3,626 research outputs found
Anaerobic digestion of fungally pre-treated wine distillery wastewater
The combination of fungal pre-treatment with Trametes pubescens and anaerobic digestion were tested for the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and phenolic compounds from wine distillery wastewater. The COD removal efficiency after fungal pre-treatment reached 53.3%. During digestion, pH buffering was achieved using CaCO3 and K2HPO4. This provided a stable environment inside digester for efficient and time-independent COD removal. The total COD removal efficiency reached 99.5%, and the system proved able to eliminate shock COD loads, as indicated by the concentrations of sludge and volatile fatty acids. Complex changes of phenolic compounds are suspected in anaerobic digestionsystem, and are investigated further
The Deuterium to Hydrogen Abundance Ratio Towards the QSO SDSS1558-0031
We present a measurement of the D/H abundance ratio in a metal-poor damped
Lyman alpha (DLA) system along the sightline of QSO SDSS1558-0031. The DLA
system is at redshift z = 2.70262, has a neutral column density of
log(NHI)=20.67+/-0.05 cm^2, and a gas-phase metallicity [O/H]= -1.49 which
indicates that deuterium astration is negligible. Deuterium absorption is
observed in multiple Lyman series with a column density of
log(NDI)=16.19+/-0.04 cm^2, best constrained by the deuterium Lyman-11 line. We
measure log(D/H) = -4.48+/-0.06, which when combined with previous measurements
along QSO sightlines gives a best estimate of log(D/H) = -4.55+/-0.04, where
the 1-sigma error estimate comes from a jackknife analysis of the weighted
means. Using the framework of standard big bang nucleosynthesis, this value of
D/H translates into a baryon density of Omega_b h^2 = 0.0213 +/- 0.0013 +/-
0.0004 where the error terms represent the 1-sigma errors from D/H and the
uncertainties in the nuclear reaction rates respectively. Combining our new
measurement with previous measurements of D/H, we no longer find compelling
evidence for a trend of D/H with NHI.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal
Letter
Effective Actions, Boundaries and Precision Calculations of Casimir Energies
We perform the matching required to compute the leading effective boundary
contribution to the QED lagrangian in the presence of a conducting surface,
once the electron is integrated out. Our result resolves a confusion in the
literature concerning the interpretation of the leading such correction to the
Casimir energy. It also provides a useful theoretical laboratory for
brane-world calculations in which kinetic terms are generated on the brane,
since a lot is known about QED near boundaries.Comment: 5 pages. revtex; Added paragraphs describing finite-conductivity
effects and effects due to curvatur
Fibre Inflation: Observable Gravity Waves from IIB String Compactifications
We introduce a simple string model of inflation, in which the inflaton field
can take trans-Planckian values while driving a period of slow-roll inflation.
This leads naturally to a realisation of large field inflation, inasmuch as the
inflationary epoch is well described by the single-field scalar potential . Remarkably, for a broad class of vacua
all adjustable parameters enter only through the overall coefficient , and
in particular do not enter into the slow-roll parameters. Consequently these
are determined purely by the number of \e-foldings, , and so are not
independent: . This implies similar
relations among observables like the primordial scalar-to-tensor amplitude,
, and the scalar spectral tilt, : . is
itself more model-dependent since it depends partly on the post-inflationary
reheat history. In a simple reheating scenario a reheating temperature of
GeV gives , corresponding to and , within reach of future observations. The model is
an example of a class that arises naturally in the context of type IIB string
compactifications with large-volume moduli stabilisation, and takes advantage
of the generic existence there of Kahler moduli whose dominant appearance in
the scalar potential arises from string loop corrections to the Kahler
potential. The inflaton field is a combination of Kahler moduli of a K3-fibered
Calabi-Yau manifold. We believe there are likely to be a great number of models
in this class -- `high-fibre models' -- in which the inflaton starts off far
enough up the fibre to produce observably large primordial gravity waves.Comment: Extended calculations beyond the leading approximations, including
numerical integrations of multi-field evolution; Display an example with ; Simplify the discussion of large fields; Corrected minor errors and
typos; Added references; 41 pages LaTeX, 25 figure
DBI Lifshitz Inflation
A new model of DBI inflation is introduced where the mobile brane, the
inflaton field, is moving relativistically inside a Lifshitz throat with an
arbitrary anisotropic scaling exponent . After dimensional reduction to four
dimension the general covariance is broken explicitly both in the matter and
the gravitational sectors. The general action for the metric and matter field
perturbations are obtained and it is shown to be similar to the classifications
made in the effective field theory of inflation literature.Comment: Version 3: minor typos corrected, the JCAP published versio
Dynamical Fine Tuning in Brane Inflation
We investigate a novel mechanism of dynamical tuning of a flat potential in
the open string landscape within the context of warped brane-antibrane
inflation in type IIB string theory. Because of competing effects between
interactions with the moduli stabilizing D7-branes in the warped throat and
anti-D3-branes at the tip, a stack of branes gives rise to a local minimum of
the potential, holding the branes high up in the throat. As branes successively
tunnel out of the local minimum to the bottom of the throat the potential
barrier becomes lower and is eventually replaced by a flat inflection point,
around which the remaining branes easily inflate. This dynamical flattening of
the inflaton potential reduces the need to fine tune the potential by hand, and
also leads to successful inflation for a larger range of inflaton initial
conditions, due to trapping in the local minimum.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures. v2: Updated D3-dependence in potential, small
changes to numerical result
Fields Annihilation and Particles Creation in DBI inflation
We consider a model of DBI inflation where two stacks of mobile branes are
moving ultra relativistically in a warped throat. The stack closer to the tip
of the throat is annihilated with the background anti-branes while inflation
proceeds by the second stack. The effects of branes annihilation and particles
creation during DBI inflation on the curvature perturbations power spectrum and
the scalar spectral index are studied. We show that for super-horizon scales,
modes which are outside the sound horizon at the time of branes collision, the
spectral index has a shift to blue spectrum compared to the standard DBI
inflation. For small scales the power spectrum approaches to its background DBI
inflation value with the decaying superimposed oscillatory modulations.Comment: First revision: minor changes, the background spectral index is
corrected, new references are added. Second revision: minor changes, new
references are added, accepted for publication in JCA
Dirac Born Infeld (DBI) Cosmic Strings
Motivated by brane physics, we consider the non-linear Dirac-Born-Infeld
(DBI) extension of the Abelian-Higgs model and study the corresponding cosmic
string configurations. The model is defined by a potential term, assumed to be
of the mexican hat form, and a DBI action for the kinetic terms. We show that
it is a continuous deformation of the Abelian-Higgs model, with a single
deformation parameter depending on a dimensionless combination of the scalar
coupling constant, the vacuum expectation value of the scalar field at
infinity, and the brane tension. By means of numerical calculations, we
investigate the profiles of the corresponding DBI-cosmic strings and prove that
they have a core which is narrower than that of Abelian-Higgs strings. We also
show that the corresponding action is smaller than in the standard case
suggesting that their formation could be favoured in brane models. Moreover we
show that the DBI-cosmic string solutions are non-pathological everywhere in
parameter space. Finally, in the limit in which the DBI model reduces to the
Bogomolnyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) Abelian-Higgs model, we find that DBI
cosmic strings are no longer BPS: rather they have positive binding energy. We
thus argue that, when they meet, two DBI strings will not bind with the
corresponding formation of a junction, and hence that a network of DBI strings
is likely to behave as a network of standard cosmic strings.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figure
Influence of He++ and Shock Geometry on Interplanetary Shocks in the Solar Wind: 2D Hybrid Simulations
After protons, alpha particles (He) are the most important ion species in the solar wind, constituting typically about 5\% of the total ion number density. Due to their different charge-to-mass ratio protons and He particles are accelerated differently when they cross the electrostatic potential in a collisionless shock. This behavior can produce changes in the velocity distribution function (VDF) for both species generating anisotropy in the temperature which is considered to be the energy source for various phenomena such as ion cyclotron and mirror mode waves. How these changes in temperature anisotropy and shock structure depend on the percentage of He particles and the geometry of the shock is not completely understood. In this paper we have performed various 2D local hybrid simulations (particle ions, massless fluid electrons) with similar characteristics (e.g., Mach number) to interplanetary shocks for both quasi-parallel and quasi-perpendicular geometries self-consistently including different percentages of He particles. We have found changes in the shock transition behavior as well as in the temperature anisotropy as functions of both the shock geometry and He particle abundance: The change of the initial leads to variations of the efficiency with which particles can escape to the upstream region facilitating or not the formation of compressive structures in the magnetic field that will produce increments in perpendicular temperature. The regions where both temperature anisotropy and compressive fluctuations appear tend to be more extended and reach higher values as the He content in the simulations increases.Data set in h5 format corresponding to each panel of the figures of the publicatio
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