736 research outputs found
Circumpolar connections between Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba Dana) populations: investigating the roles of ocean and sea ice transport
Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba Dana, has a heterogeneous circumpolar distribution in the Southern Ocean. Krill have a close association with sea ice which provides access to a critical food source and shelter, particularly in the early life stages. Advective modelling of transport pathways of krill have until now been on regional scales and have not taken explicit account of sea ice. Here we present Lagrangian modelling studies at the circumpolar scale that include interaction with sea ice. The advection scheme uses ocean velocity output from the Ocean Circulation and Climate Advanced Modelling (OCCAM) project model together with satellite-derived sea ice motion vectors to examine the potential roles of the ocean and sea ice in maintaining the observed circumpolar krill distribution. We show that the Antarctic Coastal Current is likely to be important in generating the large-scale distribution and that sea ice motion can substantially modify the ocean transport pathways, enhancing retention or dispersal depending upon location. Within the major krill region of the Scotia Sea, the effect of temporal variability in both the ocean and sea ice velocity fields is examined. Variability in sea ice motion increases variability of influx to South Georgia, at times concentrating the influx into pulses of arrival. This variability has implications for the ecosystem around the island. The inclusion of sea ice motion leads to the identification of source regions for the South Georgia krill populations additional to those identified when only ocean motion is considered. This study indicates that the circumpolar oceanic circulation and interaction with sea ice is important in determining the large-scale distribution of krill and its associated variability
Commercial fishing vessel as research vessels in the Antarctic – requirements and solutions exemplified with a new vessel
The climate-induced changes presently seen in the ecosystems of the Antarctic region require a precautionary approach with respect to the human use of these ecosystems. In particular, resource harvesting requires enough basic knowledge, as well as adequate monitoring, to avoid unintended impacts on the harvested stocks and the associated ecosystem. Due to the vastness and remoteness of the Antarctic region, research vessel capacity is not readily available for conventional coverage of harvested stocks and their ecosystems. This paper describes the potential of using commercial fishing vessels to bridge the gap in research vessel capacity. The various tasks and required instrumentation are presented and discussed. To illustrate this concept a description of a Norwegian krill fishing vessel now under construction is presented. This type of combined fishing and research vessel could make a large amount of important data available for both management, through CCAMLR, and the broader scientific community and thus improve the basis for resource evaluation and management
Is current management of the Antarctic krill fishery in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean precautionary?
This paper explains the management of the Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) fishery in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, and current knowledge about the state of the regional krill stock. In this region, krill fishing is permitted in an area of approximately 3.5 million km2 which is divided into four subareas (labelled Subareas 48.1 to 48.4) for management and reporting purposes. The effective regional catch limit (or ‘trigger level’), established in 1991, is 0.62 million tonnes year–1, equivalent to ~1% of the regional biomass estimated in 2000. Each subarea has also had its own catch limit, between 0.093 and 0.279 million tonnes year–1, since 2009. There is some evidence for a decline in the abundance of krill in the 1980s, but no evidence of a further decline in recent decades. Local-scale monitoring programs have been established in three of the subareas to monitor krill biomass in survey grids covering between 10 000 and 125 000 km2. Cautious extrapolation from these local monitoring programs provides conservative estimates of the regional biomass in recent years. This suggests that fishing at the trigger level would be equivalent to a long-term exploitation rate (annual catch divided by biomass) of <7%, which is below the 9.3% level considered appropriate to maintain the krill stock and support krill predators.
Subarea catch limits exceed 9.3% of conservatively estimated subarea biomass in up
to 20% of years due to high variability in krill biomass indices. The actual exploitation
rate in each subarea has remained <3% because annual catches have been <50% of the
trigger level since 1991. Comparison with the 9.3% reference exploitation rate suggests
that current management is precautionary at the regional scale. The subarea catch limits
help prevent excessive concentration of catch at the subarea scale. Finer-scale management
might be necessary to manage the risk of adverse impacts which might occur as a
result of concentrated fishing in sensitive areas or climate change. Frequent assessment
of the krill stock will enhance CCAMLR’s ability to manage these risks. Continuing the
local monitoring programs will provide valuable information on krill variability, but more
information is required on how the monitored biomass relates to biomass at the subarea
and regional scales
Large-scale collective motion of RFGC galaxies
We processed the data about radial velocities and HI linewidths for 1678 flat
edge-on spirals from the Revised Flat Galaxy Catalogue. We obtained the
parameters of the multipole components of large-scale velocity field of
collective non-Hubble galaxy motion as well as the parameters of the
generalized Tully-Fisher relationship in the "HI line width - linear diameter"
version. All the calculations were performed independently in the framework of
three models, where the multipole decomposition of the galaxy velocity field
was limited to a dipole, quadrupole and octopole terms respectively. We showed
that both the quadrupole and the octopole components are statistically
significant.
On the basis of the compiled list of peculiar velocities of 1623 galaxies we
obtained the estimations of cosmological parameters Omega_m and sigma_8. This
estimation is obtained in both graphical form and as a constraint of the value
S_8=sigma_8(Omega_m/0.3)^0.35 = 0.91 +/- 0.05.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Scienc
Colliders and Cosmology
Dark matter in variations of constrained minimal supersymmetric standard
models will be discussed. Particular attention will be given to the comparison
between accelerator and direct detection constraints.Comment: Submitted for the SUSY07 proceedings, 15 pages, LaTex, 26 eps figure
Measurement of the B-Meson Inclusive Semileptonic Branching Fraction and Electron-Energy Moments
We report a new measurement of the B-meson semileptonic decay momentum
spectrum that has been made with a sample of 9.4/fb of electron-positron
annihilation data collected with the CLEO II detector at the Y(4S) resonance.
Electrons from primary semileptonic decays and secondary charm decays were
separated by using charge and angular correlations in Y(4S) events with a
high-momentum lepton and an additional electron. We determined the semileptonic
branching fraction to be (10.91 +- 0.09 +- 0.24)% from the normalization of the
electron-energy spectrum. We also measured the moments of the electron energy
spectrum with minimum energies from 0.6 GeV to 1.5 GeV.Comment: 36 pages postscript, als available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLNS/, Submitted to PRD (back-to-back with
preceding preprint hep-ex/0403052
Population of a low-spin positive-parity band from high-spin intruder states in 177Au : The two-state mixing effect
The extremely neutron-deficient isotopes 177,179Au were studied by means of in-beam γ-ray spectroscopy. Specific tagging techniques, α-decay tagging in 177Au and isomer tagging in 179Au, were used for these studies. Feeding of positive-parity, nearly spherical states, which are associated with 2d3/2 and 3s1/2 proton-hole configurations, from the 1i13/2 proton-intruder configuration was observed in 177Au. Such a decay path has no precedent in odd-Au isotopes and it is explained by the effect of mixing of wave functions of the initial state
Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment
This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and
W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with
the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and
the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto
the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions
f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV
and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw
> 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour,
are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017
+/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second
include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables,
revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio
Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS
The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS
detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4
fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to
Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks
corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new
structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is
also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes.
This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table,
corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter
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