406 research outputs found
New Physics at the International Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) Next to GSI
The project of the international Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research
(FAIR), co-located to the GSI facility in Darmstadt, has been officially
started on November 7, 2007. The current plans of the facility and the planned
research program will be described. An investment of about 1 billion euro will
permit new physics programs in the areas of low and medium energy antiproton
research, heavy ion physics complementary to LHC, as well as in nuclear
structure and astrophysics. The facility will comprise about a dozen
accelerators and storage rings, which will enable simultaneous operations of up
to four different beams.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. Invited Talk presented at the "Fourth
International Conference on Fission and Properties of Neutron-Rich nuclei",
held at Sanibel Island, Florida, November 11-17, 200
Seasonal Dynamics of Mesodinium rubrum in Chesapeake Bay
The photosynthetic ciliate Mesodinium rubrum is a common member of coastal phytoplankton communities that is well adapted to low-light, turbid ecosystems. It supports the growth of, or competes with, harmful dinoflagellate species for cryptophyte prey, as well as being a trophic link to copepods and larval fish. We have compiled data from various sources (n = 1063), on the abundance and distribution of M. rubrum in Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Because M. rubrum relies on obtaining organelles from cryptophyte algae to maintain rapid growth, we also enumerated cryptophyte algae in the portion of these samples that we collected (n =386). Mesodinium rubrum occurred in oligohaline to polyhaline regions of Chesapeake Bay and throughout the year. Blooms (\u3e100 cells mL-1) primarily occurred during spring, followed by autumn. When compared across all seasons, M. rubrum abundance was positively correlated to temperature and cryptophytes, and negatively correlated with salinity. However, more focused analyses revealed that M. rubrum abundance during spring was associated with surface layer warming and decreased salinity, while early autumn assemblages were associated with surface cooling. These results imply that there are distinct seasonal niches for M. rubrum blooms. Blooms were more common in tributaries than in the main stem Bay and tended to be restricted to salinities under 10 PSU. Despite the rarity of red water events, M. rubrum is a ubiquitous mixotroph in Chesapeake Bay and at times likely exerts a strong influence on cryptophyte algal abundance and hence planktonic food web structure
Hydrodynamical description of a hadron-quark first-order phase transition
Solutions of hydrodynamical equations are presented for the equation of state
of the Var der Waals type allowing for the first order phase transition.
Attention is focused on description of the hadron-quark phase transition in
heavy ion collisions. It is shown that fluctuations dissolve and grow as if the
fluid is effectively very viscous. Even in spinodal region germs are growing
slowly due to viscosity and critical slowing down. This prevents enhancement of
fluctuations in the near-critical region, which is frequently considered as a
signal of the critical point in heavy ion collisions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Nonprofit governance: Improving performance in troubled economic times
Nonprofit management is currently pressured to perform effectively in a weak economy. Yet, nonprofit governance continues to suffer from unclear conceptions of the division of labor between board of directors and executive directors. This online survey of 114 executive directors aims to provide clarification and recommendations for social administration
J/Psi Suppression in Heavy Ion Collisions at the CERN SPS
We reexamine the production of J/Psi and other charmonium states for a
variety of target-projectile choices at the SPS. For this study we use a newly
constructed cascade code LUCIFER II, which yields acceptable descriptions of
both hard and soft processes, specifically Drell-Yan and hidden charm
production, and soft energy loss and meson production, at the SPS. Glauber
calculations of other authors are redone, and compared directly to the cascade
results. The modeling of the charmonium states differs from that of earlier
workers in its unified treatment of the hidden charm meson spectrum, which is
introduced from the outset as a set of coupled states. The result is a
description of the NA38 and NA50 data in terms of a conventional hadronic
picture. The apparently anomalous suppression found in the most massive Pb+Pb
system arises from three sources: destruction in the initial nucleon-nucleon
cascade, use of coupled channels to exploit the larger breakup in the less
bound Chi and Psi' states, and comover interaction in the final low energy
phase.Comment: 36 pages (15 figures
High Grazing Rates on Cryptophyte Algae in Chesapeake Bay
Cryptophyte algae are globally distributed photosynthetic flagellates found in freshwater, estuarine, and neritic ecosystems. While cryptophytes can be highly abundant and are consumed by a wide variety of protistan predators, few studies have sought to quantify in situ grazing rates on their populations. Here we show that autumnal grazing rates on in situ communities of cryptophyte algae in Chesapeake Bay are high throughout the system, while growth rates, particularly in the lower bay, were low. Analysis of the genetic diversity of cryptophyte populations within dilution experiments suggests that microzooplankton may be selectively grazing the fastest-growing members of the population, which were generally Teleaulax spp. We also demonstrate that potential grazing rates of ciliates and dinoflagellates on fluorescently labeled (FL) Rhodomonas salina, Storeatula major, and Teleaulax amphioxeia can be high (up to 149 prey predator−1 d−1), and that a Gyrodinium sp. and Mesodinium rubrum could be selective grazers. Potential grazing was highest for heterotrophic dinoflagellates, but due to its abundance, M. rubrum also had a high overall impact. This study reveals that cryptophyte algae in Chesapeake Bay can experience extremely high grazing pressure from phagotrophic protists, and that this grazing likely shapes their community diversity
Directed and Elliptic Flow at RHIC
We present the directed flow measurement () from Au+Au collisions at
\sqrtsNN = 62 GeV. Over the pseudorapidity range we have studied, which
covers from -1.2 to 1.2 and , the magnitude of
for charged particles is found to increase monotonously with pseudorapidity for
all centralities. No `` wiggle'', as predicted by various theoretical
models, is observed at midrapidity. Elliptic flow () from moderate high
particles () at \sqrtsNN = 200 GeV is presented as a
function of impact parameter. It is found that models that are based on {\it
jet quenching} alone appear to underpredict at moderate high , while
the model that incorporates both, recombination and fragmentation, describes
the data better.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Proceeding for Hot Quark 04 conference Changes in
the revision are mostly English fixes. v1 versus eta plot is flipped over to
follow the conventio
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Fluorescence, pigment and microscopic characterization of Bering Sea phytoplankton community structure and photosynthetic competency in the presence of a Cold Pool during summer
Spectral fluorescence measurements of phytoplankton chlorophyll a (Chl a), phytoplankton phycobilipigments and variable fluorescence (Fv/Fm), are utilized with High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) estimates of phytoplankton pigments and microscopic cells counts to construct a comprehensive picture of summer-time phytoplankton communities and their photosynthetic competency in the eastern Bering Sea shelf. Although the Bering Sea was ice-free during our study, the exceptionally cold winter that preceded the summer of 2008 when our cruise took place, facilitated the formation of a “Cold Pool” (<2 °C) and its entrapment at depth in the northern middle shelf. The presence of a strong pycnocline over the entire middle and outer shelves restricted inorganic nutrient fluxes into the surface waters resulting in phytoplankton populations that were photo-physiologically stressed due to nutrient limitation. Elevated Chl a concentrations recorded in the Green Belt along the shelf edge of the Bering Sea, were due to Phaeocystis pouchetii and nano-sized cryptophytes. Although inorganic nutrients were not limiting in the Green Belt, Fv/Fm values were low in all probability due to iron limitation. Phytoplankton communities in the low biomass surface waters of the middle shelf were comprised of prasinophytes, haptophytes, cryptophytes and diatoms. In the northern part of the middle shelf, a sinking bloom made up of the centric diatoms Chaeotoceros socialis, Thalassiosira nordenskioeldii and Porosira glacialis was located above the Cold Pool. The high biomass associated with this senescent bloom and its accretion above the pycnocline, suggests that the Cold Pool acts as a barrier, preventing sinking phytoplankton from reaching the bottom where they can become available to benthic organisms. We further posit that if summer-time storms are not energetic enough and the Cold Pool is not eroded, its presence facilitates the transfer of the large spring phytoplankton bloom to the pelagic ecosystem
Critical Trapped Surfaces Formation in the Collision of Ultrarelativistic Charges in (A)dS
We study the formation of marginally trapped surfaces in the head-on
collision of two ultrarelativistic charges in space-time. The metric of
ultrarelativistic charged particles in is obtained by boosting
Reissner-Nordstr\"om space-time to the speed of light. We show that
formation of trapped surfaces on the past light cone is only possible when
charge is below certain critical - situation similar to the collision of two
ultrarelativistic charges in Minkowski space-time. This critical value depends
on the energy of colliding particles and the value of a cosmological constant.
There is richer structure of critical domains in case. In this case
already for chargeless particles there is a critical value of the cosmological
constant only below which trapped surfaces formation is possible. Appearance of
arbitrary small nonzero charge significantly changes the physical picture.
Critical effect which has been observed in the neutral case does not take place
more. If the value of the charge is not very large solution to the equation on
trapped surface exists for any values of cosmological radius and energy density
of shock waves. Increasing of the charge leads to decrease of the trapped
surface area, and at some critical point the formation of trapped surfaces of
the type mentioned above becomes impossible.Comment: 30 pages, Latex, 7 figures, Refs. added and typos correcte
GEANT4 : a simulation toolkit
Abstract Geant4 is a toolkit for simulating the passage of particles through matter. It includes a complete range of functionality including tracking, geometry, physics models and hits. The physics processes offered cover a comprehensive range, including electromagnetic, hadronic and optical processes, a large set of long-lived particles, materials and elements, over a wide energy range starting, in some cases, from 250 eV and extending in others to the TeV energy range. It has been designed and constructed to expose the physics models utilised, to handle complex geometries, and to enable its easy adaptation for optimal use in different sets of applications. The toolkit is the result of a worldwide collaboration of physicists and software engineers. It has been created exploiting software engineering and object-oriented technology and implemented in the C++ programming language. It has been used in applications in particle physics, nuclear physics, accelerator design, space engineering and medical physics. PACS: 07.05.Tp; 13; 2
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