242 research outputs found
Biosignatures in the Context of Low Energy Flux
Many of the features that are thought of as biosignatures - including the mediation of chemical and physical processes with speed, specificity, and selectivity - result directly or indirectly from life's unique capability to mediate and direct energy flux. As such, it is important to consider the impact that differences in energy flux may have on the quantity and quality of evidence for life. Earth differs from every other body in our solar system in the magnitude of biologically-usable energy flux into a liquid water environment. On a global basis, the capture of light energy into photosynthesis and the flux of chemical energy represented in the products of that photosynthesis (organic material + O2) are about six and four orders of magnitude larger, respectively, than the flux of energy represented in geochemical sources. Our conception of what an inhabited world "looks like" and our intuition about how to search for life are based in this high-energy context. Energy fluxes on worlds beyond Earth may be better approximated by the million-fold smaller flux provided to Earth's biosphere by geochemical sources. As a result, the nature, abundance, and quality of evidence for life that could be expected on an inhabited extraterrestrial world within our solar system may differ profoundly from that found on Earth. Understanding this potential difference in quantitative terms provides important context for the formulation of life detection strategies. The influence of energy flux on biosignatures can be evaluated through reference to the two basic purposes into which life partitions energy flux: (1) Life expends energy to sustain existing biomass in a metabolic steady state (metabolically functional but non-growing). The formal representation of this relationship in the traditional microbiology literature equates biomass directly with energy flux. The direct implication is that worlds having lower energy flux will have correspondingly lower potential to support biomass. Life detection strategies that directly target extant organisms should therefore be prepared to encounter average biomass densities that may be many orders of magnitude smaller than those found in most of Earth's surface environments (2) Life expends energy to synthesize new biomass. An end-member case in which new biomass is created at the energy-limited rate and the corresponding cells are immediately destroyed (so that the energy partitioned to cell maintenance is minimized) establishes an upper bound on the rate at which biological material can enter a bulk global pool. For a specified bulk concentration [i] of any particular biological compound, i, or for biologically produced matter overall, this synthesis rate, R (sub i), defines a characteristic time scale tau (sub i) equals [i] divided by R (sub i). tau (sub i) can be thought of as (a) the minimum time required for biosynthesis to yield a specific bulk concentration (e.g., a detection threshold) of i, and (b) the average residence time of i within a bulk pool when [i] is held in steady state through a balance between biosynthesis and attrition by physical, chemical, or biological consumption. tau (sub i) becomes an important quantity in considering the potential utility of enantiomeric excess (as a product of homochiral biosynthesis) as a biosignature. Spontaneous racemization of amino acids acts to "erase" the signature of homochiral synthesis over time scales that may range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years, depending on temperature. For environments in which low energy flux translates to low rates of biosynthesis, including the synthesis of homochiral amino acids, amino acid residence times in pools having detectable concentrations may compare to or significantly exceed the time scale for racemization. This and similar consequences of long residence times should be considered in the formulation of life detection strategies based on detection of biologically-produced species. Fluxes of biologically-useful energy on potentially habitable worlds within our solar system are, at present, not well constrained. Improving such constraint has the potential to inform priorities in the formulation and targeting of search-for-life strategies, based on the implications of energy flux for the abundance and quality of biosignatures overall, and in specific categories
Extraction of Resonances from Meson-Nucleon Reactions
We present a pedagogical study of the commonly employed Speed-Plot (SP) and
Time-delay (TD) methods for extracting the resonance parameters from the data
of two particle coupled-channels reactions. Within several exactly solvable
models, it is found that these two methods find poles on different Riemann
sheets and are not always valid. We then develop an analytic continuation
method for extracting the nucleon resonances within a dynamical coupled-channel
formulation of the and reactions. The main focus is on
resolving the complications due to the coupling with the unstable channels which decay into states. By using the
results from the considered exactly solvable models, explicit numerical
procedures are presented and verified. As a first application of the developed
analytic continuation method, we present the nucleon resonances in the
and partial waves extracted within a recently developed
coupled-channels model of reactions. The results from this realistic
model, which includes , , , , and
channels, also show that the simple pole parametrization of the
resonant propagator using the poles extracted from SP and TD methods works
poorly.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figure
Establishment of the Coast Range ophiolite microbial observatory (CROMO): Drilling objectives and preliminary outcomes
Abstract. This project aimed to establish a subsurface microbial observatory in ultramafic rocks, by drilling into an actively serpentinizing peridotite body, characterizing cored rocks, and outfitting the boreholes for a program of long-term observation and experimentation to resolve the serpentinite-hosted subsurface biosphere. We completed drilling in August 2011, drilling two boreholes with core recovery and possibility for down-hole experimentation, and six smaller-diameter monitoring wells arrayed around the two primary holes, in the Coast Range ophiolite (CRO) locality in the UC-Davis McLaughlin Natural Reserve, Lower Lake, CA. Every effort was made during drilling to keep the cores and wells as free of drilling-induced contamination as possible: clean, purified water was used as drilling fluid, fluorescent microbead tracers were suspended in that water for quantification of drilling fluid penetration into the cores, and high resolution next generation sequencing approaches were used to characterize the microbial populations in the drill fluids and core materials. In December 2011, we completed installation of well pumps (slow flow bladder pumps) in the monitoring wells, and have deployed a set of in situ incubation experiments in the two uncased boreholes. Preliminary findings illustrate natural variability in actively serpentinizing strata, and confirm distinct groundwater flow regimes and microbial ecosystems in (a) shallow, surface-impacted soil water horizons and (b) deeper, ultramafic bedrock-sourced formation fluids
Pion parameters in nuclear medium from chiral perturbation theory and virial expansion
We consider two methods to find the effective parameters of the pion
traversing a nuclear medium. One is the first order chiral perturbation
theoretic evaluation of the pion pole contribution to the two-point function of
the axial-vector current. The other is the exact, first order virial expansion
of the pion self-energy. We find that, although the results of chiral
perturbation theory are not valid at normal nuclear density, those from the
virial expansion may be reliable at such density. The latter predicts both the
mass-shift and the in-medium decay width of the pion to be small, of about a
few MeV.Comment: 9 Pages RevTex, 3 eps figure
Factors that control the stable carbon isotopic composition of methane produced in an anoxic marine sediment
The carbon isotopic composition of methane produced in anoxic marine sediment is controlled by four factors: (1) the pathway of methane formation, (2) the isotopic composition of the methanogenic precursors, (3) the isotope fractionation factors for methane production, and (4) the isotope fractionation associated with methane oxidation. The importance of each factor was evaluated by monitoring stable carbon isotope ratios in methane produced by a sediment microcosm. Methane did not accumulate during the initial 42-day period when sediment contained sulfate, indicating little methane production from 'noncompetitive' substrates. Following sulfate depletion, methane accumulation proceeded in three distinct phases. First, CO2 reduction was the dominant methanogenic pathway and the isotopic composition of the methane produced ranged from -80 to -94 per thousand. The acetate concentration increased during this phase, suggesting that acetoclastic methanogenic bacteria were unable to keep pace with acetate production. Second, acetate fermentation became the dominant methanogenic pathway as bacteria responded to elevated acetate concentrations. The methane produced during this phase was progressively enriched in C-13, reaching a maximum delta(C-13) value of -42 per thousand. Third, the acetate pool experienced a precipitous decline from greater than 5 mM to less than 20 micro-M and methane production was again dominated by CO2 reduction. The delta(C-13) of methane produced during this final phase ranged from -46 to -58 per thousand. Methane oxidation concurrent with methane production was detected throughout the period of methane accumulation, at rates equivalent to 1 to 8 percent of the gross methane production rate. Thus methane oxidation was too slow to have significantly modified the isotopic signature of methane. A comparison of microcosm and field data suggests that similar microbial interactions may control seasonal variability in the isotopic composition of methane emitted from undisturbed Cape Lookout Bight sediment
Relativistic resonances: Their masses, widths, lifetimes, superposition, and causal evolution
Whether one starts form the analytic S-matrix definition or the requirement
of gauge parameter independence in renormalization theory, a relativistic
resonance is given by a pole at a complex value s of energy squared. The
complex number s does not define the mass and width separately and this
definition does not lead to interfering Breit-Wigner if two or more resonances
are involved. To accomplish both we invoke the decaying particle aspect of a
resonance and associate to each pole a space of relativistic Gamow kets which
transform irreducibly under causal Poincare transformations. A Gamow state has
an exponential time evolution and one can choose of the many possible width
parameters, that parameter as the width of the relativistic resonance which
equals the inverse lifetime. This uniquely defines the mass and width
parameters for a relativistic resonance. Two or more poles in the same partial
wave are given by the sum of Breit-Wigners in the scattering amplitude and by a
superposition of Gamow vectors with each Gamow vector corresponding to one
Breit-Wigner. In addition to the sum of Breit-Wigners the scattering amplitude
contains a background amplitude representing direct production of the final
state (contact terms).This contact amplitude is associated to a background
vector which is a continuous superposition of Lippmann-Schwinger states.
Omitting this continuum gives the Weisskopf-Wigner approximation.Comment: 22 pages, REVTe
Microbial catabolic activities are naturally selected by metabolic energy harvest rate
The fundamental trade-off between yield and rate of energy harvest per unit of substrate has been largely discussed as a main characteristic for microbial established cooperation or competition. In this study, this point is addressed by developing a generalized model that simulates competition between existing and not experimentally reported microbial catabolic activities defined only based on well-known biochemical pathways. No specific microbial physiological adaptations are considered, growth yield is calculated coupled to catabolism energetics and a common maximum biomass-specific catabolism rate (expressed as electron transfer rate) is assumed for all microbial groups. Under this approach, successful microbial metabolisms are predicted in line with experimental observations under the hypothesis of maximum energy harvest rate. Two microbial ecosystems, typically found in wastewater treatment plants, are simulated, namely: (i) the anaerobic fermentation of glucose and (ii) the oxidation and reduction of nitrogen under aerobic autotrophic (nitrification) and anoxic heterotrophic and autotrophic (denitrification) conditions. The experimentally observed cross feeding in glucose fermentation, through multiple intermediate fermentation pathways, towards ultimately methane and carbon dioxide is predicted. Analogously, two-stage nitrification (by ammonium and nitrite oxidizers) is predicted as prevailing over nitrification in one stage. Conversely, denitrification is predicted in one stage (by denitrifiers) as well as anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation). The model results suggest that these observations are a direct consequence of the different energy yields per electron transferred at the different steps of the pathways. Overall, our results theoretically support the hypothesis that successful microbial catabolic activities are selected by an overall maximum energy harvest rate
Superscaling of Inclusive Electron Scattering from Nuclei
We investigate the degree to which the concept of superscaling, initially
developed within the framework of the relativistic Fermi gas model, applies to
inclusive electron scattering from nuclei. We find that data obtained from the
low energy loss side of the quasielastic peak exhibit the superscaling
property, i.e., the scaling functions f(\psi') are not only independent of
momentum transfer (the usual type of scaling: scaling of the first kind), but
coincide for A \geq 4 when plotted versus a dimensionless scaling variable
\psi' (scaling of the second kind). We use this behavior to study as yet poorly
understood properties of the inclusive response at large electron energy loss.Comment: 33 pages, 12 color EPS figures, LaTeX2e using BoxedEPSF macros; email
to [email protected]
Neutron charge form factor at large
The neutron charge form factor is determined from an analysis of
the deuteron quadrupole form factor data. Recent calculations, based
on a variety of different model interactions and currents, indicate that the
contributions associated with the uncertain two-body operators of shorter range
are relatively small for , even at large momentum transfer . Hence,
can be extracted from at large without undue
systematic uncertainties from theory.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
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