Exclusive glueball production in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions

The cross sections for the glueball candidates production in quasi-real photon-photon collisions and on central diffraction processes, i.e. double Pomeron exchange, in heavy ion interactions at RHIC and LHC are computed. The rates for these distinct production channels are compared and they may be a fruitful approach to the investigation of glueballs.Comment: 6 pages, 2 tables. Final version to be published in Physical Review

Meson production in two-photon interactions at energies available at CERN Large Hadron Collider

The meson production cross sections are estimated considering photon-photon interactions in hadron - hadron collisions at CERN LHC energies. We consider a large number of mesons with photon-photon partial decay width well constrained by the experiment and some mesons which are currently considered as hadronic molecule and glueball candidates. Our results demonstrate that the experimental analysis of these states is feasible at CERN - LHC.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, 4 tables. Version published in Physical Review

Electrical methods of determining soil moisture content

The electrical permittivity of soils is a useful indicator of soil moisture content. Two methods of determining the permittivity profile in soils are examined. A method due to Becher is found to be inapplicable to this situation. A method of Slichter, however, appears to be feasible. The results of Slichter's method are extended to the proposal of an instrument design that could measure available soil moisture profile (percent available soil moisture as a function of depth) from a surface measurement to an expected resolution of 10 to 20 cm

Shelf-Ocean material exchange influencing the Atlantic chemical composition off NW Iberian margin since the last glaciation

Rivers are the main conduit of sediment to the shelf. The basin geology, the drainage area and the discharge rate are the major factors that determine their sediment load (Milliman and Syvistski, 1992). Besides suspended particles, dissolved components may also give some information on the eroded crust. Sr isotopes in carbonate shells of biological organisms have been used to study, in the geological record, the influence exerted by the chemical weathering of the continental crust on the seawater composition (Macdougall, 1991). In this work, Sr isotope ratios obtained in tests of foraminifera representing the last 40 ka are presented and discussed in the scope of the palaeogeographical evolution of NW Iberia. This work aims to present and discuss the results of Sr isotope analyses (performed, by TIMS, in the Isotope Geology Laboratory of the University of Aveiro) of tests of two species of foraminifera, from nine samples taken along the OMEX core KC 024-19 (181 cm; 42°08’98’’N, 10°29´96’’W, and 2765m), collected in the Galicia Bank area, off Galicia. Taking into account that Sr contained in the carbonate tests is usually considered as preserving the signature of the contemporaneous seawater, one planktonic species (Globigerina bulloides) and one benthic species (Cibicides wuellerstorfi) were selected in order to try to detect Sr isotope variations both through time and between two different levels of the water column. The core age model, which records the last 40 ka, is based on a combination of oxygen isotope stratigraphy, eight AMS 14C datings and the synchronisation of the last four Heinrich Events in the Iberian Margin sedimentary records. As a whole, the obtained 87Sr/86Sr ratios vary between 0.709209 and 0.709108, with a mean 2σ error of 0.000025. These values lie within the range of modern marine Sr isotope ratios (0.70910-0.70922), as previously defined using analyses of both seawater and marine carbonates (see compilation by Faure and Mensing, 2005). Despite their small variation, the 87Sr/86Sr ratios obtained in G. bulloides seem to indicate that Sr dissolved in seawater at the KC 024-19 core site became slightly less radiogenic after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This decrease is concomitant with diminishing amounts of the detrital components in the sediments (Fig. 1). Therefore, both the composition of dissolved Sr, as revealed by results on tests of planktonic foraminifera, and the proportions of suspended terrigenous particulate material arriving at the KC 024-19 site point to a decreasing importance of the contribution of the erosion of the Iberian Variscan crust since the Last Glacial Maximum and in the Holocene. The 87Sr/86Sr ratios measured in tests of benthic foraminifera (C. wuellerstorfi) are more erratic and no correlation can be established with palaeogeographical/palaeoclimatic constraints. The difference between the behaviour of Sr compositions in G. bulloides and C. wuellerstorfi may indicate that whilst the planktonic foraminifera should reproduce very closely the seawater composition, the benthic organisms should, in addition to the major role of seawater, also be affected by some sort of interaction with the sediments. As such, planktonic foraminifera are probably more reliable indicators of seawater composition in studies involving very small periods and corresponding very slight variations of the 87Sr/86Sr ratios. Taking into account that G. bulloides is a common planktonic species (living mostly in the first 50m of the water column), whose tests seem to be in equilibrium with sea water composition, variations in its 87Sr/86Sr ratios can be related with changes in the chemical composition of the water of the Atlantic Ocean off NW Iberian Margin. The highest 87Sr/86Sr values are contemporaneous with a period of low sea level (about -140 m; Dias et al., 2000) during the LGM. According to Dias et al. (2000) at 18 ka BP the shoreline was close to the shelf break. The summital parts of the Gerês and Estrela mountains were covered by local glaciers and close to the coast freezing occurred frequently. The river catchments, which extended far to the shelf, received more rainfall due to a longer, compared to present day conditions, wet season, which promoted both physical and chemical weathering. Higher pluviosity combined with the effect of spring ice melting maintained high river discharge and consequently caused very important sediment supply to the coastal zone. The extremely narrow shelf was a very energetic environment due to sea bottom inclination and very limited long wave refraction. Therefore, at that time, a long wet season and very competent rivers should have caused important erosion of the Variscan basement in NW Iberia. Additionally, then, the shoreline was much closer to the KC 024-19 site. The combination of all these factors favoured an important deposition of terrigenous sediments and the local slight enrichment in radiogenic Sr of the seawater. With sea level rise, after the deglaciation and during the Holocene, the river estuaries became progressively far away from the shelf break. Their competence of transport also became progressively reduced and the offshore transport of detrital sediments became progressively lower. Conversely the biogenic carbonate proportion in the sediments increased, due to lower dilution by the terrigenous particles. Simultaneously, the values of 87Sr/86Sr in the seawater at the KC 024-19 site became lower, as a consequence of a complete homogenization with the ocean global composition, which was now more effective with the increasing distance towards shoreline

Spatial-temporal evolution of the current filamentation instability

The spatial-temporal evolution of the purely transverse current filamentation instability is analyzed by deriving a single partial differential equation for the instability and obtaining the analytical solutions for the spatially and temporally growing current filament mode. When the beam front always encounters fresh plasma, our analysis shows that the instability grows spatially from the beam front to the back up to a certain critical beam length; then the instability acquires a purely temporal growth. This critical beam length increases linearly with time and in the non-relativistic regime it is proportional to the beam velocity. In the relativistic regime the critical length is inversely proportional to the cube of the beam Lorentz factor $\gamma_{0b}$. Thus, in the ultra-relativistic regime the instability immediately acquires a purely temporal growth all over the beam. The analytical results are in good agreement with multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations performed with OSIRIS. Relevance of current study to recent and future experiments on fireball beams is also addressed

Magnetic susceptibility anisotropies in a two-dimensional quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions

The magnetic and thermodynamic properties of the two-dimensional quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet that incorporates both a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and pseudo-dipolar interactions are studied within the framework of a generalized nonlinear sigma model (NLSM). We calculate the static uniform susceptibility and sublattice magnetization as a function of temperature and we show that: i) the magnetic-response is anisotropic and differs qualitatively from the expected behavior of a conventional easy-axis QHAF; ii) the Neel second-order phase transition becomes a crossover, for a magnetic field B perpendicular to the CuO(2) layers. We provide a simple and clear explanation for all the recently reported unusual magnetic anisotropies in the low-field susceptibility of La(2)CuO(4), L. N. Lavrov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 017007 (2001), and we demonstrate explicitly why La(2)CuO(4) can not be classified as an ordinary easy-axis antiferromagnet.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Revtex4, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.