2,316 research outputs found
Regulation of nitrogen uptake and assimilation: Effects of nitrogen source, root-zone pH, and aerial CO2 concentration on growth and productivity of soybeans
An important feature of controlled-environment crop production systems such as those to be used for life support of crews during space exploration is the efficient utilization of nitrogen supplies. Making decisions about the best sources of these supplies requires research into the relationship between nitrogen source and the physiological processes which regulate vegetative and reproductive plant growth. Work done in four areas within this research objective is reported: (1) experiments on the effects of root-zone pH on preferential utilization of NO3(-) versus NH4(+) nitrogen; (2) investigation of processes at the whole-plant level that regulate nitrogen uptake; (3) studies of the effects of atmospheric CO2 and NO3(-) supply on the growth of soybeans; and (4) examination of the role of NO3(-) uptake in enhancement of root respiration
Nitrogen uptake and utilization by intact plants
The results of experiments support the proposed conceptual model that relates nitrogen uptake activity by plants as a balanced interdependence between the carbon-supplying function of the shoot and the nitrogen-supplying function of the roots. The data are being used to modify a dynamic simulation of plant growth, which presently describes carbon flows through the plant, to describe nitrogen uptake and assimilation within the plant system. Although several models have been proposed to predict nitrogen uptake and partitioning, they emphasize root characteristics affecting nutrient uptake and relay on empirical methods to describe the relationship between nitrogen and carbon flows within the plant. Researchers, on the other hand, propose to continue to attempt a mechanistic solution in which the effects of environment on nitrogen (as well as carbon) assimilation are incorporated through their direct effects on photosynthesis, respiration, and aging processes
On Black Holes in Massive Gravity
In massive gravity the so-far-found black hole solutions on Minkowski space
happen to convert horizons into a certain type of singularities. Here we
explore whether these singularities can be avoided if space-time is not
asymptotically Minkowskian. We find an exact analytic black hole (BH) solution
which evades the above problem by a transition at large scales to self-induced
de Sitter (dS) space-time, with the curvature scale set by the graviton mass.
This solution is similar to the ones discovered by Koyama, Niz and Tasinato,
and by Nieuwenhuizen, but differs in detail. The solution demonstrates that in
massive GR, in the Schwarzschild coordinate system, a BH metric has to be
accompanied by the St\"uckelberg fields with nontrivial backgrounds to prevent
the horizons to convert into the singularities. We also find an analogous
solution for a Reissner-Nordstr\"om BH on dS space. A limitation of our
approach, is that we find the solutions only for specific values of the two
free parameters of the theory, for which both the vector and scalar
fluctuations loose their kinetic terms, however, we hope our solutions
represent a broader class with better behaved perturbations.Comment: 17 LateX page
Scaling Solutions to 6D Gauged Chiral Supergravity
We construct explicitly time-dependent exact solutions to the field equations
of 6D gauged chiral supergravity, compactified to 4D in the presence of up to
two 3-branes situated within the extra dimensions. The solutions we find are
scaling solutions, and are plausibly attractors which represent the late-time
evolution of a broad class of initial conditions. By matching their near-brane
boundary conditions to physical brane properties we argue that these solutions
(together with the known maximally-symmetric solutions and a new class of
non-Lorentz-invariant static solutions, which we also present here) describe
the bulk geometry between a pair of 3-branes with non-trivial on-brane
equations of state.Comment: Contribution to the New Journal of Physics focus issue on Dark
Energy; 28 page
Kicking the Rugby Ball: Perturbations of 6D Gauged Chiral Supergravity
We analyze the axially-symmetric scalar perturbations of 6D chiral gauged
supergravity compactified on the general warped geometries in the presence of
two source branes. We find all of the conical geometries are marginally stable
for normalizable perturbations (in disagreement with some recent calculations)
and the nonconical for regular perturbations, even though none of them are
supersymmetric (apart from the trivial Salam-Sezgin solution, for which there
are no source branes). The marginal direction is the one whose presence is
required by the classical scaling property of the field equations, and all
other modes have positive squared mass. In the special case of the conical
solutions, including (but not restricted to) the unwarped `rugby-ball'
solutions, we find closed-form expressions for the mode functions in terms of
Legendre and Hypergeometric functions. In so doing we show how to match the
asymptotic near-brane form for the solution to the physics of the source
branes, and thereby how to physically interpret perturbations which can be
singular at the brane positions.Comment: 21 pages + appendices, references adde
QED positivity bounds
We apply positivity bounds directly to a U ( 1 ) gauge theory with charged scalars and charged fermions, i.e., QED, minimally coupled to gravity. Assuming that the massless t -channel pole may be discarded, we show that the improved positivity bounds are violated unless new physics is introduced at the parametrically low scale Λ new ∼ ( e m M Pl ) 1 / 2 , consistent with similar results for scalar field theories, far lower than the scale implied by the weak gravity conjecture. This is sharply contrasted with previous treatments which focus on the application of positivity bounds to the low energy gravitational Euler-Heisenberg effective theory only. We emphasize that the low cutoff is a consequence of applying the positivity bounds under the assumption that the pole may be discarded. We conjecture an alternative resolution that a small amount of negativity, consistent with decoupling limits, is allowed and is not in conflict with standard UV completions, including weakly coupled ones
Brane cosmological solutions in six-dimensional warped flux compactifications
We study cosmology on a conical brane in the six-dimensional
Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton system, where the extra dimensions are compactified by
a magnetic flux. We systematically construct exact cosmological solutions using
the fact that the system is equivalently described by (6+n)-dimensional pure
Einstein-Maxwell theory via dimensional reduction. In particular, we find a
power-law inflationary solution for a general dilatonic coupling. When the
dilatonic coupling is given by that of Nishino-Sezgin chiral supergravity, this
reduces to the known solution which is not inflating. The power-law solution is
shown to be the late-time attractor. We also investigate cosmological tensor
perturbations in this model using the (6+n)-dimensional description. We obtain
the separable equation of motion and find that there always exist a zero mode,
while tachyonic modes are absent in the spectrum. The mass spectrum of
Kaluza-Klein modes is obtained numerically.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures; v2: references added; v3: version published in
JCA
Scaling Cosmologies from Duality Twisted Compactifications
Oscillating moduli fields can support a cosmological scaling solution in the
presence of a perfect fluid when the scalar field potential satisfies
appropriate conditions. We examine when such conditions arise in
higher-dimensional, non-linear sigma-models that are reduced to four dimensions
under a generalized Scherk-Schwarz compactification. We show explicitly that
scaling behaviour is possible when the higher-dimensional action exhibits a
global SL(n,R) or O(2,2) symmetry. These underlying symmetries can be exploited
to generate non-trivial scaling solutions when the moduli fields have
non-canonical kinetic energy. We also consider the compactification of
eleven-dimensional vacuum Einstein gravity on an elliptic twisted torus.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure
A no-go for no-go theorems prohibiting cosmic acceleration in extra dimensional models
A four-dimensional effective theory that arises as the low-energy limit of
some extra-dimensional model is constrained by the higher dimensional Einstein
equations. Steinhardt & Wesley use this to show that accelerated expansion in
our four large dimensions can only be transient in a large class of
Kaluza-Klein models that satisfy the (higher dimensional) null energy condition
[1]. We point out that these no-go theorems are based on a rather ad-hoc
assumption on the metric, without which no strong statements can be made.Comment: 20 page
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