Mars simulated exposure and the characteristic Raman biosignatures of amino acids and halophilic microbes

Though Raman bands of α-amino acids (AA) are well documented, often only the strongest intensity bands are quoted as identifiers (e.g. Jenkins et al., 2005; De Gelder et al., 2007; Zhu et al., 2011). Unknown regolith mixtures on Mars-sampling missions could obscure these bands. Here the case is made for determining, via a statistical method, sets of characteristic bands to be used as identifiers, independent of band intensity or number of bands (Rolfe et al., 2016). AA have upwards of 25 potentially identifying bands and this method defines sets of 10–19 bands per AA. Examination of AA-doped Mars-like basalt resulted in a maximum of eight bands being identified, as some characteristic bands were obscured by mineral bands, including the strongest intensity band in some cases. This proved the need for characteristic bands to be defined, enabling successful identification of AA. The ESA ExoMars Rover mission will crush and then pass the sample to the Raman Laser Spectrometer. We crushed a Mars-like basalt to a similar grain size expected to be created by the rover. Our samples were doped with 1 % (by weight) AA samples, resulting in no detection of AA, because of loss of original spatial context and spaces between the grains. We recommend that Raman spectroscopy on future missions should be conducted before the sample is crushed. Halite-entombed halophilic microbes, known to survive being entombed, were exposed to Mars-like surface (including temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition and UV) and freeze-thaw cycle (plus pressure and atmospheric composition) conditions. This test on the survival of the microbes showed that survival rates quickly deteriorated in surface conditions, but freeze-thaw cycle samples had well preserved Raman biosignatures, indicating that similar signatures could be detectable on Mars if similar life persists in evaporitic material or brines today

Analytic Quantization of the QCD String

We perform an analytic semi-classical quantization of the straight QCD string with one end fixed and a massless quark on the other, in the limits of orbital and radial dominant motion. We compare our results to the exact numerical semi-classical quantization. We observe that the numerical semi-classical quantization agrees well with our exact numerical canonical quantization.Comment: RevTeX, 10 pages, 9 figure

Two phase transitions in the fully frustrated XYXY model

The fully frustrated $XY$ model on a square lattice is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. A Kosterlitz-Thouless transition is found at $T_{\rm KT} \approx 0.446$, followed by an ordinary Ising transition at a slightly higher temperature, $T_c \approx 0.452$. The non-Ising exponents reported by others, are explained as a failure of finite size scaling due to the screening length associated with the nearby Kosterlitz-Thouless transition.Comment: REVTEX file, 8 pages, 5 figures in uuencoded postscrip

Polyandrous females avoid costs of inbreeding

Why do females typically mate with more than one male? Female mating patterns have broad implications for sexual selection, speciation and conflicts of interest between the sexes, and yet they are poorly understood. Matings inevitably have costs, and for females, the benefits of taking more than one mate are rarely obvious. One possible explanation is that females gain benefits because they can avoid using sperm from genetically incompatible males, or invest less in the offspring of such males. It has been shown that mating with more than one male can increase offspring viability, but we present the first clear demonstration that this occurs because females with several mates avoid the negative effects of genetic incompatibility. We show that in crickets, the eggs of females that mate only with siblings have decreased hatching success. However, if females mate with both a sibling and a non-sibling they avoid altogether the low egg viability associated with sibling matings. If similar effects occur in other species, inbreeding avoidance may be important in understanding the prevalence of multiple mating

Rheology and dynamical heterogeneity in frictionless beads at jamming density

We investigate the rheological properties of an assembly of inelastic (but frictionless) particles close to the jamming density using numerical simulation, in which uniform steady states with a constant shear rate $\dot\gamma$ is realized. The system behaves as a power-law fluid and the relevant exponents are estimated; e.g., the shear stress is proportional to $\dot\gamma^{1/\delta_S}$, where $1/\delta_S=0.64(2)$. It is also found that the relaxation time $\tau$ and the correlation length $\xi$ of the velocity increase obeying power laws: $\tau\sim\dot\gamma^{-\beta}$ and $\xi\sim\dot\gamma^{-\alpha}$, where $\beta=0.27(3)$ and $\alpha=0.23(3)$

Critical Behavior of the Meissner Transition in the Lattice London Superconductor

We carry out Monte Carlo simulations of the three dimensional (3D) lattice London superconductor in zero applied magnetic field, making a detailed finite size scaling analysis of the Meissner transition. We find that the magnetic penetration length \lambda, and the correlation length \xi, scale as \lambda ~ \xi ~ |t|^{-\nu}, with \nu = 0.66 \pm 0.03, consistent with ordinary 3D XY universality, \nu_XY ~ 2/3. Our results confirm the anomalous scaling dimension of magnetic field correlations at T_c.Comment: 4 pages, 5 ps figure

The Impact of NLO-Corrections on the Determination of the $\bar{u},\bar{d} Content of Nucleons from Drell-Yan Production

The interpretation of Drell-Yan production in terms of the antiquark densities depends on NLO corrections. Besides the NLO corrections to the familiar annihilation $q\bar{q}\to \gamma^* \to l^+ l^-$, there is a substantial contribution from the QCD Compton subprocesses $gq \to q\gamma^* \to q l^+ l^-$ and $g\bar{q} \to q\gamma^* \to q l^+ l^-$. The beam and target dependence of the two classes of corrections is different. We discuss the impact of this difference on the determination of the $\bar{d}-\bar{u}$ asymmetry in the proton from the comparison of the $pp$ and $pn$ Drell-Yan production.Comment: 4 pages, 1 eps-figure. To be published in Proceedings of DIS'9