A comprehensive, multi-process box-model approach to glacial-interglacial carbon cycling

The canonical question of which physical, chemical or biological mechanisms were responsible for oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO2 during the last glacial is yet unanswered. Insight from paleo proxies has led to a multitude of hypotheses but none so far have been convincingly supported in three dimensional numerical modelling experiments. The processes that influence the CO2 uptake and export production are inter-related and too complex to solve conceptually while complex numerical models are time consuming and expensive to run which severely limits the combinations of mechanisms that can be explored. Instead, an intermediate inverse box model approach is used here in which the whole parameter space is explored. The glacial circulation and biological production states are derived from these using proxies of glacial export production and the need to draw down CO2 into the ocean. We find that circulation patterns which explain glacial observations include reduced Antarctic Bottom Water formation and high latitude mixing and to a lesser extent reduced equatorial upwelling. The proposed mechanism of CO2 uptake by an increase of eddies in the Southern Ocean, leading to a reduced residual circulation, is not supported. Regarding biological mechanisms, an increase in the nutrient utilization in either the equatorial regions or the northern polar latitudes can reduce atmospheric CO2 and satisfy proxies of glacial export production. Consistent with previous studies, CO2 is drawn down more easily through increased productivity in the Antarctic region than the sub-Antarctic, but that violates observations of lower export production there

Human well-being impacts of terrestrial protected areas

© 2013 Pullin et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Background: Establishing Protected Areas (PAs) is among the most common conservation interventions. Protecting areas from the threats posed by human activity will by definition inhibit some human actions. However, adverse impacts could be balanced by maintaining ecosystem services or introducing new livelihood options. Consequently there is an ongoing debate on whether the net impact of PAs on human well-being at local or regional scales is positive or negative. We report here on a systematic review of evidence for impacts on human well-being arising from the establishment and maintenance of terrestrial PAs. Methods: Following an a priori protocol, systematic searches were conducted for evidence of impacts of PAs post 1992. After article title screening, the review was divided into two separate processes; a qualitative synthesis of explanations and meaning of impact and a review of quantitative evidence of impact. Abstracts and full texts were assessed using inclusion criteria and conceptual models of potential impacts. Relevant studies were critically appraised and data extracted and sorted according to type of impact reported. No quantitative synthesis was possible with the evidence available. Two narrative syntheses were produced and their outputs compared in a metasynthesis. Results: The qualitative evidence review mapped 306 articles and synthesised 34 that were scored as high quality. The quantitative evidence review critically appraised 79 studies and included 14 of low/medium susceptibility to bias. The meta-synthesis reveals that a range of factors can lead to reports of positive and negative impacts of PA establishment, and therefore might enable hypothesis generation regarding cause and effect relationships, but resulting hypotheses cannot be tested with the current available evidence. Conclusions: The evidence base provides a range of possible pathways of impact, both positive and negative, of PAs on human well-being but provides very little support for decision making on how to maximise positive impacts. The nature of the research reported to date forms a diverse and fragmented body of evidence unsuitable for the purpose of informing policy formation on how to achieve win-win outcomes for biodiversity and human well-being. To better assess the impacts of PAs on human well-being we make recommendations for improving research study design and reporting

Defect Conformal Field Theory and Locally Localized Gravity

Gravity may be "locally localized" over a wide range of length scales on a d-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) brane living inside AdS_{d+1}. In this paper we examine this phenomenon from the point of view of the holographic dual "defect conformal field theory". The mode expansion of bulk fields on the gravity side is shown to be precisely dual to the "boundary operator product expansion" of operators as they approach the defect. From the field theory point of view, the condition for localization is that a "reduced operator" appearing in this expansion acquires negative anomalous dimension. In particular, a very light localized graviton exists when a mode arising from the reduction of the ambient stress-energy tensor to the defect has conformal dimension Delta ~ d-1. The part of the stress tensor containing the defect dynamics has dimension Delta = d-1 in the free theory, but we argue that it acquires an anomalous dimension in the interacting theory, and hence does not participate in localization in the regime of small backreaction of the brane. We demonstrate that such an anomalous dimension is consistent with the conservation of the full stress-energy tensor. Finally, we analyze how to compute the anomalous dimensions of reduced operators from gravity at leading order in the interactions with the brane.Comment: 38 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures. v2: typos fixe

Integrable Open Spin Chains in Defect Conformal Field Theory

We demonstrate that the one-loop dilatation generator for the scalar sector of a certain perturbation of N=4 Super Yang-Mills with fundamentals is the Hamiltonian of an integrable spin chain with open boundary conditions. The theory is a supersymmetric defect conformal field theory (dCFT) with the fundamentals in hypermultiplets confined to a codimension one defect. We obtain a K-matrix satisfying a suitably generalized form of the boundary Yang-Baxter equation, study the Bethe ansatz equations and demonstrate how Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions arise in field theory, and match to existing results in the plane wave limit.Comment: 26 pages, LaTeX. v2: references added, typos correcte

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV using 35 pb-1 of ATLAS data

A measurement of the differential cross-section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented. The measurement covers the pseudorapidity ranges |eta|<1.37 and 1.52<=|eta|<2.37 in the transverse energy range 45<=E_T<400GeV. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The yields of the signal photons are measured using a data-driven technique, based on the observed distribution of the hadronic energy in a narrow cone around the photon candidate and the photon selection criteria. The results are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and found to be in good agreement over four orders of magnitude in cross-section.Comment: 7 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 4 tables, final version published in Physics Letters

Measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper reports a measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is based on a data sample recorded with the ATLAS detector with an integrated luminosity of 0.30 pb^-1 for jets with transverse momentum between 25 and 70 GeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta| < 2.5. D*+/- mesons found in jets are fully reconstructed in the decay chain: D*+ -> D0pi+, D0 -> K-pi+, and its charge conjugate. The production rate is found to be N(D*+/-)/N(jet) = 0.025 +/- 0.001(stat.) +/- 0.004(syst.) for D*+/- mesons that carry a fraction z of the jet momentum in the range 0.3 < z < 1. Monte Carlo predictions fail to describe the data at small values of z, and this is most marked at low jet transverse momentum.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (22 pages total), 5 figures, 1 table, matches published version in Physical Review