The LBNO long-baseline oscillation sensitivities with two conventional neutrino beams at different baselines

The proposed Long Baseline Neutrino Observatory (LBNO) initially consists of $\sim 20$ kton liquid double phase TPC complemented by a magnetised iron calorimeter, to be installed at the Pyh\"asalmi mine, at a distance of 2300 km from CERN. The conventional neutrino beam is produced by 400 GeV protons accelerated at the SPS accelerator delivering 700 kW of power. The long baseline provides a unique opportunity to study neutrino flavour oscillations over their 1st and 2nd oscillation maxima exploring the $L/E$ behaviour, and distinguishing effects arising from $\delta_{CP}$ and matter. In this paper we show how this comprehensive physics case can be further enhanced and complemented if a neutrino beam produced at the Protvino IHEP accelerator complex, at a distance of 1160 km, and with modest power of 450 kW is aimed towards the same far detectors. We show that the coupling of two independent sub-MW conventional neutrino and antineutrino beams at different baselines from CERN and Protvino will allow to measure CP violation in the leptonic sector at a confidence level of at least $3\sigma$ for 50\% of the true values of $\delta_{CP}$ with a 20 kton detector. With a far detector of 70 kton, the combination allows a $3\sigma$ sensitivity for 75\% of the true values of $\delta_{CP}$ after 10 years of running. Running two independent neutrino beams, each at a power below 1 MW, is more within today's state of the art than the long-term operation of a new single high-energy multi-MW facility, which has several technical challenges and will likely require a learning curve.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figure

Performance study of a 3 x 1 x 1 m(3) dual phase liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber exposed to cosmic rays

This work would not have been possible without the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation, Switzerland; CEA and CNRS/IN2P3, France; KEK and the JSPS program, Japan; Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion in Spain under grants FPA2016-77347-C2, SEV-2016-0588 and MdM-2015-0509, Comunidad de Madrid, the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the fellowship (LCF/BQ/DI18/11660043) from "La Caixa" Foundation (ID 100010434); the Programme PNCDI III, CERN-RO, under Contract 2/2020, Romania; the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-SC0011686. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program under Grant Agreement no. 654168. The authors are also grateful to the French government operated by the National Research Agency (ANR) for the LABEX Enigmass, LABEX Lyon Institute of Origins (ANR-10-LABX-0066) of the Universite de Lyon for its financial support within the program "Investissements d'Avenir" (ANR-11-IDEX-0007).We report the results of the analyses of the cosmic ray data collected with a 4 tonne (3x1x1 m(3)) active mass (volume) Liquid Argon Time-Projection Chamber (TPC) operated in a dual-phase mode. We present a detailed study of the TPC's response, its main detector parameters and performance. The results are important for the understanding and further developments of the dual-phase technology, thanks to the verification of key aspects, such as the extraction of electrons from liquid to gas and their amplification through the entire one square metre readout plain, gain stability, purity and charge sharing between readout views.Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)French Atomic Energy CommissionCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT)Japan Society for the Promotion of ScienceSpanish Government FPA2016-77347-C2 SEV-2016-0588MdM-2015-0509Comunidad de MadridCERCA program of the Generalitat de CatalunyaLa Caixa Foundation LCF/BQ/DI18/11660043 100010434Programme PNCDI III, RomaniaCERN-RO, Romania 2/2020United States Department of Energy (DOE) SC0011686European Commission 654168Universite de Lyon ANR-10-LABX-0066 ANR-11-IDEX-000

A MSFD complementary approach for the assessment of pressures, knowledge and data gaps in Southern European Seas : the PERSEUS experience

PERSEUS project aims to identify the most relevant pressures exerted on the ecosystems of the Southern European Seas (SES), highlighting knowledge and data gaps that endanger the achievement of SES Good Environmental Status (GES) as mandated by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). A complementary approach has been adopted, by a meta-analysis of existing literature on pressure/impact/knowledge gaps summarized in tables related to the MSFD descriptors, discriminating open waters from coastal areas. A comparative assessment of the Initial Assessments (IAs) for five SES countries has been also independently performed. The comparison between meta-analysis results and IAs shows similarities for coastal areas only. Major knowledge gaps have been detected for the biodiversity, marine food web, marine litter and underwater noise descriptors. The meta-analysis also allowed the identification of additional research themes targeting research topics that are requested to the achievement of GES. 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.peer-reviewe

Comparação termohigrométrica de sub-altitude em área urbana e rural em São Carlos, Brasil, por meio de VANT/DRONE.

A Radiossondagem de sub-altitude tem como objetivo mensurar os dados climatológicos em vários níveis verticais da atmosfera por meio de um equipamento denominado radiossonda. Além do mais, é conhecido que os diferentes tipos de uso e ocupação do solo (urbano, industrial, rural, florestal) alteram o balanço de energia entre a superfície e a atmosfera. Dessa forma, o estudo proposto tem como objetivo analisar e comparar os valores de temperatura e umidade relativa do ar próximo a superfície (1,5m de altura) e em diferentes alturas (50m e 190m da superfície) em área urbana e rural no município de São Carlos, Brasil, no período noturno em episódios de inverno, por meio de termohigrômetros acoplados em um Veículo Aéreo Não-Tripulado (Vant/Drone) do tipo quadricóptero (quatro hélices). O voo na área urbana foi realizado no dia 13/07/2018 e na área rural no dia 26/07/2018 entre 19:30 e 20:30. Os resultados demonstraram que na área urbana em períodos noturnos a temperatura e umidade relativa do ar são maiores próxima a superfície em relação aos dados de sub-altitude. Já na área rural em períodos noturnos a temperatura do ar é menor e a umidade relativa do ar é maior próximo a superfície em comparação aos dados de sub-altitude

Restoring the Black Sea in times of uncertainty.

It was not until the late 1980s that the international community became aware of the magnitude of the ecological crisis underway in the Black Sea. Major components of the ecosystem however, had begun to collapse as early as 1973 when records show significant areas of summer hypoxia on the north-western shelf as a result of eutrophication. In a remarkably short space of time, perhaps as little as five years, these areas extended over most of the shelf, some 12% of the surface of the 420,000km2 Black Sea (Zaitsev, 1992). In the late 1980s, the hypoxic events had become so severe that huge quantities of benthic organisms had died and were washed up and rotting on the beaches of Romania and Ukraine. At the same time, commercial yields of the relatively abundant anchovies had plummeted throughout the Black Sea following a decade of decline of fisheries of higher value predatory species. Then there was the arrival of the uninvited comb jelly Mnemiopsis leydi, transported in ballast water from the eastern seaboard of America. The Mnemiopsis population in 1989 was estimated as 800 million tonnes with biomasses as large as 5kg/m2 in places (Vinogradov 1992). By 1992, when the alarm bell was sounded for international support to the Black Sea (Mee 1992), the future of this unique marine system seemed grim. Social and economic collapse in the countries emerging from communism had also taken its toll of polluting industry and intensive farming and gave the Black Sea a window of opportunity for recovery and for the countries in the region to put management systems in place to enable recovery and avoid further decline. These systems rely on sound and relevant scientific information. In this article, we shall examine the management systems, discuss the scientific uncertainties and take a look at some of the actions being taken to reduce them

Spatial distribution in sediment characteristics and benthic activity on the northwestern Black Sea shelf

The influence of the River Danube as a major source of nutrients and suspended solids to the continental shelf of the Black Sea has been analyzed. In the framework of the EC project EROS-2000, sediment cores from 33 stations on the northwestern continental shelf were sampled in August 1995. Spatial patterns in structural sediment characteristics, macrobenthos composition and benthic mineralization rates were examined using ordination techniques. Three general areas could be distinguished according to the distribution of abiotic sediment characteristics and macrobenthos community: (1) The area just in front of the Danube Delta where large amounts of nutrients and suspended solids are discharged. High sedimentation rates of fine-grained sediments and high benthic mineralization rates characterized this area. The macrobenthos community was dominated by deposit feeders. (2) The northern part of the continental shelf where an anticyclonic gyre is located. The majority of the Danube discharges are transported to this region. This area was characterized by low sedimentation rates. However, the deposited material contained a larger fraction of fresh organic matter compared to the delta area, resulting in high benthic mineralization rates. Suspension feeders dominated the macrobenthos community. (3) The southern part of the continental shelf was characterized by low sedimentation rates and low rates of benthic mineralization. In this area suspension feeders dominated the macrobenthos community. Oxygen fluxes into the sediment ranged between 2 and 52 mmol 02 m-2 d-l1 (average 21 mmol O2 m-2 d-l) decreasing with water depth. Macrobenthos accounted for 20% of the total benthic oxygen consumption. In the northern part of the continental shelf and in the coastal stations, microorganisms, and micro- and meiobenthos dominated benthic community respiration, while macrobenthos became relatively more important in terms of oxygen consumption in the southern part of the continental shelf

Spatial distribution in sediment characteristics and benthic activity on the northwestern Black Sea shelf

The influence of the River Danube as a major source of nutrients and suspended solids to the continental shelf of the Black Sea has been analyzed. In the framework of the EC project EROS-2000, sediment cores from 33 stations on the northwestern continental shelf were sampled in August 1995. Spatial patterns in structural sediment characteristics, macrobenthos composition and benthic mineralization rates were examined using ordination techniques. Three general areas could be distinguished according to the distribution of abiotic sediment characteristics and macrobenthos community: (1) The area just in front of the Danube Delta where large amounts of nutrients and suspended solids are discharged. High sedimentation rates of fine-grained sediments and high benthic mineralization rates characterized this area. The macrobenthos community was dominated by deposit feeders. (2) The northern part of the continental shelf where an anticyclonic gyre is located. The majority of the Danube discharges are transported to this region. This area was characterized by low sedimentation rates. However, the deposited material contained a larger fraction of fresh organic matter compared to the delta area, resulting in high benthic mineralization rates. Suspension feeders dominated the macrobenthos community. (3) The southern part of the continental shelf was characterized by low sedimentation rates and low rates of benthic mineralization. In this area suspension feeders dominated the macrobenthos community. Oxygen fluxes into the sediment ranged between 2 and 52 mmol O-2 m(-2) d(-1) (average 21 mmol O-2 m(-2) d(-1)) decreasing with water depth. Macrobenthos accounted for 20% of the total benthic oxygen consumption. In the northern part of the continental shelf and in the coastal stations, microorganisms, and micro- and meiobenthos dominated benthic community respiration, while macrobenthos became relatively more important in terms of oxygen consumption in the southern part of the continental shelf. [KEYWORDS: Black Sea; Danube; macrobenthos; benthic oxygen flux; ordination; benthic-pelagic coupling East china sea; organic-matter; marine-sediments; continental-margin; oxygen-consumption; respiration; carbon; nitrogen; indicators; communities

Biomass and size composition of the comb jelly Mnemiopsis sp in the north-western Black Sea during Spring 1997 and Summer 1995

This study assessed the abundance, biomass and size structure of the ctenophore Mnemiopsis sp. in the north-western (NW) Black Sea during the summer of 1995 and the spring of 1997, i.e. several years after this species became the dominant zooplankter in this area. Biomass was measured directly as wet weight and then converted to carbon units. The total population biomass was low in spring (114 Mg C m(-2)) and peaked in July (630 mg C m(-2)). Spawning increased enormously when the water temperature exceeded 22 degreesC and was primarily restricted to coastal stations. Larval biomass was highest in the plume of the river Danube. The body length (L, in cm) and volume (V, in ml) of a large number of animals were measured in each season and related to each other according to V=a L-b. The parameters of the equation changed significantly from spring (V=0.244 L- 2.25) to summer (V=0.575 L-1.88). With all data pooled, the equation was (V=0.303 L-2.268), which is similar to earlier results from other areas. Length to volume relations have been used by previous authors to calculate Mnemiopsis biomass in the Black Sea. The use of various allometric equations published in the literature resulted in estimates of the population biomass of Mnemiopsis differing by a factor of two. For a given size class, the biomass of Mnemiopsis individuals increased from spring through to late summer. The population biomass of Mnemiopsis was similar to estimates obtained from the same area in the early 1990s when comparable methods were used. Current estimates of the total biomass of Mnemiopsis are, however, subject to serious biases originating from the use of different sampling devices and methods of calculation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved