Observations of shallow convective clouds generated by solar heating of dark smoke plumes

The SEVIRI instrument on the Meteosat Second Generation satellite with both fine spatial and temporal resolution allows to detect and follow the dynamics of fast developing meteorological events like spreading smoke plumes and the lifecycles of convective clouds. Smoke plumes have the ability to change the atmospheric heat content due to absorption and reduced reflection of solar radiation. By these means they can trigger formation of shallow convective clouds at their edge. A heavy smoke plume emerging from burning Lebanese oil tanks and spreading over adjacent deserts on 17 July 2006 has been observed as an example of such an effect. This study suggests a physical explanation of the observed convection along the edge of the smoke plume, namely the strong thermal contrast resulting from solar heating of the smoke layer

Renormalization of the noncommutative photon self-energy to all orders via Seiberg-Witten map

We show that the photon self-energy in quantum electrodynamics on noncommutative $\mathbb{R}^4$ is renormalizable to all orders (both in $\theta$ and $\hbar$) when using the Seiberg-Witten map. This is due to the enormous freedom in the Seiberg-Witten map which represents field redefinitions and generates all those gauge invariant terms in the $\theta$-deformed classical action which are necessary to compensate the divergences coming from loop integrations.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX2e. v3: added references, changed title. The general renormalizability proof for noncommutative Maxwell theory turned out to be incomplete, therefore, we have to restrict the proof to the noncommutative photon self-energ

Beyond Beer's Law: Why the Index of Refraction Depends (Almost) Linearly on Concentration

Beer's empiric law states that absorbance is linearly proportional to the concentration. Based on electromagnetic theory, an approximately linear dependence can only be confirmed for comparably weak oscillators. For stronger oscillators the proportionality constant, the molar attenuation coefficient, is modulated by the inverse index of refraction, which is itself a function of concentration. For comparably weak oscillators, the index of refraction function depends, like absorbance, linearly on concentration. For stronger oscillators, this linearity is lost, except at wavenumbers considerably lower than the oscillator position. In these transparency regions, linearity between the change of the index of refraction and concentration is preserved to a high degree. This can be shown with help of the Kramers–Kronig relations which connect the integrated absorbance to the index of refraction change at lower wavenumbers than the corresponding band. This finding builds the foundation not only for refractive index sensing, but also for new interferometric approaches in IR spectroscopy, which allow measuring the complex index of refraction function. © 2020 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA