Cross-borehole tomography with full-decay spectral time-domain induced polarization for mapping of potential contaminant flow-paths

Soil contamination from industrial activities is a large problem in urban areas worldwide. Understanding the spreading of contamination to underlying aquifers is crucial to make adequate risk assessments and for designing remediation actions. A large part of the northern hemisphere has quaternary deposits consisting of glacial clayey till. The till often has a complex hydrogeological structure consisting of networks of fractures, sand stringers and sand lenses that each contribute to a transport network for water, free phase and dissolved contaminants. Thus, to determine the possible flow-paths of contaminants, the geology must be described in great detail. Normally, multiple boreholes would be drilled in order to describe the geology, but boreholes alone do not provide the needed resolution to map such sand lenses and their connectivity. Cross-borehole full-decay time-domain induced polarization (TDIP) is a new tool that allows for quantitatively mapping not only contrasts in bulk resistivity, but also contrasts in spectral IP parameters. We present a feasibility study with synthetic tests and a field application on a clayey moraine environment with embedded sand lenses, with hitherto unseen ground-truth verification. Indeed, the investigated area was above the water table, which allowed for digging out the entire area after the investigation for an unprecedented description of the lens interconnectivity. The TDIP data were acquired with a full-waveform acquisition at high sampling rate, signal-processed by harmonic denoising, background removal, and de-spiking, and subsequently the full-waveform data were stacked in log-increasing tapered gates (with 7 gates per decade). The resulting TDIP decays, with usable time-gates as early as two milliseconds, were inverted in terms of a re-parameterization of the Cole-Cole model. The inverted models of the field data show a remarkable delineation of the sand lenses/layers at the site, with structure in both the resistivity and the IP parameters matching the results from the ground-truthing. The synthetic examples show that in models both below and above the groundwater table, sand-lenses with thicknesses comparable to the vertical electrode spacing can be well resolved. This suggests that full-decay cross-borehole TDIP is an ideal tool for high-resolution sand-lens imaging

First-order flow equations for extremal black holes in very special geometry

We construct interpolating solutions describing single-center static extremal non-supersymmetric black holes in four-dimensional N=2 supergravity theories with cubic prepotentials. To this end, we derive and solve first-order flow equations for rotating electrically charged extremal black holes in a Taub-NUT geometry in five dimensions. We then use the connection between five- and four-dimensional extremal black holes to obtain four-dimensional flow equations and we give the corresponding solutions.Comment: 21 pages. v2: Summary section adde

A Note on Exact Solutions and Attractor Mechanism for Non-BPS Black Holes

We obtain two extremal, spherically symmetric, non-BPS black hole solutions to 4D supergravity, one of which carries D2-D6 charges and the other carries D0-D2-D4 charges. For the D2-D6 case, rather than solving the equations of motion directly, we assume the form of the solution and then find that the assumption satisfies the equations of motion and the constraint. Our D2-D6 solution is manifestly dual to the solution presented in 0710.4967. The D0-D2-D4 solution is obtained by performing certain $[SL(2,{\bf Z})]^{3}$ duality transformations on the D0-D4 solution in 0710.4967.Comment: 20 pages, LaTe

On R**2 Corrections for 5D Black Holes

We study higher order corrections to extremal black holes/black string in five dimensions. These higher order corrections are due to supersymmetric completion of R**2 term in five dimensions. By making use of the results we extend the notion of very special geometry when higher derivative terms are also taken into account. This can be used to make a connection between total bundle space of near horizon wrapped M2's and wrapped M5's in the presence of higher order corrections. We also show how the corrected geometry removes the singularity of a small black hole.Comment: 16 pages, latex file, V3: typos corrected, refs added, V4; minor corrections, few comments added, refs adde

De Sitter Holography and the Cosmic Microwave Background

We interpret cosmological evolution holographically as a renormalisation group flow in a dual Euclidean field theory, as suggested by the conjectured dS/CFT correspondence. Inflation is described by perturbing around the infra-red fixed point of the dual field theory. The spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation is determined in terms of scaling violations in the field theory. The dark energy allows similar, albeit less predictive, considerations. We discuss the cosmological fine-tuning problems from the holographic perspective.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, uses JHEP style files; corrected and added reference

Quintessential Maldacena-Maoz Cosmologies

Maldacena and Maoz have proposed a new approach to holographic cosmology based on Euclidean manifolds with disconnected boundaries. This approach appears, however, to be in conflict with the known geometric results [the Witten-Yau theorem and its extensions] on spaces with boundaries of non-negative scalar curvature. We show precisely how the Maldacena-Maoz approach evades these theorems. We also exhibit Maldacena-Maoz cosmologies with [cosmologically] more natural matter content, namely quintessence instead of Yang-Mills fields, thereby demonstrating that these cosmologies do not depend on a special choice of matter to split the Euclidean boundary. We conclude that if our Universe is fundamentally anti-de Sitter-like [with the current acceleration being only temporary], then this may force us to confront the holography of spaces with a connected bulk but a disconnected boundary.Comment: Much improved exposition, exponent in Cai-Galloway theorem fixed, axionic interpretation of scalar explained, JHEP version. 33 pages, 3 eps figure