576 research outputs found
Chapter E: Selenium mobility in soils and its absorption, translocation, and metabolism in plants
Forms of selenium found in soils influence its mobility,
uptake, and metabolism by plants. The major forms in alkaline,
oxidizing environments which are available for plant uptake
are selenium-VI as selenate, Se04 2-) and selenium-IV (as
selenite, SeO3 2-). The major influences on uptake are soil pH
and salinity. High salinity and pH favor selenium anion
adsorption onto clays and metal oxides. Selenite is adsorbed
much more strongly than selenate leaving selenate as the
major form available for plant uptake. Some soil anions, such
as phosphate, increase plant selenium uptake because
increased soil-solution anion concentrations compete with
selenium anions for adsorption sites. Other anions, such as
chloride or sulfate, actually enhance or inhibit uptake by
affecting plant metabolism.
Inorganic selenides and elemental selenium are mostly
insoluble except under conditions of low pH in moist,
reducing environments. In these conditions organic selenides
may also be found as selenium amino acids, such as selenoglutathione,
and in various fractions of humic substances.
Although it is unclear whether organic selenides are absorbed
from soil by plants, they have been identified in soil solutions
as products of bacterial and plant metabolism. Volatilization of
organic selenium compounds makes mass balance studies of
selenium difficult.
Selenate ions are rapidly absorbed and transported in
plant xylem sap. Selenite absorption, on the other hand, is
slower, but the selenium is more rapidly metabolized to
organoselenium compounds and transported into upper
portions of the plant.
Soil and plant management in seleniferous areas must
take into account soil types and the genetic tolerance by plants
of high selenium and salt concentrations. For example, plants
will tolerate more selenium on high-sulfate soils than on low
sulfate soils. Some plants, such as alfalfa, are very sensitive and
will show signs of damage at low soil selenium concentrations
while others, such as saltbush, may accumulate thousands of
milligrams per kilogram of selenium without damage. Some
arid and semiarid soils may need to be managed by prudent
irrigation practices in order to reduce selenium and salinity to
acceptable levels
Inflationary Perturbations: the Cosmological Schwinger Effect
This pedagogical review aims at presenting the fundamental aspects of the
theory of inflationary cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin.
The analogy with the well-known Schwinger effect is discussed in detail and a
systematic comparison of the two physical phenomena is carried out. In
particular, it is demonstrated that the two underlying formalisms differ only
up to an irrelevant canonical transformation. Hence, the basic physical
mechanisms at play are similar in both cases and can be reduced to the
quantization of a parametric oscillator leading to particle creation due to the
interaction with a classical source: pair production in vacuum is therefore
equivalent to the appearance of a growing mode for the cosmological
fluctuations. The only difference lies in the nature of the source: an electric
field in the case of the Schwinger effect and the gravitational field in the
case of inflationary perturbations. Although, in the laboratory, it is
notoriously difficult to produce an electric field such that pairs extracted
from the vacuum can be detected, the gravitational field in the early universe
can be strong enough to lead to observable effects that ultimately reveal
themselves as temperature fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background.
Finally, the question of how quantum cosmological perturbations can be
considered as classical is discussed at the end of the article.Comment: 49 pages, 6 figures, to appear in a LNP volume "Inflationary
Cosmology
Purifying and Reversible Physical Processes
Starting from the observation that reversible processes cannot increase the
purity of any input state, we study deterministic physical processes, which map
a set of states to a set of pure states. Such a process must map any state to
the same pure output, if purity is demanded for the input set of all states.
But otherwise, when the input set is restricted, it is possible to find
non-trivial purifying processes. For the most restricted case of only two input
states, we completely characterize the output of any such map. We furthermore
consider maps, which combine the property of purity and reversibility on a set
of states, and we derive necessary and sufficient conditions on sets, which
permit such processes.Comment: 5 pages, no figures, v2: only minimal change
Improved Estimates of Cosmological Perturbations
We recently derived exact solutions for the scalar, vector and tensor mode
functions of a single, minimally coupled scalar plus gravity in an arbitrary
homogeneous and isotropic background. These solutions are applied to obtain
improved estimates for the primordial scalar and tensor power spectra of
anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background.Comment: 31 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX 2epsilon, this version corrects an
embarrasing mistake (in the published version) for the parameter q_C.
Affected eqns are 105, 109-110, 124, 148-153 and 155-15
Inflationary Cosmological Perturbations of Quantum-Mechanical Origin
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first
describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and
analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the
theory of cosmological perturbations with special emphasis on their behavior
during inflation. In particular, we discuss the quantum-mechanical nature of
the fluctuations and show how the uncertainty principle fixes the amplitude of
the perturbations. In a next step, we calculate the inflationary power spectra
in the slow-roll approximation and compare these theoretical predictions to the
recent high accuracy measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation
(CMBR) anisotropy. We show how these data already constrain the underlying
inflationary high energy physics. Finally, we conclude with some speculations
about the trans-Planckian problem, arguing that this issue could allow us to
open a window on physical phenomena which have never been probed so far.Comment: Review Article, 47 pages, 3 figures. Lectures given at the 40th
Karpacz Winter School on Theoretical Physics (Poland, Feb. 2004), submitted
to Lecture Notes in Physic
Quantum dots in magnetic fields: thermal response of broken symmetry phases
We investigate the thermal properties of circular semiconductor quantum dots
in high magnetic fields using finite temperature Hartree-Fock techniques. We
demonstrate that for a given magnetic field strength quantum dots undergo
various shape phase transitions as a function of temperature, and we outline
possible observable consequences.Comment: In Press, Phys. Rev. B (2001
Further analysis of the quantum critical point of CeLaRuSi
New data on the spin dynamics and the magnetic order of
CeLaRuSi are presented. The importance of the Kondo
effect at the quantum critical point of this system is emphasized from the
behaviour of the relaxation rate at high temperature and from the variation of
the ordered moment with respect to the one of the N\'eel temperature for
various .Comment: Contribution for the Festschrift on the occasion of Hilbert von
Loehneysen 60 th birthday. To be published as a special issue in the Journal
of Low Temperature Physic
WKB approximation for inflationary cosmological perturbations
A new method for predicting inflationary cosmological perturbations, based on
the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation, is presented. A general
expression for the WKB scalar and tensor power spectra is derived. The main
advantage of the new scheme of approximation is that it is valid even if the
slow-roll conditions are violated. The method is applied to power-law
inflation, which allows a comparison with an exact result. It is demonstrated
that the WKB approximation predicts the spectral indices exactly and the
amplitude with an error lower than 10%, even in regimes far from
scale-invariance. The new method of approximation is also applied to a
situation where the slow-roll conditions hold. It is shown that the result
obtained bears close resemblance with the standard slow-roll calculation.
Finally, some possible improvements are briefly mentioned.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX; minor changes, reference added (v2);
typos corrected (v3
Localized f electrons in CexLa1-xRhIn5: dHvA Measurements
Measurements of the de Haas-van Alphen effect in CexLa1-xRhIn5 reveal that
the Ce 4f electrons remain localized for all x, with the mass enhancement and
progressive loss of one spin from the de Haas-van Alphen signal resulting from
spin fluctuation effects. This behavior may be typical of antiferromagnetic
heavy fermion compounds, inspite of the fact that the 4f electron localization
in CeRhIn5 is driven, in part, by a spin-density wave instability.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR
Spinor Field in Bianchi type-I Universe: regular solutions
Self-consistent solutions to the nonlinear spinor field equations in General
Relativity has been studied for the case of Bianchi type-I (B-I) space-time. It
has been shown that, for some special type of nonliearity the model provides
regular solution, but this singularity-free solutions are attained at the cost
of broken dominant energy condition in Hawking-Penrose theorem. It has also
been shown that the introduction of -term in the Lagrangian generates
oscillations of the B-I model, which is not the case in absence of
term. Moreover, for the linear spinor field, the term provides
oscillatory solutions, those are regular everywhere, without violating dominant
energy condition.
Key words: Nonlinear spinor field (NLSF), Bianch type -I model (B-I),
term
PACS 98.80.C CosmologyComment: RevTex, 21 page
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