Meteoritic basalts: The nakhlites, their parental magmas, cooling rates, and equivalents on Earth

Field study in northern Ontario was planned to compare cumulate rocks reported in the literature with the nakhlites in order to study the crystallization rates of the nakhlites and their possible geological settings. Experimental studies have progressed slowly because of the demands of the field work and teaching. The furnace is fully functional, and its thermocouple and oxygen sensor cells are functional and calibrated

Relaxing Lorentz invariance in general perturbative anomalies

We analyze the role of Lorentz symmetry in the perturbative non-gravitational anomalies for a single family of fermions. The theory is assumed to be translational invariant, power-counting renormalizable and based on a local action, but is allowed to have general Lorentz violating operators. We study the conservation of global and gauge currents associate with general internal symmetry groups and find, by using a perturbative approach, that Lorentz symmetry does not participate in the clash of symmetries that leads to the anomalies. We first analyze the triangle graphs and prove that there are regulators for which the anomalous part of the Ward identities exactly reproduces the Lorentz invariant case. Then we show, by means of a regulator independent argument, that the anomaly cancellation conditions derived in Lorentz invariant theories remain necessary ingredients for anomaly freedom.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure. Few comments added. Article published in Physical Review

Phase Equilibria Modeling of Low-Grade Metamorphic Martian Rocks

We report on modeling low-grade (up to 300 °C) metamorphic reactions with Martian starting materials

Neutral ZZ boson pair production due to radion resonance in the Randall-Sundrum model: prospects at the CERN LHC

The Neutral $Z$ boson pair production due to radion resonance at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is an interesting process to explore the notion of warped geometry (Randall-Sundrum model). Because of the enhanced coupling of radion with a pair of gluons due to trace enomaly and top(quark) loop, the radion can provide larger event rate possibility as compared to any New Physics effect. Using the proper radion-top-antitop (with the quarks being off-shell) coupling, we obtain the correct radion production rate at LHC and explore several features of a heavier radion decaying into a pair of real $Z$ bosons which subsequently decays into charged $4 l (l=e, \mu)$ leptons (the gold-plated mode). Using the signal and background event rate, we obtain bounds on radion mass $m_\phi$ and radion vev \vphi at the $5\sigma$, $10\sigma$ discovery level.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, minor changes in the text, result unchanged. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Iddingsite in the Nakhla meteorite: TEM study of mineralogy and texture of pre-terrestrial (Martian?) alterations

Rusty-colored veinlets and patches in the Nakhla meteorite, identified as iddingsite, are pre-terrestrial. The rusty material is iddingsite (smectites + hematite + ferrihydrite); like terrestrial iddingsites, it probably formed during low-temperature interaction of olivine and water. Fragments of rusty material with host olivine were removed from thin sections of Nakhla with a tungsten needle. Fragments were embedded in epoxy, microtomed to 100 nanometers thickness, and mounted on Cu grids. Phase identifications were by Analytical Electron Microscopy/Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EM/EDX) standardless chemical analyses (for silicates), electron diffraction (hematite and ferrihydrite), and lattice fringe imaging. This iddingsite in Nakhla is nearly identical to some formed on Earth, suggesting similar conditions of formation on the Shergottites-Nakhlites-Chassigny (SNC) meteorite parent planet. A more detailed account of the results is presented