132,106 research outputs found
Variations in radiocarbon ages of various organic fractions in core sediments from Erhai Lake, SW China
Radiocarbon dating was performed for the extracted organic fractions (cellulose-rich and humic acid fractions of plant fragment; fulvic acid, humic acid and humin fractions of humus substance) and shell from core sediments of the Erhai Lake, SW China. The C-14 dating results reveal that there are considerable differences, but there apparently is a humic acid less than or equal to humin < fulvic acid fraction sequence of C-14 age increase. The variability in radiocarbon ages of organic fraction of lake sediment suggests that special caution is necessary when radiocarbon ages of bulk sediments are used.
The linear correlation between C-14 age of allochthonous terrestrial macrofossil (plant fragment and shell) and depth indicates roughly a constant sedimentation rate of ca. 0.7 rum yr(-1) in central Erhai Lake since 4500 yr BP. The C-14 ages of the autochthonous humic acid fraction are 210similar to4800 yr shift from "the true C-14 age" obtained by interpolating the corresponding horizontal level to the above C-14 age-depth correlation. Such age difference may be alternatively attributed to a uniform reservoir effect (most likely ca. 300 yr). The period with large C-14 age shift synchronizes with the period of changes in (delta(13)C and ARM intensity and ARM/susceptibility values
A study of physical processes for space radiation protection
The determination of stopping power for monatomic molecules and water vapor is addressed. Intermediate and low energy protons are considered
Leggett-Garg inequalities for the statistics of electron transport
We derive a set of Leggett-Garg inequalities (temporal Bell's inequalities)
for the moment generating function of charge transferred through a conductor.
Violation of these inequalities demonstrates the absence of a macroscopic-real
description of the transport process. We show how these inequalities can be
violated by quantum-mechanical systems and consider transport through normal
and superconducting single-electron transistors as examples.Comment: 5 pages; 3 figure
"Microscopic" approach to the Ricci dark energy
A derivation of the Ricci dark energy from quantum field theory of
fluctuating "matter" fields in a classical gravitational background is
presented. The coupling to the dark energy, the parameter 'a', is estimated in
the framework of our formalism, and qualitatively it appears to be within
observational expectations.Comment: 7 page
Evidence for anisotropic polar nanoregions in relaxor PMN: A neutron study of the elastic constants and anomalous TA phonon damping
We use neutron scattering to characterize the acoustic phonons in the relaxor
PMN and demonstrate the presence of an anisotropic damping mechanism directly
related to short-range, polar correlations. For a large range of temperatures
above Tc ~ 210, K, where dynamic polar correlations exist, acoustic phonons
propagating along [1\bar{1}0] and polarized along [110] (TA2 phonons) are
overdamped and softened across most of the Brillouin zone. By contrast,
acoustic phonons propagating along [100] and polarized along [001] (TA1
phonons) are overdamped and softened for only a limited range of wavevectors.
The anisotropy and temperature dependence of the acoustic phonon energy
linewidth are directly correlated with the elastic diffuse scattering,
indicating that polar nanoregions are the cause of the anomalous behavior. The
damping and softening vanish for q -> 0, i.e. for long-wavelength acoustic
phonons, which supports the notion that the anomalous damping is a result of
the coupling between the relaxational component of the diffuse scattering and
the harmonic TA phonons. Therefore, these effects are not due to large changes
in the elastic constants with temperature because the elastic constants
correspond to the long-wavelength limit. We compare the elastic constants we
measure to those from Brillouin scattering and to values reported for pure PT.
We show that while the values of C44 are quite similar, those for C11 and C12
are significantly less in PMN and result in a softening of (C11-C12) over PT.
There is also an increased elastic anisotropy (2C44/(C11-C12)) versus that in
PT. These results suggest an instability to TA2 acoustic fluctuations in
relaxors. We discuss our results in the context of the debate over the
"waterfall" effect and show that they are inconsistent with TA-TO phonon
coupling or other models that invoke the presence of a second optic mode.Comment: (21 pages, 16 figures, to be published in Physical Review B
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