2,493 research outputs found
Empiric Models of the Earth's Free Core Nutation
Free core nutation (FCN) is the main factor that limits the accuracy of the
modeling of the motion of Earth's rotational axis in the celestial coordinate
system. Several FCN models have been proposed. A comparative analysis is made
of the known models including the model proposed by the author. The use of the
FCN model is shown to substantially increase the accuracy of the modeling of
Earth's rotation. Furthermore, the FCN component extracted from the observed
motion of Earth's rotational axis is an important source for the study of the
shape and rotation of the Earth's core. A comparison of different FCN models
has shown that the proposed model is better than other models if used to
extract the geophysical signal (the amplitude and phase of FCN) from
observational data.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; minor update of the journal published versio
Must Organic certification fundamentally change for an Organic World?
Organic guarantee systems have evolved drastically in the past, accompanying changes in the uptake of Organic agriculture. From an originally fully stakeholder-driven and participatory process in the '70s and '80s, organic certification has become increasingly formalized and government-controlled. organic certification is a must-have for organic market access in more and more countries in the world, but is often not seen by producers to add much value beyond that. It claims to bring transparency and trust to the consumers, but it also delegates the judgment of agricultural practices to more or less anonymous entities. Certification is not designed to prevent fraud but it is expected to control and detect it. Organic certification and regulations are supposed to be tools to develop organic markets but at the same time create barriers to organic trade. Requirements for organic certification are continuously increasing and becoming more complex, yet organic certification is not seen as more reliable than it was a decade ago. Finally, standard setters are torn between the society's expectation that organic certification cover a wider range of sustainability topics, and the fear that more onerous requirements will inhibit conversion to Organic. All these paradoxes are becoming increasingly apparent as the organic movement reflects on how to scale up Organic Agriculture from a niche to the mainstream way of farming
Nucleon Generalized Parton Distributions and Holographic Models
Using ideas from Light Front Holography, we discuss the calculation of the
nucleon helicity-independent generalized parton distributions of quarks in the
zero skewness case.Comment: Prepared for LIGHTCONE 2011, 23 - 27 May, 2011, Dalla
Spin injection and electric field effect in degenerate semiconductors
We analyze spin-transport in semiconductors in the regime characterized by
(intermediate to degenerate), where is the Fermi
temperature. Such a regime is of great importance since it includes the lightly
doped semiconductor structures used in most experiments; we demonstrate that,
at the same time, it corresponds to the regime in which carrier-carrier
interactions assume a relevant role. Starting from a general formulation of the
drift-diffusion equations, which includes many-body correlation effects, we
perform detailed calculations of the spin injection characteristics of various
heterostructures, and analyze the combined effects of carrier density
variation, applied electric field and Coulomb interaction. We show the
existence of a degenerate regime, peculiar to semiconductors, which strongly
differs, as spin-transport is concerned, from the degenerate regime of metals.Comment: Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Density functional theory and demixing of binary hard rod-polymer mixtures
A density functional theory for a mixture of hard rods and polymers modeled
as chains built of hard tangent spheres is proposed by combining the functional
due to Yu and Wu for the polymer mixtures [J. Chem. Phys. {\bf 117}, 2368
(2002)] with the Schmidt's functional [Phys. Rev. E {\bf 63}, 50201 (2001)] for
rod-sphere mixtures. As a simple application of the functional, the demixing
transition into polymer-rich and rod-rich phases is examined. When the chain
length increases, the phase boundary broadens and the critical packing fraction
decreases. The shift of the critical point of a demixing transition is most
noticeable for short chains.Comment: 4 pages,2 figures, in press, PR
Isotopic Scaling of Heavy Projectile Residues from the collisions of 25 MeV/nucleon 86Kr with 124Sn, 112Sn and 64Ni, 58Ni
The scaling of the yields of heavy projectile residues from the reactions of
25 MeV/nucleon 86Kr projectiles with 124Sn,112Sn and 64Ni, 58Nitargets is
studied. Isotopically resolved yield distributions of projectile fragments in
the range Z=10-36 from these reaction pairs were measured with the MARS recoil
separator in the angular range 2.7-5.3 degrees. The velocities of the residues,
monotonically decreasing with Z down to Z~26-28, are employed to characterize
the excitation energy. The yield ratios R21(N,Z) for each pair of systems are
found to exhibit isotopic scaling (isoscaling), namely, an exponential
dependence on the fragment atomic number Z and neutron number N. The isoscaling
is found to occur in the residue Z range corresponding to the maximum observed
excitation energies. The corresponding isoscaling parameters are alpha=0.43 and
beta=-0.50 for the Kr+Sn system and alpha=0.27 and beta=-0.34 for the Kr+Ni
system. For the Kr+Sn system, for which the experimental angular acceptance
range lies inside the grazing angle, isoscaling was found to occur for Z<26 and
N<34. For heavier fragments from Kr+Sn, the parameters vary monotonically,
alpha decreasing with Z and beta increasing with N. This variation is found to
be related to the evolution towards isospin equilibration and, as such, it can
serve as a tracer of the N/Z equilibration process. The present heavy-residue
data extend the observation of isotopic scaling from the intermediate mass
fragment region to the heavy-residue region. Such high-resolution mass
spectrometric data can provide important information on the role of isospin in
peripheral and mid-peripheral collisions, complementary to that accessible from
modern large-acceptance multidetector devices.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Temperature and junction-type dependency of Andreev reflection in MgB2
We studied the voltage and temperature dependency of the dynamic conductance
of normal metal-MgB2 junctions obtained either with the point-contact technique
(with Au and Pt tips) or by making Ag-paint spots on the surface of
high-quality single-crystal-like MgB2 samples. The fit of the conductance
curves with the generalized BTK model gives evidence of pure s-wave gap
symmetry. The temperature dependency of the gap, measured in Ag-paint junctions
(dirty limit), follows the standard BCS curve with 2Delta/kTc = 3.3. In
out-of-plane, high-pressure point contacts we obtained almost ideal Andreev
reflection characteristics showing a single small s-wave gap Delta = 2.6 +/-
0.2 (clean limit). These results support the two-gap model of
superconductivity, the presence of a modified layer at the surface of the
crystals and an important and non-conventional role of the impurities in MgB2.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps figures, SNS 2001 conferenc
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Simulations of preindustrial, present-day, and 2100 conditions in the NASA GISS composition and climate model G-PUCCINI
International audienceA model of atmospheric composition and climate has been developed at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) that includes composition seamlessly from the surface to the lower mesosphere. The model is able to capture many features of the observed magnitude, distribution, and seasonal cycle of trace species. The simulation is especially realistic in the troposphere. In the stratosphere, high latitude regions show substantial biases during period when transport governs the distribution as meridional mixing is too rapid in this model version. In other regions, including the extrapolar tropopause region that dominates radiative forcing (RF) by ozone, stratospheric gases are generally well-simulated. The model's stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE) agrees well with values inferred from observations for both the global mean flux and the ratio of Northern (NH) to Southern Hemisphere (SH) downward fluxes. Simulations of preindustrial (PI) to present-day (PD) changes show tropospheric ozone burden increases of 11% while the stratospheric burden decreases by 18%. The resulting tropopause RF values are ?0.06 W/m2 from stratospheric ozone and 0.40 W/m2 from tropospheric ozone. Global mean mass-weighted OH decreases by 16% from the PI to the PD. STE of ozone also decreased substantially during this time, by 14%. Comparison of the PD with a simulation using 1979 pre-ozone hole conditions for the stratosphere shows a much larger downward flux of ozone into the troposphere in 1979, resulting in a substantially greater tropospheric ozone burden than that seen in the PD run. This implies that reduced STE due to stratospheric ozone depletion may have offset as much as 2/3 of the tropospheric ozone burden increase from PI to PD. However, the model overestimates the downward flux of ozone at high Southern latitudes, so this estimate is likely an upper limit. In the future, the tropospheric ozone burden increases by 101% in 2100 for the A2 scenario including both emissions and climate changes. The primary reason is enhanced STE, which increases by 124% (168% in the SH extratropics, and 114% in the NH extratropics). Climate plays a minimal role in the SH increases, but contributes 38% in the NH. Chemistry and dry deposition both change so as to reduce tropospheric ozone, partially in compensation for the enhanced STE, but the increased ozone influx dominates the burden changes. The net RF due to projected ozone changes is 0.8 W/m2 for A2. The influence of climate change alone is ?0.2 W/m2, making it a substantial contributor to the net RF. The tropospheric oxidation capacity increases seven percent in the full A2 simulation, and 36% due to A2 climate change alone
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