15,116 research outputs found
High-precision radiocarbon dating of the construction phase of Oakbank Crannog, Loch Tay, Perthshire
Many of the Loch Tay crannogs were built in the Early Iron Age and so calibration of the radiocarbon ages produces
very broad calendar age ranges due to the well-documented Hallstatt plateau in the calibration curve. However, the
large oak timbers that were used in the construction of some of the crannogs potentially provide a means of improving the precision of the dating through subdividing them into decadal or subdecadal increments, dating them to high precision and wiggle-matching the resulting data to the master <sup>14</sup>C calibration curve. We obtained a sample from 1 oak timber from Oakbank Crannog comprising 70 rings (Sample OB06 WMS 1, T103) including sapwood that was complete to the bark edge. The timber is situated on the northeast edge of the main living area of the crannog and as a large and strong oak pile would have been a useful support in more than 1 phase of occupation and may be related to the earliest construction phase of the site. This was sectioned into 5-yr increments and dated to a precision of approximately ±8–16 <sup>14</sup>C yr (1 σ). The wiggle-match predicts that the last ring dated was formed around 500 BC (maximum range of 520–465 BC) and should be taken as indicative of the likely time of construction of Oakbank Crannog. This is a considerable improvement on the estimates based on single <sup>14</sup>C ages made on oak samples, which typically encompassed the period from around 800–400 BC
The Two-loop Anomalous Dimension Matrix for Soft Gluon Exchange
The resummation of soft gluon exchange for QCD hard scattering requires a
matrix of anomalous dimensions. We compute this matrix directly for arbitrary 2
to n massless processes for the first time at two loops. Using color generator
notation, we show that it is proportional to the one-loop matrix. This result
reproduces all pole terms in dimensional regularization of the explicit
calculations of massless 2 to 2 amplitudes in the literature, and it predicts
all poles at next-to-next-to-leading order in any 2 to n process that has been
computed at next-to-leading order. The proportionality of the one- and two-loop
matrices makes possible the resummation in closed form of the
next-to-next-to-leading logarithms and poles in dimensional regularization for
the 2 to n processes.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, revte
Continuous phase amplification with a Sagnac interferometer
We describe a weak value inspired phase amplification technique in a Sagnac
interferometer. We monitor the relative phase between two paths of a slightly
misaligned interferometer by measuring the average position of a split-Gaussian
mode in the dark port. Although we monitor only the dark port, we show that the
signal varies linearly with phase and that we can obtain similar sensitivity to
balanced homodyne detection. We derive the source of the amplification both
with classical wave optics and as an inverse weak value.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, previously submitted for publicatio
Role of proton irradiation and relative air humidity on iron corrosion
This paper presents a study of the effects of proton irradiation on iron
corrosion. Since it is known that in humid atmospheres, iron corrosion is
enhanced by the double influence of air and humidity, we studied the iron
corrosion under irradiation with a 45% relative humidity. Three proton beam
intensities (5, 10 and 20 nA) were used. To characterise the corrosion layer,
we used ion beam methods (Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS), Elastic
Recoil Detection Analysis (ERDA)) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. The
corrosion kinetics are plotted for each proton flux. A diffusion model of the
oxidant species is proposed, taking into account the fact that the flux through
the surface is dependent on the kinetic factor K. This model provides evidence
for the dependence of the diffusion coefficient, D, and the kinetic factor, K,
on the proton beam intensity. Comparison of the values for D with the diffusion
coefficients for thermal oxygen diffusion in iron at 300 K suggests an
enhancement due to irradiation of 6 orders of magnitude
Amplitudes and Spinor-Helicity in Six Dimensions
The spinor-helicity formalism has become an invaluable tool for understanding
the S-matrix of massless particles in four dimensions. In this paper we
construct a spinor-helicity formalism in six dimensions, and apply it to derive
compact expressions for the three, four and five point tree amplitudes of
Yang-Mills theory. Using the KLT relations, it is a straightforward process to
obtain amplitudes in linearized gravity from these Yang-Mills amplitudes; we
demonstrate this by writing down the gravitational three and four point
amplitudes. Because there is no conserved helicity in six dimensions, these
amplitudes describe the scattering of all possible polarization states (as well
as Kaluza-Klein excitations) in four dimensions upon dimensional reduction. We
also briefly discuss a convenient formulation of the BCFW recursion relations
in higher dimensions.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures. Minor improvements of the discussio
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Ensemble prediction for nowcasting with a convection-permitting model - II: forecast error statistics
A 24-member ensemble of 1-h high-resolution forecasts over the Southern United Kingdom is used to study short-range forecast error statistics. The initial conditions are found from perturbations from an ensemble transform Kalman filter. Forecasts from this system are assumed to lie within the bounds of forecast error of an operational forecast system. Although noisy, this system is capable of producing physically reasonable statistics which are analysed and compared to statistics implied from a variational assimilation system. The variances for temperature errors for instance show structures that reflect convective activity. Some variables, notably potential temperature and specific humidity perturbations, have autocorrelation functions that deviate from 3-D isotropy at the convective-scale (horizontal scales less than 10 km). Other variables, notably the velocity potential for horizontal divergence perturbations, maintain 3-D isotropy at all scales. Geostrophic and hydrostatic balances are studied by examining correlations between terms in the divergence and vertical momentum equations respectively. Both balances are found to decay as the horizontal scale decreases. It is estimated that geostrophic balance becomes less important at scales smaller than 75 km, and hydrostatic balance becomes less important at scales smaller than 35 km, although more work is required to validate these findings. The implications of these results for high-resolution data assimilation are discussed
Energy flows in gesture-speech physics: The respiratory-vocal system and its coupling with hand gestures
Expressive moments in communicative hand gestures often align with emphatic stress in speech. It has recently been found that acoustic markers of emphatic stress arise naturally during steady-state phonation when upper-limb movements impart physical impulses on the body, most likely affecting acoustics via respiratory activity. In this confirmatory study, participants (N = 29) repeatedly uttered consonant-vowel (/pa/) mono-syllables while moving in particular phase relations with speech, or not moving the upper limbs. This study shows that respiration-related activity is affected by (especially high-impulse) gesturing when vocalizations occur near peaks in physical impulse. This study further shows that gesture-induced moments of bodily impulses increase the amplitude envelope of speech, while not similarly affecting the Fundamental Frequency (F0). Finally, tight relations between respiration-related activity and vocalization were observed, even in the absence of movement, but even more so when upper-limb movement is present. The current findings expand a developing line of research showing that speech is modulated by functional biomechanical linkages between hand gestures and the respiratory system. This identification of gesture-speech biomechanics promises to provide an alternative phylogenetic, ontogenetic, and mechanistic explanatory route of why communicative upper limb movements co-occur with speech in humans. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Classification of Standard Model Particles in Orbifold Grand Unified Theories
We classify the standard model fermions, which originate from bulk fields of
the or representation after orbifold breaking, in
grand unified theories on 5 or 6-dimensional space-time, under the
condition that , and survive as zero modes.Comment: 24 pages, typos corrected, to appear in IJMP
Constructing the Tree-Level Yang-Mills S-Matrix Using Complex Factorization
A remarkable connection between BCFW recursion relations and constraints on
the S-matrix was made by Benincasa and Cachazo in 0705.4305, who noted that
mutual consistency of different BCFW constructions of four-particle amplitudes
generates non-trivial (but familiar) constraints on three-particle coupling
constants --- these include gauge invariance, the equivalence principle, and
the lack of non-trivial couplings for spins >2. These constraints can also be
derived with weaker assumptions, by demanding the existence of four-point
amplitudes that factorize properly in all unitarity limits with complex
momenta. From this starting point, we show that the BCFW prescription can be
interpreted as an algorithm for fully constructing a tree-level S-matrix, and
that complex factorization of general BCFW amplitudes follows from the
factorization of four-particle amplitudes. The allowed set of BCFW deformations
is identified, formulated entirely as a statement on the three-particle sector,
and using only complex factorization as a guide. Consequently, our analysis
based on the physical consistency of the S-matrix is entirely independent of
field theory. We analyze the case of pure Yang-Mills, and outline a proof for
gravity. For Yang-Mills, we also show that the well-known scaling behavior of
BCFW-deformed amplitudes at large z is a simple consequence of factorization.
For gravity, factorization in certain channels requires asymptotic behavior
~1/z^2.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figure
Anti-de-Sitter Island-Universes from 5D Standing Waves
We construct simple standing wave solutions in a 5D space-time with a ghost
scalar field. The nodes of these standing waves are 'islands' of 4D Minkowski
space-time. For the 5D model with increasing (decreasing) warp factor there are
a finite (infinite) number of nodes and thus Minkowski island-universes having
different parameters, such as gravitational and cosmological constants. This
feature is similar to the assumptions of the landscape models, which postulate
a large number of universes with different parameters. This standing wave
solution also provides a new localization mechanism - matter fields can reside
only on Minkowski 'islands', where the background space-time does not
oscillate.Comment: 14 page pre-print format. Discussion about connection to Weyl gravity
added and "E&M" localization method added. To be published MPL
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