238 research outputs found
Room temperature coherent spin alignment of silicon vacancies in 4H- and 6H-SiC
We report the realization of the optically induced inverse population of the
ground-state spin sublevels of the silicon vacancies () in
silicon carbide (SiC) at room temperature. The data show that the probed
silicon vacancy spin ensemble can be prepared in a coherent superposition of
the spin states. Rabi nutations persist for more than 80 s. Two opposite
schemes of the optical alignment of the populations between the ground-state
spin sublevels of the silicon vacancy upon illumination with unpolarized light
are realized in 4H- and 6H-SiC at room temperature. These altogether make the
silicon vacancy in SiC a very favorable defect for spintronics, quantum
information processing, and magnetometry.Comment: 4 pages, 3 picture
Provenance of Kalahari Sand: Paleoweathering and recycling in a linked fluvial-aeolian system
We here review what is known about the dunefields and fluvial systems of the Kalahari Basin in terms of geological setting and Quaternary dynamics and set out what has been hypothesized about the provenance of Kalahari sand so far. Previous work has tackled this problem by applying a limited number of techniques (mostly sediment textures and heavy minerals) to parts of the large dryland. The generally highly quartzose mineralogy of aeolian dunes and their compositional variability have been only broadly evaluated and several sedimentological issues have thus remained controversial, including the relative role played by fluvial processes versus aeolian reworking of older sediments and weathering controls. This reveals a need for a systematic provenance study that considers the entire basin. For this reason, here we combine original petrographic, heavy-mineral, and detrital-zircon geochronology data with previously published clay-mineral, geochemical, and geochronological information to present the first comprehensive provenance study of the vast Kalahari sand sea.
Our multi-proxy dataset comprises 100 samples, collected across the Kalahari Basin from 11°S (NW Zambia) to 28°S (NW South Africa) and from 15°E (Angola) to 28°30′W (Zimbabwe). Kalahari aeolian-dune sand mostly consists of monocrystalline quartz associated with durable heavy minerals and thus drastically differs from coastal dunefields of Namibia and Angola, which are notably richer in feldspar, lithic grains, and chemically labile clinopyroxene. The western Kalahari dunefield of southeastern Namibia is distinguished by its quartz-rich feldspatho-quartzose sand, indicating partly first-cycle provenance from the Damara Belt and Mesoproterozoic terranes. Within the basin, supply from Proterozoic outcrops is documented locally. Composition varies notably at the western and eastern edges of the sand sea, reflecting partly first-cycle fluvial supply from crystalline basements of Cambrian to Archean age in central Namibia and western Zimbabwe. Basaltic detritus from Jurassic Karoo lavas is dominant in aeolian dunes near Victoria Falls.
Bulk-sediment petrography and geochemistry of northern and central Kalahari pure quartzose sand, together with heavy-mineral and clay-mineral assemblages, indicate extensive recycling via aeolian and ephemeral-fluvial processes in arid climate of sediment strongly weathered during previous humid climatic stages in subequatorial Africa. Distilled homogenized composition of aeolian-dune sand thus reverberates the echo of paleo-weathering passed on to the present landscape through multiple episodes of fluvial and aeolian recycling.
Intracratonic sag basins such as the Kalahari contain vast amounts of quartz-rich polycyclic sand that may be tapped by rivers eroding backwards during rejuvenation stages associated with rift propagation. Such an event may considerably increase the sediment flux to the ocean, fostering the progradation of river-fed continental-embankments, as documented by augmented accumulation rates coupled with upward increasing mineralogical durability in the post-Tortonian subsurface succession of the Zambezi Delta.
The Central Kalahari is not a true desert. It has none of the naked, shifting sand dunes that typify the Sahara and other great deserts of the world. In some years the rains may exceed twenty — once even forty — inches, awakening a magic green paradise.” Mark Owens, Cry of the Kalahari
Blue spectra and induced formation of primordial black holes
We investigate the statistical properties of primordial black hole (PBH)
formation in the very early Universe. We show that the high level of
inhomogeneity of the early Universe leads to the formation of the first
generation PBHs. %The existence of these PBHs This causes later the appearance
of a dust-like phase of the cosmological expansion. We discuss here a new
mechanism for the second generation of PBH formation during the dust-like
phase. This mechanism is based on the coagulation process. We demonstrate that
the blue power spectrum of initial adiabatic perturbations after inflation
leads to overproduction of primordial black holes with gg if the power index is .Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure
Primordial black holes in braneworld cosmologies: astrophysical constraints
In two recent papers we explored the modifications to primordial black hole
physics when one moves to the simplest braneworld model, Randall--Sundrum type
II. Both the evaporation law and the cosmological evolution of the population
can be modified, and additionally accretion of energy from the background can
be dominant over evaporation at high energies. In this paper we present a
detailed study of how this impacts upon various astrophysical constraints,
analyzing constraints from the present density, from the present high-energy
photon background radiation, from distortion of the microwave background
spectrum, and from processes affecting light element abundances both during and
after nucleosynthesis. Typically, the constraints on the formation rate of
primordial black holes weaken as compared to the standard cosmology if black
hole accretion is unimportant at high energies, but can be strengthened in the
case of efficient accretion.Comment: 17 pages RevTeX4 file with three figures incorporated; final paper in
series astro-ph/0205149 and astro-ph/0208299. Minor changes to match version
accepted by Physical Review
Primordial black hole constraints in cosmologies with early matter domination
Moduli fields, a natural prediction of any supergravity and
superstring-inspired supersymmetry theory, may lead to a prolonged period of
matter domination in the early Universe. This can be observationally viable
provided the moduli decay early enough to avoid harming nucleosynthesis. If
primordial black holes form, they would be expected to do so before or during
this matter dominated era. We examine the extent to which the standard
primordial black hole constraints are weakened in such a cosmology. Permitted
mass fractions of black holes at formation are of order , rather than
the usual or so. If the black holes form from density perturbations
with a power-law spectrum, its spectral index is limited to ,
rather than the obtained in the standard cosmology.Comment: 7 pages RevTeX file with four figures incorporated (uses RevTeX and
epsf). Also available by e-mailing ARL, or by WWW at
http://star-www.maps.susx.ac.uk/papers/infcos_papers.htm
Supersymmetry and primordial black hole abundance constraints
We study the consequences of supersymmetry for primordial black hole (PBH)
abundance constraints. PBHs with mass less than about 10^{11}g will emit
supersymmetric particles when they evaporate. In most models of supersymmetry
the lightest of these particles, the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), is
stable and will hence survive to the present day. We calculate the limit on the
initial abundance of PBHs from the requirement that the present day LSP density
is less than the critical density. We apply this limit, along with those
previously obtained from the effects of PBH evaporation on nucleosynthesis and
the present day density of PBHs, to PBHs formed from the collpase of
inflationary density perturbations, in the context of supersymmetric inflation
models. If the reheat temperature after inflation is low, so as to avoid the
overproduction of gravitinos and moduli, then the lightest PBHs which are
produced in significant numbers will be evaporating around the present day and
there are therefore no constraints from the effects of the evaporation products
on nucleosynthesis or from the production of LSPs. We then examine models with
a high reheat temperature and a subsequent period of thermal inflation. In
these models avoiding the overproduction of LSPs limits the abundance of low
mass PBHs which were previously unconstrained. Throughout we incorporate the
production, at fixed time, of PBHs with a range of masses, which occurs when
critical collapse is taken into account.Comment: 8 pages RevTeX file with 3 figures incorporated (uses RevTeX and
epsf). Version to appear in Phys. Rev. D: minor change to calculation and
added discussio
Thermographic imaging in sports and exercise medicine: A Delphi study and consensus statement on the measurement of human skin temperature
This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Elsevier in Journal of Thermal Biology on 18/07/2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtherbio.2017.07.006
The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.© 2017 Elsevier Ltd The importance of using infrared thermography (IRT) to assess skin temperature (tsk) is increasing in clinical settings. Recently, its use has been increasing in sports and exercise medicine; however, no consensus guideline exists to address the methods for collecting data in such situations. The aim of this study was to develop a checklist for the collection of tsk using IRT in sports and exercise medicine. We carried out a Delphi study to set a checklist based on consensus agreement from leading experts in the field. Panelists (n = 24) representing the areas of sport science (n = 8; 33%), physiology (n = 7; 29%), physiotherapy (n = 3; 13%) and medicine (n = 6; 25%), from 13 different countries completed the Delphi process. An initial list of 16 points was proposed which was rated and commented on by panelists in three rounds of anonymous surveys following a standard Delphi procedure. The panel reached consensus on 15 items which encompassed the participants’ demographic information, camera/room or environment setup and recording/analysis of tsk using IRT. The results of the Delphi produced the checklist entitled “Thermographic Imaging in Sports and Exercise Medicine (TISEM)” which is a proposal to standardize the collection and analysis of tsk data using IRT. It is intended that the TISEM can also be applied to evaluate bias in thermographic studies and to guide practitioners in the use of this technique.Published versio
Cosmological constraints on primordial black holes produced in the near-critical gravitational collapse
The mass function of primordial black holes created through the near-critical
gravitational collapse is calculated in a manner fairly independent of the
statistical distribution of underlying density fluctuation, assuming that it
has a sharp peak on a specific scale. Comparing it with various cosmological
constraints on their mass spectrum, some newly excluded range is found in the
volume fraction of the region collapsing into black holes as a function of the
horizon mass.Comment: 9 pages. Typos corrected. To appear in Physical Review
Structure of the silicon vacancy in 6H-SiC after annealing identified as the carbon vacancy–carbon antisite pair
We investigated radiation-induced defects in neutron-irradiated and subsequently annealed 6H-silicon carbide (SiC) with electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), the magnetic circular dichroism of the absorption (MCDA), and MCDA-detected EPR (MCDA-EPR). In samples annealed beyond the annealing temperature of the isolated silicon vacancy we observed photoinduced EPR spectra of spin S=1 centers that occur in orientations expected for nearest neighbor pair defects. EPR spectra of the defect on the three inequivalent lattice sites were resolved and attributed to optical transitions between photon energies of 999 and 1075 meV by MCDA-EPR. The resolved hyperfine structure indicates the presence of one single carbon nucleus and several silicon ligand nuclei. These experimental findings are interpreted with help of total energy and spin density data obtained from the standard local-spin density approximation of the density-functional theory, using relaxed defect geometries obtained from the self-consistent charge density-functional theory based tight binding scheme. We have checked several defect models of which only the photoexcited spin triplet state of the carbon antisite–carbon vacancy pair (CSi-VC) in the doubly positive charge state can explain all experimental findings. We propose that the (CSi-VC) defect is formed from the isolated silicon vacancy as an annealing product by the movement of a carbon neighbor into the vacancy
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