1,129 research outputs found
Searches for Stable Strangelets in Ordinary Matter: Overview and a Recent Example
Our knowledge on the possible existence in nature of stable exotic particles
depends solely upon experimental observation. Guided by this general principle
and motivated by theoretical hypotheses on the existence of stable particles of
strange quark matter, a variety of experimental searches have been performed.
We provide an introduction to the theoretical hypotheses, an overview of the
past searches, and a more detailed description of a recent search for
helium-like strangelets in the Earth's atmosphere using a sensitive laser
spectroscopy method
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Final Report: Caustic Waste-Soil Weathering Reactions and Their Impacts on Trace Contaminant Migration and Sequestration
The principal goal of this project was to assess the molecular nature and stability of radionuclide (137-Cs, 90-Sr, and 129-I) immobilization during weathering reactions in bulk Hanford sediments and their high surface area clay mineral constituents. We focused on the unique aqueous geochemical conditions that are representative of waste-impacted locations in the Hanford site vadose zone: high ionic strength, high pH and high Al concentrations. The specific objectives of the work were to (i) measure the coupling of clay mineral weathering and contaminant uptake kinetics of Cs+, Sr2+ and I-; (ii) determine the molecular structure of contaminant binding sites and their change with weathering time during and after exposure to synthetic tank waste leachate (STWL); (iii) establish the stability of neoformed weathering products and their sequestered contaminants upon exposure of the solids to more “natural” soil solutions (i.e., after removal of the caustic waste source); and (iv) integrate macroscopic, microscopic and spectroscopic data to distinguish labile from non-labile contaminant binding environments, including their dependence on system composition and weathering time. During this funding period, we completed a large set of bench-scale collaborative experiments and product characterization aimed at elucidating the coupling between mineral transformation reactions and contaminant sequestration/stabilization. Our experiments included three representative Hanford sediments: course and fine sediments collected from the Hanford Formation and Ringold Silt, in addition to investigations with specimen clay minerals illite, vermiculite, smectite and kaolinite. These experiments combined macroscopic measurements of element release, contaminant uptake and subsequent neoformed mineral dissolution behavior, with detailed studies of solid phase products using SEM and TEM microscopy, NMR, XAS and FTIR spectroscopy. Our studies have shown direct coupling between mineral transformation reactions and contaminant sequestration/stabilization
How magic is the magic 68Ni nucleus?
We calculate the B(E2) strength in 68Ni and other nickel isotopes using
several theoretical approaches. We find that in 68Ni the gamma transition to
the first 2+ state exhausts only a fraction of the total B(E2) strength, which
is mainly collected in excited states around 5 MeV. This effect is sensitive to
the energy splitting between the fp shell and the g_{9/2}orbital. We argue that
the small experimental B(E2) value is not strong evidence for the double-magic
character of 68Ni.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Exponentiation of the Drell-Yan cross section near partonic threshold in the DIS and MSbar schemes
It has been observed that in the DIS scheme the refactorization of the
Drell-Yan cross section leading to exponentiation of threshold logarithms can
also be used to organize a class of constant terms, most of which arise from
the ratio of the timelike Sudakov form factor to its spacelike counterpart. We
extend this exponentiation to include all constant terms, and demonstrate how a
similar organization may be achieved in the MSbar scheme. We study the
relevance of these exponentiations in a two-loop analysis.Comment: 20 pages, JHEP style, no figure
Ellagitannins with Glucopyranose Cores Have Higher Affinities to Proteins than Acyclic Ellagitannins by Isothermal Titration Calorimetry
The thermodynamics of the interactions of different ellagitannins with two proteins, namely, bovine serum albumin (BSA) and gelatin, were studied by isothermal titration calorimetry. Twelve individual ellagitannins, including different monomers, dimers, and a trimer, were used. The studies showed that several structural features affected the interaction between the ellagitannin and the protein. The interactions of ellagitannins with proteins were stronger with gelatin than with BSA. The ellagitannin-gelatin interactions contained both the primary stronger and the secondary weaker binding sites. The ellagitannin-BSA interactions showed very weak secondary interactions. The ellagitannins with glucopyranose cores had stronger interaction than C-glycosidic ellagitannins with both proteins. In addition, the observed enthalpy change increased as the degree of oligomerization increased. The stronger interactions were also observed with free galloyl groups in the ellagitannin structure and with higher molecular flexibility. Other smaller structural features did not show any overall trend
Nonperturbative Effects in Gluon Radiation and Photoproduction of Quark Pairs
We introduce a nonperturbative interaction for light-cone fluctuations
containing quarks and gluons. The interaction squeezes the transverse
size of these fluctuations in the photon and one does not need to simulate this
effect via effective quark masses. The strength of this interaction is fixed by
data. Data on diffractive dissociation of hadrons and photons show that the
nonperturbative interaction of gluons is much stronger. We fix the parameters
for the nonperturbative quark-gluon interaction by data for diffractive
dissociation to large masses (triple-Pomeron regime). This allows us to predict
nuclear shadowing for gluons which turns out to be not as strong as
perturbative QCD predicts. We expect a delayed onset of gluon shadowing at shadowing of quarks. Gluon shadowing turns out to be nearly scale
invariant up to virtualities due to presence of a semihard
scale characterizing the strong nonperturbative interaction of gluons. We use
the same concept to improve our description of gluon bremsstrahlung which is
related to the distribution function for a quark-gluon fluctuation and the
interaction cross section of a fluctuation with a nucleon. We expect
the nonperturbative interaction to suppress dramatically the gluon radiation at
small transverse momenta compared to perturbative calculations.Comment: 58 pages of Latex including 11 figures. Shadowing for soft gluons and
Fig. 6 are added as well as a few reference
Glauber - Gribov approach for DIS on nuclei in N=4 SYM
In this paper the Glauber-Gribov approach for deep-inelastic scattering (DIS)
with nuclei is developed in N=4 SYM. It is shown that the amplitude displays
the same general properties, such as geometrical scaling, as is the case in the
high density QCD approach. We found that the quantum effects leading to the
graviton reggeization, give rise to an imaginary part of the nucleon amplitude,
which makes the DIS in N=4 SYM almost identical to the one expected in high
density QCD. We concluded that the impact parameter dependence of the nucleon
amplitude is very essential for N=4 SYM, and the entire kinematic region can be
divided into three regions which are discussed in the paper. We revisited the
dipole description for DIS and proposed a new renormalized Lagrangian for the
shock wave formalism which reproduces the Glauber-Gribov approach in a certain
kinematic region. However the saturation momentum turns out to be independent
of energy, as it has been discussed by Albacete, Kovchegov and Taliotis. We
discuss the physical meaning of such a saturation momentum and argue
that one can consider only within the shock wave approximation.Comment: 40pp.,9 figures in eps file
Nuclear shadowing in deep inelastic scattering on nuclei: leading twist versus eikonal approaches
We use several diverse parameterizations of diffractive parton distributions,
extracted in leading twist QCD analyses of the HERA diffractive deep inelastic
scattering (DIS) data, to make predictions for leading twist nuclear shadowing
of nuclear quark and gluon distributions in DIS on nuclei. We find that the
HERA diffractive data are sufficiently precise to allow us to predict large
nuclear shadowing for gluons and quarks, unambiguously. We performed detailed
studies of nuclear shadowing for up and charm sea quarks and gluons within
several scenarios of shadowing and diffractive slopes, as well as at central
impact parameters. We compare these leading twist results with those obtained
from the eikonal approach to nuclear shadowing (which is based on a very
different space-time picture) and observe sharply contrasting predictions for
the size and Q^2-dependence of nuclear shadowing. The most striking differences
arise for the interaction of small dipoles with nuclei, in particular for the
longitudinal structure function F_{L}^{A}.Comment: 43 pages, 16 figures, requires JHEP style fil
Nuclear dependence coefficient for the Drell-Yan and J/ production
Define the nuclear dependence coefficient in terms of ratio
of transverse momentum spectrum in hadron-nucleus and in hadron-nucleon
collisions: . We argue that in small region, the
for the Drell-Yan and J/ production is given by a universal function:\
, where parameters a and b are completely determined by either
calculable quantities or independently measurable physical observables. We
demonstrate that this universal function is insensitive to the
A for normal nuclear targets. For a color deconfined nuclear medium, the
becomes strongly dependent on the A. We also show that our
for the Drell-Yan process is naturally linked to perturbatively
calculated at large without any free parameters, and the
is consistent with E772 data for all .Comment: latex, 28 pages, 10 figures, updated two figures, and add more
discussion
Parity Violating Measurements of Neutron Densities
Parity violating electron nucleus scattering is a clean and powerful tool for
measuring the spatial distributions of neutrons in nuclei with unprecedented
accuracy. Parity violation arises from the interference of electromagnetic and
weak neutral amplitudes, and the of the Standard Model couples primarily
to neutrons at low . The data can be interpreted with as much confidence
as electromagnetic scattering. After briefly reviewing the present theoretical
and experimental knowledge of neutron densities, we discuss possible parity
violation measurements, their theoretical interpretation, and applications. The
experiments are feasible at existing facilities. We show that theoretical
corrections are either small or well understood, which makes the interpretation
clean. The quantitative relationship to atomic parity nonconservation
observables is examined, and we show that the electron scattering asymmetries
can be directly applied to atomic PNC because the observables have
approximately the same dependence on nuclear shape.Comment: 38 pages, 7 ps figures, very minor changes, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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