343 research outputs found
Bioarchaeology-related studies in the Arabian Gulf: potentialities and shortcomings
Archaeological studies provide a powerful tool to understand the prehistoric societies, especially when combined to cutting-edge morphological and molecular anthropological analyses, allowing reconstructing past population dynamics, admixture events, and socio-cultural changes. Despite the advances achieved in the last decades by archaeological studies worldwide, several regions of the World have been spared from this scientific improvement due to various reasons. The Arabian Gulf represents a unique ground to investigate, being the passageway for human migrations and one of the hypothesized areas in which Neanderthal introgression occurred. A number of archaeological sites are currently present in the Arabian Gulf and have witnessed the antiquity and the intensiveness of the human settlements in the region. Nevertheless, the archaeological and anthropological investigation in the Gulf is still in its infancy. Data collected through archaeological studies in the area have the potential to help answering adamant questions of human history from the beginning of the structuring of genetic diversity in human species to the Neolithisation process. This review aims at providing an overview of the archaeological studies in the Arabian Gulf with special focus to Qatar, highlighting potentialities and shortcomings
Investigation of energy storage batteries in stability enforcement of low inertia active distribution network
The new MRTOF mass spectrograph following the ZeroDegree spectrometer at RIKEN's RIBF facility
A newly assembled multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrograph
(MRTOF-MS) at RIKEN's RIBF facility became operational for the first time in
spring 2020; further modifications and performance tests using stable ions were
completed in early 2021. By using a pulsed-drift-tube technique to modify the
ions' kinetic energy in a wide range, we directly characterize the dispersion
function of the system for use in a new procedure for optimizing the voltages
applied to the electrostatic mirrors. Thus far, a mass resolving power of is reached within a total time-of-flight of only
, making the spectrometer capable of studying short-lived
nuclei possessing low-lying isomers. Detailed information about the setup and
measurement procedure is reported, and an alternative in-MRTOF ion selection
scheme to remove molecular contaminants in the absence of a dedicated
deflection device is introduced. The setup underwent an initial on-line
commissioning at the BigRIPS facility at the end of 2020, where more than 70
nuclear masses have been measured. A summary of the commissioning experiments
and results from a test of mass accuracy will be presented.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figure
A new study of the and shell gap for Ti and V by the first high-precision MRTOF mass measurements at BigRIPS-SLOWRI
The atomic masses of Sc, Ti, and V have been
determined using the high-precision multi-reflection time-of-flight technique.
The radioisotopes have been produced at RIKEN's RIBF facility and delivered to
the novel designed gas cell and multi-reflection system (ZD MRTOF), which has
been recently commissioned downstream of the ZeroDegree spectrometer following
the BigRIPS separator. For Ti and V the mass uncertainties
have been reduced down to the order of , shedding new light
on the shell effect in Ti and V isotopes by the first high-precision
mass measurements of the critical species Ti and V. With the new
precision achieved, we reveal the non-existence of the empirical
two-neutron shell gaps for Ti and V, and the enhanced energy gap above the
occupied orbit is identified as a feature unique to Ca. We
perform new Monte Carlo shell model calculations including the
and orbits and compare the results with conventional shell model
calculations, which exclude the and the orbits. The
comparison indicates that the shell gap reduction in Ti is related to a partial
occupation of the higher orbitals for the outer two valence neutrons at
First application of mass measurement with the Rare-RI Ring reveals the solar r-process abundance trend at A=122 and A=123
The Rare-RI Ring (R3) is a recently commissioned cyclotron-like storage ring
mass spectrometer dedicated to mass measurements of exotic nuclei far from
stability at Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) in RIKEN. The first
application of mass measurement using the R3 mass spectrometer at RIBF is
reported. Rare isotopes produced at RIBF, Sn, In, Cd,
Ag, Pd, were injected in R3. Masses of In, Cd,
and Pd were measured whereby the mass uncertainty of Pd was
improved. This is the first reported measurement with a new storage ring mass
spectrometery technique realized at a heavy-ion cyclotron and employing
individual injection of the pre-identified rare nuclei. The latter is essential
for the future mass measurements of the rarest isotopes produced at RIBF. The
impact of the new Pd result on the solar -process abundances in a
neutron star merger event is investigated by performing reaction network
calculations of 20 trajectories with varying electron fraction . It is
found that the neutron capture cross section on Pd increases by a
factor of 2.2 and -delayed neutron emission probability,
, of Rh increases by 14\%. The neutron capture cross
section on Pd decreases by a factor of 2.6 leading to pileup of
material at , thus reproducing the trend of the solar -process
abundances. The trend of the two-neutron separation energies (S)
was investigated for the Pd isotopic chain. The new mass measurement with
improved uncertainty excludes large changes of the S value at
. Such large increase of the S values before was
proposed as an alternative to the quenching of the shell gap to
reproduce -process abundances in the mass region of
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