentamos un nuevo conjunto de mapas temáticos (geológico, estructural, sedimentario y morfotectónico) del sector norte de la cuenca y su implementación en un espacio de trabajo vectorial, lo que permite un aná- lisis “rápido y fácil” de la fracturación, segmentación estructural, salto vs. distancia y evolución del rifting. La fracturación a escala cartográfica muestra una red de fracturas NE-SW, E-W a ESE-WNW, N-S y NNW-SSE en las rocas mesozoicas del pre-rift, mientras que en los materiales neógenos synrift presentan una dirección N-S dominante en el borde de cuenca pero las principales fallas intracuencales tienen una orientación más diversa (NNE-SSW a NE-SW, E-W o NW-SE). La correlación y los desplazamientos verticales de las sucesivas unidades sedimentarias y de varias superficies de aplanamiento erosivo revelan que la deformación se inició en las fallas del margen, mientras que las fallas intracuencales se desarrollaron principalmente en una etapa posterior. The N-S trending Teruel Basin rift is the largest Late Miocene-Quaternary extensional intracontinental structure located within the central-eastern Iberian Chain. Despite this, its study has been somewhat uneven over the years, which is also reflected in the existing maps of the basin. The previous geological maps at a basin-scale do not recognize the main boundary and intrabasinal structures (e.g. Godoy et al., 1983a,b). In this work, we present a new themed map group of the northern sector (geological, structural, sedimentary and morphotectonic) and their implementation in a vectorial workspace, which allows a “quick&easy” analysis of fractures, segmentation structures, throws vs. distance and rifting evolution. Fractures on a map scale show a network of NE-SW, E-W to ESE-WNW, N-S and NNW-SSE fractures in the pre-rift Mesozoic rocks, while Neogene synrift sediments present a dominant N-S strike in the boundary but intrabasinal major faults with diverse orientation (NNE-SSW to NE-SW, E-W, or NW-SE). The correlation and offsets of the successive sedimentary units and seve- ral planation surfaces reveal that tectonic slip initiated at the border faults under an E-W extension, while intrabasinal ones mainly developed in a later stage

Intracluster interactions in butterfly {Fe3 LnO2} molecules with the non-Kramers ions Tb(III) and Ho(III)

The intracluster exchange interactions within the "butterfly" Fe3Ln(µ3-O)2(CCl3COO)8(H2O)(THF)3] molecules, where Ln(III) represents a lanthanide cation, have been determined by a combination of x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) along with an interaction model. We have studied the compounds with Ln=Tb and Ho, both non-Kramers lanthanides and with high uniaxial anisotropy, and Ln=Lu(III) and Y(III) as pseudolanthanides, which supply nonmagnetic Ln reference cases. At low temperature, the three Fe atoms can be considered as a self-unit with total spin SFe3=5/2. Using the element selectivity of the XMCD magnetometry, measured at the Ln L2,3 edges, together with the VSM measurements, the local magnetization of the Ln ion and the Fe3 subcluster, as a function of the field and low temperature (T˜2.5K), has been determined separately. These results are described quantitatively in the framework of a theoretical model based on an effective spin Hamiltonian, which considers the competing effects of intracluster interactions and the external applied magnetic field. The Ln-Fe3 exchange interaction within the {Fe3LnO2} cluster has been determined to be antiferromagnetic, in both Tb and Ho compounds, with JFeTb/kB=-0.13(1)K and JFeHo/kB=-0.18(1)K, respectively. In both cases, a field-induced reorientation of the Fe3 and Ln spins from antiparallel to parallel orientation takes place at a threshold field µ0H=1.1 and 2 T, for the {Fe3TbO2} and {Fe3HoO2} compounds, respectively. By comparison with other compounds of the series with uniaxial anisotropy, it is concluded that the polarizability of the Fe3 subcluster magnetic moment decreases in the trend {Fe3YO2}¿{Fe3TbO2}¿{Fe3HoO2}¿{Fe3DyO2}, because of the increasing opposition of the exchange antiferromagnetic field caused by the Ln ion. In the Ln=Tb, Ho, and Dy, the magnetization of the whole molecule is dominated by the anisotropy of the Ln ion. The intracluster Fe3-Ln exchange interactions are very weak compared to the Ln ligand field and Fe-Fe exchange interactions