The origin of alteration “orangettes” in Dhofar 019: Implications for the age and aqueous history of the shergottites

The shergottites are the largest group of Martian meteorites, and the only group that has not been found to contain definitive evidence of Martian aqueous alteration. Given recent reports of current liquid water at the surface of Mars, this study aimed to investigate in detail the possibility of Martian phyllosilicate within shergottite Dhofar 019. Optical and scanning electron microscopy, followed by transmission electron microscopy, confirmed the presence of alteration orangettes, with a layered structure consisting of poorly ordered Mg-phyllosilicate and calcite. These investigations identified maskelynite dissolution, followed by Mg-phyllosilicate and calcite deposition within the dissolution pits, as the method of orangette production. The presence of celestine within the orangette layers, the absence of shock dislocation features within calcite, and the Mg-rich nature of the phyllosilicate, all indicate a terrestrial origin for these features on Dhofar 019

Insights into collective cell behaviour from populations of coupled chemical oscillators.

Biological systems such as yeast show coordinated activity driven by chemical communication between cells. Here, we show how experiments with coupled chemical oscillators can provide insights into collective behaviour in cellular systems. Two methods of coupling the oscillators are described: exchange of chemical species with the surrounding solution and computer-controlled illumination of a light-sensitive catalyst. The collective behaviour observed includes synchronisation, dynamical quorum sensing (a density dependent transition to population-wide oscillations), and chimera states, where oscillators spontaneously split into coherent and incoherent groups. At the core of the different types of behaviour lies an intracellular autocatalytic signal and an intercellular communication mechanism that influences the autocatalytic growth

What's 'cool' in the world of green façades? How plant choice influences the cooling properties of green walls

Green walls provide an option for reducing the thermal load on buildings, reducing the requirement for mechanised air conditioning and helping to mitigate urban heat islands. The range and extent of benefits can vary with green wall typology. This research investigated green façades utilising wall shrubs and climbing plants to reduce air temperature adjacent to, and surface temperatures of, brick walls. Artificial wall sections were used to provide replicated data sets in both outdoor and controlled environmental conditions. During periods of high solar irradiance outdoors, the presence of live Prunus laurocerasus plants placed against walls significantly reduced air and surface temperatures compared to blank walls, but also in comparison to excised (non-transpiring) plant sections. Largest temperature differentials were recorded mid-late afternoon, where air adjacent to vegetated walls was 3°C cooler than non-vegetated walls. Prunus also provided significant wall cooling in controlled environment studies, but was intermediate in its surface cooling capacity (6.3°C) compared to other species; Stachys and Hedera providing >7.0°C cooling. When evaluated on a per leaf area basis, however, other species demonstrated greater cooling potential with Fuchsia, Jasminum and Lonicera out-performing others. Not only was it evident that different species varied in their cooling capacity, but that the mechanisms for providing wall cooling varied between species. Fuchsia promoted evapo-transpiration cooling, whereas shade cooling was more important in Jasminum and Lonicera. Plant physiology and leaf area/morphology should be considered when selecting species to maximise cooling in green wall applications. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd

A solution to the 4-tachyon off-shell amplitude in cubic string field theory

We derive an analytic series solution of the elliptic equations providing the 4-tachyon off-shell amplitude in cubic string field theory (CSFT). From such a solution we compute the exact coefficient of the quartic effective action relevant for time dependent solutions and we derive the exact coefficient of the quartic tachyon coupling. The rolling tachyon solution expressed as a series of exponentials $e^t$ is studied both using level-truncation computations and the exact 4-tachyon amplitude. The results for the level truncated coefficients are shown to converge to those derived using the exact string amplitude. The agreement with previous work on the subject, both on the quartic tachyon coupling and on the CSFT rolling tachyon, is an excellent test for the accuracy of our off-shell solution.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figure

Nonabelian D-branes and Noncommutative Geometry

We discuss the nonabelian world-volume action which governs the dynamics of N coincident Dp-branes. In this theory, the branes' transverse displacements are described by matrix-valued scalar fields, and so this is a natural physical framework for the appearance of noncommutative geometry. One example is the dielectric effect by which Dp-branes may be polarized into a noncommutative geometry by external fields. Another example is the appearance of noncommutative geometries in the description of intersecting D-branes of differing dimensions, such as D-strings ending on a D3- or D5-brane. We also describe the related physics of giant gravitons.Comment: 21 pages, Latex, ref. adde

Velocity of sound in a Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of an optical lattice and transverse confinement

We study the effect of the transverse degrees of freedom on the velocity of sound in a Bose-Einstein condensate immersed in a one-dimensional optical lattice and radially confined by a harmonic trap. We compare the results of full three-dimensional calculations with those of an effective 1D model based on the equation of state of the condensate. The perfect agreement between the two approaches is demonstrated for several optical lattice depths and throughout the full crossover from the 1D mean-field to the Thomas Fermi regime in the radial direction.Comment: final versio

Schnabl's L_0 Operator in the Continuous Basis

Following Schnabl's analytic solution to string field theory, we calculate the operators ${\cal L}_0,{\cal L}_0^\dagger$ for a scalar field in the continuous $\kappa$ basis. We find an explicit and simple expression for them that further simplifies for their sum, which is block diagonal in this basis. We generalize this result for the bosonized ghost sector, verify their commutation relation and relate our expressions to wedge state representations.Comment: 1+16 pages. JHEP style. Typos correcte

Kinky D-branes and straight strings of open string tachyon effective theory

In this letter we construct the kink D1-brane super D-helix solution and its T-dual the D2-brane supertube using the effective action of non-BPS tachyonic D-branes . In the limit of zero angular momentum, both types of solutions collapse to zero radius, giving rise respectively to a degenerate string configuration corresponding to a particle travelling with the speed of light and to a static straight string configuration. These solutions share all the properties of fundamental strings and do not have the pathological behavior of other solutions previously found in this context. A short discussion on the ``generalized gauge transformations'' suggested by Sen is used to justify the validity of our approach.Comment: 10 pages, latex, typos corrected and references adde

Abelian and nonabelian vector field effective actions from string field theory

The leading terms in the tree-level effective action for the massless fields of the bosonic open string are calculated by integrating out all massive fields in Witten's cubic string field theory. In both the abelian and nonabelian theories, field redefinitions make it possible to express the effective action in terms of the conventional field strength. The resulting actions reproduce the leading terms in the abelian and nonabelian Born-Infeld theories, and include (covariant) derivative corrections.Comment: 49 pages, 1 eps figur

Boundary Liouville theory at c=1

The c=1 Liouville theory has received some attention recently as the Euclidean version of an exact rolling tachyon background. In an earlier paper it was shown that the bulk theory can be identified with the interacting c=1 limit of unitary minimal models. Here we extend the analysis of the c=1-limit to the boundary problem. Most importantly, we show that the FZZT branes of Liouville theory give rise to a new 1-parameter family of boundary theories at c=1. These models share many features with the boundary Sine-Gordon theory, in particular they possess an open string spectrum with band-gaps of finite width. We propose explicit formulas for the boundary 2-point function and for the bulk-boundary operator product expansion in the c=1 boundary Liouville model. As a by-product of our analysis we also provide a nice geometric interpretation for ZZ branes and their relation with FZZT branes in the c=1 theory.Comment: 37 pages, 1 figure. Minor error corrected, slight change in result (1.6