536 research outputs found
Sensitivity of the r-process to nuclear masses
The rapid neutron capture process (r-process) is thought to be responsible
for the creation of more than half of all elements beyond iron. The scientific
challenges to understanding the origin of the heavy elements beyond iron lie in
both the uncertainties associated with astrophysical conditions that are needed
to allow an r-process to occur and a vast lack of knowledge about the
properties of nuclei far from stability. There is great global competition to
access and measure the most exotic nuclei that existing facilities can reach,
while simultaneously building new, more powerful accelerators to make even more
exotic nuclei. This work is an attempt to determine the most crucial nuclear
masses to measure using an r-process simulation code and several mass models
(FRDM, Duflo-Zuker, and HFB-21). The most important nuclear masses to measure
are determined by the changes in the resulting r-process abundances. Nuclei
around the closed shells near N=50, 82, and 126 have the largest impact on
r-process abundances irrespective of the mass models used.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted in European Physical Journal
Changes in r-process abundances at late times
We explore changes in abundance patterns that occur late in the r process. As
the neutrons available for capture begin to disappear, a quasiequilibrium
funnel shifts material into the large peaks at A=130 and A=195, and into the
rare-earth "bump" at A=160. A bit later, after the free-neutron abundance has
dropped and beta-decay has begun to compete seriously with neutron capture, the
peaks can widen. The degree of widening depends largely on neutron-capture
rates near closed neutron shells and relatively close to stability. We identify
particular nuclei the capture rates of which should be examined experimentally,
perhaps at a radioactive beam facility.Comment: 8 pages, 14 figures included in tex
Public health and economic costs of investigating a suspected outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.
This paper provides one of the first assessments of the burden of both the public health investigation and the economic costs associated with an apparent outbreak of Legionnaires' disease (LD) in South East London. In addition to epidemiological, microbiological and environmental investigations, we collected data on the staff time and resources committed by the 11 main organizations responsible for managing the outbreak. Of the overall estimated costs of 455,856 pounds, only 14% (64,264 pounds) was spent on investigation and control of the outbreak compared with 86% (391,592 pounds) spent on the hospital treatment of the patients. The time and money spent on public health services in this investigation appear to represent good value for money considering the potential costs of a major outbreak, including the high case-fatality rate in LD generally and the high health-care costs. Further research is needed to determine optimum strategies for the cost-effective use of health system resources in investigations of LD. Whether the threshold for investigation of cases should be based on observed incidence rates or the cost-effectiveness of investigations, or both, should be debated further
Fission Cycling in Supernova Nucleosynthesis: Active-Sterile Neutrino Oscillations
We investigate nucleosynthesis in the supernovae post-core bounce
neutrino-driven wind environment in the presence of active-sterile neutrino
transformation. We consider active-sterile neutrino oscillations for a range of
mixing parameters: vacuum mass-squared differences of 0.1 eV^2 < dm^2 < 100
eV^2, and vacuum mixing angles of sin^2(2 theta_v) > 10^-4. We find a
consistent r-process pattern for a large range of mixing parameters that is in
rough agreement with the halo star CS 22892-052 abundances and the pattern
shape is determined by fission cycling. We find that the allowed region for the
formation of the r-process peaks overlaps the LSND and NSBL (3+1) allowed
region.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, Corrected Typo
Paper No 17.2: Head-Tracked Dynamic Exit Pupil Multiuser Autostereoscopic Display
In this paper, a glasses-free (autostereoscopic) display is described where the controlled illumination for a liquid crystal display (LCD) backlight is derived from a laser source where the laser is used not for its coherence properties but for its ability to have close control on its direction. This allows light exiting the LCD to be directed to the left and right eyes of several viewers who can move freely in both the X and Z directions. Light directions are determined by a spatial light modulator (SLM) that is controlled by a multiuser head tracker. This paper is principally concerned with the SLM and the Gabor superlens screen that is used to provide the angular magnification required to give a sufficiently wide viewing field
Hand-portable HPLC with broadband spectral detection enables analysis of complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are considered priority hazardous substances due to their carcinogenic activity and risk to public health. Strict regulations are in place limiting their release into the environment, but enforcement is hampered by a lack of adequate field-testing procedure, instead relying on sending samples to centralised analytical facilities. Reliably monitoring levels of PAHs in the field is a challenge, owing to the lack of field-deployable analytical methods able to separate, identify, and quantify the complex mixtures in which PAHs are typically observed. Here, we report the development of a hand-portable system based on high-performance liquid chromatography incorporating a spectrally wide absorption detector, capable of fingerprinting PAHs based on their characteristic spectral absorption profiles: identifying 100% of the 24 PAHs tested, including full coverage of the United States Environmental Protection Agency priority pollutant list. We report unsupervised methods to exploit these new capabilities for feature detection and identification, robust enough to detect and classify co-eluting and hidden peaks. Identification is fully independent of their characteristic retention times, mitigating matrix effects which can preclude reliable determination of these analytes in challenging samples. We anticipate the platform to enable more sophisticated analytical measurements, supporting real-time decision making in the field
The Influence Of Neutron Capture Rates On The Rare Earth Region Of The r-Process Abundance Pattern
We study the sensitivity of the r-process abundance pattern to neutron
capture rates along the rare earth region (A~150 to A~180). We introduce the
concepts of large nuclear flow and flow saturation which determine the neutron
capture rates that are influential in setting the rare earth abundances. We
illustrate the value of the two concepts by considering high entropy conditions
favorable for rare earth peak production and identifying important neutron
capture rates among the rare earth isotopes. We also show how these rates
influence nuclear flow and specific sections of the abundance pattern.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PR
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