Two populations of progenitors for type Ia SNe?

We use recent observations of type Ia Supernova (SN Ia) rates to derive, on robust empirical grounds, the distribution of the delay time (DTD) between the formation of the progenitor star and its explosion as a SN. Our analysis finds: i) delay times as long as 3-4 Gyr, derived from observations of SNe Ia at high redshift, cannot reproduce the dependence of the SN Ia rate on the colors and on the radio-luminosity of the parent galaxies, as observed in the local Universe; ii) the comparison between observed SN rates and a grid of theoretical "single-population" DTDs shows that only a few of them are possibly consistent with observations. The most successful models are all predicting a peak of SN explosions soon after star formation and an extended tail in the DTD, and can reproduce the data but only at a modest statistical confidence level; iii) present data are best matched by a bimodal DTD, in which about 50% of type Ia SNe (dubbed "prompt" SN Ia) explode soon after their stellar birth, in a time of the order of 10^8 years, while the remaining 50% ("tardy" SN Ia) have a much wider distribution, well described by an exponential function with a decay time of about 3 Gyr. This fact, coupled with the well established bimodal distribution of the decay rate, suggests the existence of two classes of progenitors. We discuss the cosmological implications of this result and make simple predictions. [Abridged]Comment: 11 pages, MNRAS, in press, modified after referee's comment

On the Evolution of the Cosmic Supernova Rates

Ongoing searches for supernovae (SNe) at cosmological distances have recently started to provide a link between SN Ia statistics and galaxy evolution. We use recent estimates of the global history of star formation to compute the theoretical Type Ia and Type II SN rates as a function of cosmic time from the present epoch to high redshifts. We show that accurate measurements of the frequency of SN events in the range 0<z<1 will be valuable probes of the nature of Type Ia progenitors and the evolution of the stellar birthrate in the universe. The Next Generation Space Telescope should detect of order 20 Type II SNe per 4'x 4' field per year in the interval 1<z<4.Comment: LaTeX, 19 pages, 3 figures, to be published in the MNRA

On the Interpretation of the Atmospheric Neutrino Data in Terms of Flavor Changing Neutrino Interactions

Flavour changing (FC) neutrino-matter interactions have been proposed as a solution to the atmospheric neutrino anomaly. Here we perform the analysis of the full set of the recent 52 kTy Super-Kamiokande atmospheric neutrino data, including the zenith angle distribution of the contained events as well as the higher energy upward-going stopping and through-going muon events. Our results show that the FC mechanism can describe the full data sample with a chi^2_{min}=44/(33 d.o.f) which is acceptable at the 90% confidence level. The combined analysis confines the amount of FC to be either close to maximal or to the level of about (10-50)%.Comment: 15 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses ReVTeX. Updated analysis to 52 kTy Super-Kamiokande data. A new figure for the up-down asymmetry is included. Some comments and references are adde

Neutrino Electron Scattering and Electroweak Gauge Structure: Future Tests

Low-energy high-resolution neutrino-electron scattering experiments may play an important role in testing the gauge structure of the electroweak interaction. We propose the use of radioactive neutrino sources (e.g. $^{51}$Cr) in underground experiments such as BOREXINO, HELLAZ and LAMA. As an illustration, we display the sensitivity of these detectors in testing the possible existence of extra neutral gauge bosons, both in the framework of E_6 models and of models with left-right symmetry.Comment: 22 pages, revtex, 4 figures included, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Does functional soil microbial diversity contribute to explain within-site plant beta-diversity in an alpine grassland and a <i>dehesa</i> meadow in Spain?

Questions: Once that the effects of hydrological and chemical soil properties have been accounted for, does soil microbial diversity contribute to explain change in plant community structure (i.e. within-site beta-diversity)? If so, at which spatial scale does microbial diversity operate? Location: La Mina in Moscosa Farm, Salamanca, western Spain (dehesa community) and Laguna Larga in the Urbión Peaks, Soria, central-northern Spain (alpine grassland). Methods: The abundance of vascular plant species, soil gram-negative microbial functional types and soil chemical properties (pH, available phosphorus, and extractable cations) were sampled at both sites, for which hydrological models were available. Redundancy analysis (RDA) was used to partition variation in plant community structure into hydrological, chemical and microbial components. Spatial filters, arranged in scalograms, were used to test for the spatial scales at which plant community structure change. Results: In the case of the dehesa the diversity of soil gram-negative microbes, weakly driven by soil pH, contributed to a small extent (adj-R2 = 2%) and at a relative medium spatial scale to explain change in plant community structure. The abundance of a few dehesa species, both annual (Trifolium dubium, Vulpia bromoides) and perennial (Poa bulbosa, Festuca ampla), was associated with either increasing or decreasing soil microbial diversity. In the alpine meadow the contribution was negligible. Conclusions: Microbial diversity can drive community structure, though in the hierarchy of environmental factors structuring communities it appears to rank lower than other soil factors. Still, microbial diversity appears to promote or restrain individual plant species. This paper aims to encourage future studies to use more comprehensive and insightful techniques to assess microbial diversity and to combine this with statistical approaches such as the one used here