945 research outputs found
Mainstreaming biodiversity: A review of national strategies
Biodiversity is suffering dramatic declines across the globe, threatening the ability of ecosystems to provide the services on which humanity depends. Mainstreaming biodiversity into the plans, strategies and policies of different economic sectors is key to reversing these declines. The importance of this mainstreaming is recognized by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Aichi targets. Individual countries can implement the goals of the CBD through their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), which aim to, inter alia, support the mainstreaming of biodiversity into the policies of key economic sectors, such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries. This paper investigates the performance of countries at incorporating biodiversity mainstreaming into their post-2010 NBSAPs. We conduct a large-scale review of 144 NBSAPs against five criteria and calculate a national-level indicator for comparing levels of mainstreaming among countries. Our results show that developing countries, particularly those in Africa, have higher scores, indicating that they have a higher awareness of the importance of biodiversity mainstreaming. Developing nations were also more likely to involve a greater range of stakeholders in the NBSAP development process, whilst developed nations were less likely to give specific details about the monetary contributions of biodiversity to their economies. Overall, our findings suggest that biodiversity mainstreaming remains a challenge across much of the world, but that progress in some areas can provide direction and momentum in the future
Lowering IceCube's energy threshold for point source searches in the Southern Sky
Observation of a point source of astrophysical neutrinos would be a "smoking gun" signature of a cosmic-ray accelerator. While IceCube has recently discovered a diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos, no localized point source has been observed. Previous IceCube searches for point sources in the southern sky were restricted by either an energy threshold above a few hundred TeV or poor neutrino angular resolution. Here we present a search for southern sky point sources with greatly improved sensitivities to neutrinos with energies below 100 TeV. By selecting charged-current ν μ interacting inside the detector, we reduce the atmospheric background while retaining efficiency for astrophysical neutrino-induced events reconstructed with sub-degree angular resolution. The new event sample covers three years of detector data and leads to a factor of 10 improvement in sensitivity to point sources emitting below 100 TeV in the southern sky. No statistically significant evidence of point sources was found, and upper limits are set on neutrino emission from individual sources. A posteriori analysis of the highest-energy (~100 TeV) starting event in the sample found that this event alone represents a 2.8σ deviation from the hypothesis that the data consists only of atmospheric background.Fil: Aartsen, M. G.. University of Adelaide; AustraliaFil: Abraham, K.. Technische Universität München; AlemaniaFil: Ackermann, M.. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron; AlemaniaFil: Adams, J.. University Of Canterbury; Nueva ZelandaFil: Aguilar, J. A.. Université Libre de Bruxelles; BélgicaFil: Golup, Geraldina Tamara. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; ArgentinaFil: Wallace, A.. University of Adelaide; AustraliaFil: Wallraff, M.. Rwth Aachen University; AlemaniaFil: Wandkowsky, N.. University of Wisconsin; Estados UnidosFil: Weaver, Ch.. University of Alberta; CanadáFil: Wendt, C.. University of Wisconsin; Estados UnidosFil: Westerhoff, S.. University of Wisconsin; Estados UnidosFil: Whelan, B. J.. University of Adelaide; AustraliaFil: Whitehorn, N.. University of California at Berkeley; Estados UnidosFil: Wickmann, S.. Rwth Aachen University; AlemaniaFil: Wiebe, K.. Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz; AlemaniaFil: Wiebusch, C. H.. Rwth Aachen University; AlemaniaFil: Wille, L.. University of Wisconsin; Estados UnidosFil: Williams, D. R.. University of Alabama at Birmingahm; Estados UnidosFil: Wills, L.. Drexel University; Estados UnidosFil: Wissing, H.. University of Maryland; Estados UnidosFil: Wolf, M.. Stockholms Universitet; SueciaFil: Wood, T. R.. University of Alberta; CanadáFil: Woschnagg, K.. University of California at Berkeley; Estados UnidosFil: Xu, D. L.. University of Wisconsin; Estados UnidosFil: Xu, X. W.. Southern University; Estados UnidosFil: Xu, Y.. Stony Brook University; Estados UnidosFil: Yanez, J. P.. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron; AlemaniaFil: Yodh, G.. University of California at Irvine; Estados UnidosFil: Yoshida, S.. Chiba University; JapónFil: Zoll, M.. Stockholms Universitet; Sueci
Measurements of Sub-degree B-mode Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background from 100 Square Degrees of SPTpol Data
We present a measurement of the -mode polarization power spectrum (the
spectrum) from 100 of sky observed with SPTpol, a
polarization-sensitive receiver currently installed on the South Pole
Telescope. The observations used in this work were taken during 2012 and early
2013 and include data in spectral bands centered at 95 and 150 GHz. We report
the spectrum in five bins in multipole space, spanning the range , and for three spectral combinations: 95 GHz 95 GHz, 95
GHz 150 GHz, and 150 GHz 150 GHz. We subtract small ( in units of statistical uncertainty) biases from these spectra and
account for the uncertainty in those biases. The resulting power spectra are
inconsistent with zero power but consistent with predictions for the
spectrum arising from the gravitational lensing of -mode polarization. If we
assume no other source of power besides lensed modes, we determine a
preference for lensed modes of . After marginalizing over
tensor power and foregrounds, namely polarized emission from galactic dust and
extragalactic sources, this significance is . Fitting for a single
parameter, , that multiplies the predicted lensed -mode
spectrum, and marginalizing over tensor power and foregrounds, we find
, indicating that our measured spectra are
consistent with the signal expected from gravitational lensing. The data
presented here provide the best measurement to date of the -mode power
spectrum on these angular scales.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figure
Calibration and Characterization of the IceCube Photomultiplier Tube
Over 5,000 PMTs are being deployed at the South Pole to compose the IceCube
neutrino observatory. Many are placed deep in the ice to detect Cherenkov light
emitted by the products of high-energy neutrino interactions, and others are
frozen into tanks on the surface to detect particles from atmospheric cosmic
ray showers. IceCube is using the 10-inch diameter R7081-02 made by Hamamatsu
Photonics. This paper describes the laboratory characterization and calibration
of these PMTs before deployment. PMTs were illuminated with pulses ranging from
single photons to saturation level. Parameterizations are given for the single
photoelectron charge spectrum and the saturation behavior. Time resolution,
late pulses and afterpulses are characterized. Because the PMTs are relatively
large, the cathode sensitivity uniformity was measured. The absolute photon
detection efficiency was calibrated using Rayleigh-scattered photons from a
nitrogen laser. Measured characteristics are discussed in the context of their
relevance to IceCube event reconstruction and simulation efforts.Comment: 40 pages, 12 figure
A Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Gravitational Lensing Potential from 100 Square Degrees of SPTpol Data
We present a measurement of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)
gravitational lensing potential using data from the first two seasons of
observations with SPTpol, the polarization-sensitive receiver currently
installed on the South Pole Telescope (SPT). The observations used in this work
cover 100 deg of sky with arcminute resolution at 150 GHz. Using a
quadratic estimator, we make maps of the CMB lensing potential from
combinations of CMB temperature and polarization maps. We combine these lensing
potential maps to form a minimum-variance (MV) map. The lensing potential is
measured with a signal-to-noise ratio of greater than one for angular
multipoles between . This is the highest signal-to-noise mass map
made from the CMB to date and will be powerful in cross-correlation with other
tracers of large-scale structure. We calculate the power spectrum of the
lensing potential for each estimator, and we report the value of the MV power
spectrum between as our primary result. We constrain the ratio
of the spectrum to a fiducial CDM model to be . Restricting ourselves to
polarized data only, we find . This measurement rejects the hypothesis of no lensing at
using polarization data alone, and at using both
temperature and polarization data.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure
Measurements of the Temperature and E-Mode Polarization of the CMB from 500 Square Degrees of SPTpol Data
We present measurements of the -mode polarization angular auto-power
spectrum () and temperature--mode cross-power spectrum () of the
cosmic microwave background (CMB) using 150 GHz data from three seasons of
SPTpol observations. We report the power spectra over the spherical harmonic
multipole range , and detect nine acoustic peaks in the
spectrum with high signal-to-noise ratio. These measurements are the most
sensitive to date of the and power spectra at and , respectively. The observations cover 500 deg, a fivefold increase
in area compared to previous SPTpol analyses, which increases our sensitivity
to the photon diffusion damping tail of the CMB power spectra enabling tighter
constraints on \LCDM model extensions. After masking all sources with
unpolarized flux mJy we place a 95% confidence upper limit on residual
polarized point-source power of at , suggesting that the damping tail
dominates foregrounds to at least with modest source masking. We
find that the SPTpol dataset is in mild tension with the model
(), and different data splits prefer parameter values that differ
at the level. When fitting SPTpol data at we
find cosmological parameter constraints consistent with those for
temperature. Including SPTpol data at results in a preference for
a higher value of the expansion rate (H_0 = 71.3 \pm
2.1\,\mbox{km}\,s^{-1}\mbox{Mpc}^{-1} ) and a lower value for present-day
density fluctuations ().Comment: Updated to match version accepted to ApJ. 34 pages, 17 figures, 6
table
CMB Polarization B-mode Delensing with SPTpol and Herschel
We present a demonstration of delensing the observed cosmic microwave
background (CMB) B-mode polarization anisotropy. This process of reducing the
gravitational-lensing generated B-mode component will become increasingly
important for improving searches for the B modes produced by primordial
gravitational waves. In this work, we delens B-mode maps constructed from
multi-frequency SPTpol observations of a 90 deg patch of sky by subtracting
a B-mode template constructed from two inputs: SPTpol E-mode maps and a lensing
potential map estimated from the map of the
CIB. We find that our delensing procedure reduces the measured B-mode power
spectrum by 28% in the multipole range ; this is shown to be
consistent with expectations from theory and simulations and to be robust
against systematics. The null hypothesis of no delensing is rejected at . Furthermore, we build and use a suite of realistic simulations to
study the general properties of the delensing process and find that the
delensing efficiency achieved in this work is limited primarily by the noise in
the lensing potential map. We demonstrate the importance of including realistic
experimental non-idealities in the delensing forecasts used to inform
instrument and survey-strategy planning of upcoming lower-noise experiments,
such as CMB-S4.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Comments are welcome
Search for Relativistic Magnetic Monopoles with IceCube
We present the first results in the search for relativistic magnetic
monopoles with the IceCube detector, a subsurface neutrino telescope located in
the South Polar ice cap containing a volume of 1 km. This analysis
searches data taken on the partially completed detector during 2007 when
roughly 0.2 km of ice was instrumented. The lack of candidate events
leads to an upper limit on the flux of relativistic magnetic monopoles of
\Phi_{\mathrm{90%C.L.}}\sim 3\e{-18}\fluxunits for . This is a
factor of 4 improvement over the previous best experimental flux limits up to a
Lorentz boost below . This result is then interpreted for a
wide range of mass and kinetic energy values.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures. v2 is minor text edits, no changes to resul
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