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At least 307 records · Page 17

Deep Exclusive Pseudoscalar Meson Production at Jefferson Lab Hall C

Measurements of exclusive meson production are a useful tool in the study of hadronic structure. In particular, one can discern the relevant degrees of freedom at different distance scales through these studies. In the transition region between low momentum transfer (where a description of hadronic degrees of freedom in terms of effective hadronic Lagrangians is valid) and high momentum transfer (where the degrees of freedom are quarks and gluons), the predictive power of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong interaction, is limited due to the absence of a complete solution. Thus, one has to rely upon experimental data from the non-perturbative intermediate-energy regime to thoroughly understand the onset of perturbative QCD (pQCD) as the momentum transfer is increased. This work involves two deep exclusive meson electroproduction experiments at Jefferson Lab (JLab). The p(e,e'pi+)n reaction is studied at fixed Q^2 and W of 2.5 GeV2 and 2.0 GeV, respectively, while varying the four momentum transfer to the nucleon -t from 0.2 to 2.1 GeV2 . As -t is increased, the hadronic interaction scale is reduced independently of the observation scale of the virtual photon, providing valuable information about the hard- scattering process in general. The data was taken at JLab Hall C in 2003, as a part of the experiment E01-004, Fpi-2, using the High Momentum Spectrometer (HMS) and Short Orbit Spectrometer (SOS), and in this work, the results of the differential cross section analysis are presented and compared to prior data, as well as two theoretical models. Using these results over a wide -t range, the transition from hard to soft QCD is also studied. In addition, the p(e,e'K+)Lambda(Sigma0) reactions are also studied. Despite their importance in elucidating the reaction mechanism underlying strangeness production, we still do not have complete understanding of these reactions above the resonance region. The experiment, E12- 09-011, intends to perform, for the first time, a full Rosenbluth (L/T/LT/TT) separation of p(e,e'K+)Lambda(Sigma0) cross sections above the resonance region using the newly upgraded standard equipment, Super High Momentum Spectrometer (SHMS) at JLab Hall C. The separated data will allow us to better understand the Kaon production reaction mechanism and the hard-soft QCD transition in exclusive processes. The kinematic settings being studied in the experiment ranges from Q^2 of 0.4 to 5.5 GeV2, W of 2.3 to 3.1 GeV, and -t of 0.06 to 0.53 GeV2. Here, the results from some pre-experimental studies with regards to estimations of singles rates as well as real and accidental coincidence rates are presented, using two different models. The implications of these projections on the runplan for the experiment are also discussed.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Drivers and ecological impacts of a wildfire outbreak in the southern Appalachian Mountains after decades of fire exclusion

During one of the warmest and driest droughts of the last century, the southern Appalachian Mountains experienced a regional outbreak of over a dozen large wildfires in late fall of 2016. We provide a synthesis of long-term forest changes leading up to the 2016 wildfires, examine the climatic setting and patterns of burn severity in relationship to topography, and discuss the ecological and management implications of these and future fires. During the pre- and post-European settlement periods, frequent low- and mixed-severity wildfires interacted with complex topographic gradients and maintained heterogenous landscapes dominated by several species of oak (Quercus spp.), pine (Pinus spp.), and the American chestnut (Castanea dentata). Land-use changes associated with European settlement, loss of the American chestnut, and 20th century fire exclusion resulted in large scale shifts towards mesic, fire-intolerant species (i.e. mesophication). Wildfire activity began increasing in the early 1980s, but most fires in the region are small (<1,000 ha). In Fall of 2016, deciduous tree leaf fall occurred concurrently with a period of anomalously dry and warm weather, creating ideal conditions for fire ignition and spread. Thousands of ignitions across the region strained suppression resources and eight fires grew to greater than 5,000 ha. The 2016 fires were larger and burned more area than in the previous three decades combined. In one unique landscape setting, the Chimney Tops 2 Fire, a synoptic wind event drove extreme fire behavior and burned large, high-severity patches resulting in devastating effects in the wildland urban interface. However, immediate post-fire burn severity mosaics for other fires were composed primarily of low- (73 %) and moderate-severity (21 %) fire effects. High-severity fire comprised only 6 % of the area burned, and occurred mostly on steep upper slopes and ridges on south-facing aspects, reflecting the importance of bottom-up topographic drivers in this region. Although the fires will likely enhance biodiversity by restoring fire-dependent species and creating early seral habitat, invasions of non-native plant species, delayed mortality of mature pines and oaks, and rapid re-sprouting of pyrophyllic shrubs pose significant management challenges. Although similar large fire outbreaks may become more common under future climatic conditions, they are unlikely to reverse the effects of mesophication and significantly alter forest dynamics at broad spatial scales. Furthermore, the 2016 fires exposed the vulnerability of the region to wildfire during acute fall drought and demonstrate the potential ecological effects of future wildfires in mixed pine-hardwood landscapes of the southern Appalachians.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Polarization Transfer in Wide-Angle Compton Scattering and Single-Pion Photoproduction from the Proton

Wide-angle exclusive Compton scattering and single-pion photoproduction from the proton have been investigated via measurement of the polarization transfer from a circularly polarized photon beam to the recoil proton. The wide-angle Compton scattering polarization transfer was analyzed at an incident photon energy of 3.7 GeV at a proton scattering angle of theta(p)(cm) cm = 70 degrees. The longitudinal transfer K-LL, measured to be 0.645 +/- 0.059 +/- 0.048, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic, has the same sign as predicted for the reaction mechanism in which the photon interacts with a single quark carrying the spin of the proton. However, the observed value is similar to 3 times larger than predicted by the generalized-parton-distribution-based calculations, which indicates a significant unknown contribution to the scattering amplitude.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

The joint center for energy storage research: A new paradigm for battery research and development

The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) seeks transformational change in transportation and the electricity grid driven by next generation high performance, low cost electricity storage. To pursue this transformative vision JCESR introduces a new paradigm for battery research: integrating discovery science, battery design, research prototyping and manufacturing collaboration in a single highly interactive organization. This new paradigm will accelerate the pace of discovery and innovation and reduce the time from conceptualization to commercialization. JCESR applies its new paradigm exclusively to beyond-lithium-ion batteries, a vast, rich and largely unexplored frontier. This review presents JCESR's motivation, vision, mission, intended outcomes or legacies and first year accomplishments.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Landau-Pomeranchuk-Midgal effect and charm production in p p collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider using the parton cascade model

We study the impact of the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Midgal (LPM) effect on the dynamics of parton interactions in proton-proton collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. For our investigation we utilize a microscopic kinetic theory based on the Boltzmann equation. The calculation traces the space-time evolution of the cascading partons interacting via semihard pQCD scatterings and fragmentations. We focus on the impact of the LPM effect on the production of charm quarks, since their production is exclusively governed by processes well described in our kinetic theory. Furthermore, the LPM effect is found to become more prominent as the collision energy rises and at central rapidities, and may significantly affect the model's predicted charm distributions at low momenta.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers

Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to both increasingly destructive wildfires and fire exclusion in fire–dependent ecosystems. As an ecological process, fire integrates complex feedbacks among biological, social and geophysical processes, requiring coordination across several fields and scales of study. Here, we describe the diversity of ways in which fire operates as a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process on Earth. We explore research priorities in six categories of fire ecology: (a) characteristics of fire regimes, (b) changing fire regimes, (c) fire effects on above–ground ecology, (d) fire effects on below–ground ecology, (e) fire behaviour and (f) fire ecology modelling. We identify three emergent themes: the need to study fire across temporal scales, to assess the mechanisms underlying a variety of ecological feedbacks involving fire and to improve representation of fire in a range of modelling contexts. As fire regimes and our relationships with fire continue to change, prioritizing these research areas will facilitate understanding of the ecological causes and consequences of future fires and rethinking fire management alternatives.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Weakly Ordered Nanostructured Silver Disilicate and Its Colloidal Solutions: Preparation and Properties

It was shown that the interaction of silver cations in alkaline aqueous solutions with various kinds of silicates, regardless of their chemical and aggregation state, leads to the formation of an exclusively disilicate form of silver salt. We develop procedures for synthesis of nanostructured weakly ordered nonstoichiometric silver disilicate Ag{sub 6 –x}H{sub x}Si{sub 2}O{sub 7} capable of forming aqueous colloids. We study the micellular structure of colloidal particles in these solutions and demonstrate that permeability of silicic acid layers enveloping nanosized salt cores of these micelles depends on pH. Colloidal silver disilicate is found to exhibit a high catalytic activity in photoinduced oxidation of a broad spectrum of different compounds, which is demonstrated for compounds stable in aqueous solutions such as some organic dies and ferrocyanide complex ([Fe(CN){sub 6}{sup −4}).

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Constraints on WIMP annihilation for contracted dark matter in the inner Galaxy with the Fermi -LAT

Here, we derive constraints on parameters of generic dark matter candidates by comparing theoretical predictions with the gamma-ray emission observed by the Fermi-LAT from the region around the Galactic Center. Our analysis is conservative since it simply requires that the expected dark matter signal does not exceed the observed emission. The constraints obtained in the likely case that the collapse of baryons to the Galactic Center is accompanied by the contraction of the dark matter are strong. In particular, we find that for b b ¯ and τ + τ – or W + W – dark matter annihilation channels, the upper limits on the annihilation cross section imply that the thermal cross section is excluded for a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) mass smaller than about 700 and 500 GeV, respectively. For the μ + μ – channel, where the effect of the inverse Compton scattering is important, depending on models of the Galactic magnetic field the exclusion of the thermal cross-section is for a WIMP mass smaller than about 150 to 400 GeV. The upper limits on the annihilation cross section of dark matter particles obtained are two orders of magnitude stronger than without contraction. In the latter case our results are compatible with the upper limits from the Galactic halo analysis reported by the Fermi -LAT collaboration for the case in which the same conservative approach without modeling of the astrophysical background is employed.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Optical potential uncertainties on exclusive tens-of-MeV Ar cross sections

Large liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detectors, such as those planned for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), show considerable promise as a platform for next-generation measurements of supernova neutrinos. Thanks to the neutron excess in $^{40}$Ar as well as the detailed tracking possible with LArTPCs, these detectors are expected to be uniquely capable of measuring supernova electron neutrinos with high statistics and minimal backgrounds. However, these technological advantages come at the price of complexities in data interpretation; reconstruction of the incident energies of supernova neutrinos in a future LArTPC-based analysis will be subject to a variety of systematic uncertainties related to nuclear interaction modeling. In this talk, we present a study of a subset of these uncertainties as implemented in the MARLEY event generator used by DUNE and other LArTPC neutrino experiments. Variations to the optical potential used in the MARLEY nuclear de-excitation model are applied to the calculation of exclusive tens-of-MeV neutrino-nucleus cross sections for the first time, and the impact on observables of interest for supernova neutrino detection is examined. We also discuss prospects for quantifying other sources of uncertainty on the MARLEY neutrino interaction model.

El-Haj, Luca Abu↗

Leptonic scalars at the LHC

We explore the collider prospects of neutrino non-standard interaction with a Standard Model (SM) gauge-singlet leptonic scalar &straightphi; carrying two units of lepton-number-charge. These leptonic scalars are forbidden from interacting with the SM fermions at the renormalizable level and, if one allows for higher-dimensional operators, couple predominantly to SM neutrinos. For masses at or below the electroweak scale, &straightphi; decays exclusively into neutrinos. Its characteristic production signature at hadron collider experiments like the LHC would be via the vector boson fusion process and leads to same-sign dileptons, two forward jets in opposite hemispheres, and missing transverse energy, i.e., $$ pp\to {\mathrm{\ell}}_{\alpha}^{\pm }{\mathrm{\ell}}_{\beta}^{\pm } jj+{E}_T^{\mathrm{miss}}\left(\alpha, \beta =e,\mu, \tau \right) $$ pp → ℓ α ± ℓ β ± jj + E T miss α β = e μ τ . Exploiting the final states of electrons and muons, we estimate, for the first time, the sensitivity of the LHC to these lepton-number-charged scalars. We show that the LHC sensitivity is largely complementary to that of low-energy precision measurements of the decays of charged leptons, charged mesons, W , Z and the SM Higgs boson, as well as the neutrino beam experiments like MINOS, and searches for neutrino self-interactions at IceCube and in cosmological observations. For &straightphi; mass larger than roughly 10 GeV, our projected LHC sensitivity would surpass all existing bounds.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Latent Dirichlet Allocation modeling of environmental microbiomes

Interactions between stressed organisms and their microbiome environments may provide new routes for understanding and controlling biological systems. However, microbiomes are a form of high-dimensional data, with thousands of taxa present in any given sample, which makes untangling the interaction between an organism and its microbial environment a challenge. Here we apply Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a technique for language modeling, which decomposes the microbial communities into a set of topics (non-mutually-exclusive sub-communities) that compactly represent the distribution of full communities. LDA provides a lens into the microbiome at broad and fine-grained taxonomic levels, which we show on two datasets. In the first dataset, from the literature, we show how LDA topics succinctly recapitulate many results from a previous study on diseased coral species. We then apply LDA to a new dataset of maize soil microbiomes under drought, and find a large number of significant associations between the microbiome topics and plant traits as well as associations between the microbiome and the experimental factors, e.g. watering level. This yields new information on the plant-microbial interactions in maize and shows that LDA technique is useful for studying the coupling between microbiomes and stressed organisms.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Double-differential inclusive charged-current ν μ cross sections on hydrocarbon in MINERvA at ( E ν ) ~ 3.5 GeV

MINERvA reports inclusive charged-current cross sections for muon neutrinos on hydrocarbon in the NuMI beamline. We measured the double-differential cross section in terms of the longitudinal and transverse muon momenta, as well as the single-differential cross sections in those variables. The data used in this analysis correspond to an exposure of 3.34×10 20 protons on target with a peak neutrino energy of approximately 3.5 GeV. Measurements are compared to the GENIE, NuWro and GiBUU neutrino cross-section predictions, as well as a version of GENIE modified to produce better agreement with prior exclusive MINERvA measurements. None of the models or variants were able to successfully reproduce the data across the entire phase space, which includes areas dominated by each interaction channel.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Partonic transverse distributions of up and down quarks

The quark-gluon dynamics manifests itself in a set of non-perturbative functions describing all possible spin-spin and spin-orbit correlations. The Transverse Momentum Dependent parton distributions (TMDs) and Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) carry information not only on the longitudinal but also on the transverse momentum and position of partons, providing rich and direct information on the orbital motion of quarks. Single and Dihadron semi-inclusive and hard exclusive production, both in current and target fragmentation regions, provide a variety of spin and azimuthal angle dependent observables, sensitive to the dynamics of quark-gluon interactions. Studies of the 3D PDFs are currently driving the upgrades of several existing facilities (JLab, COMPASS and RHIC), and the design and construction of new facilities worldwide (EIC, FAIR, and JPARC). In this talk, we present an overview of the current status and some future measurements of the orbital structure of nucleons at Jefferson Lab.

Avagyan, Harutyun↗

PilN binding modulates the structure and binding partners of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa type IVa pilus protein PilM

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen that expresses type IVa pili. The pilus assembly system, which promotes surface-associated twitching motility and virulence, is composed of inner and outer membrane subcomplexes, connected by an alignment subcomplex composed of PilMNOP. PilM binds to the N terminus of PilN, and we hypothesize that this interaction causes functionally significant structural changes in PilM. To characterize this interaction, we determined the crystal structures of PilM and a PilM chimera where PilM was fused to the first 12 residues of PilN (PilM·PilN(1–12)). Structural analysis, multiangle light scattering coupled with size exclusion chromatography, and bacterial two-hybrid data revealed that PilM forms dimers mediated by the binding of a novel conserved motif in the N terminus of PilM, and binding PilN abrogates this binding interface, resulting in PilM monomerization. Structural comparison of PilM with PilM·PilN(1–12) revealed that upon PilN binding, there is a large domain closure in PilM that alters its ATP binding site. Using biolayer interferometry, we found that the association rate of PilN with PilM is higher in the presence of ATP compared with ADP. Bacterial two-hybrid data suggested the connectivity of the cytoplasmic and inner membrane components of the type IVa pilus machinery in P. aeruginosa , with PilM binding to PilB, PilT, and PilC in addition to PilN. Pull-down experiments demonstrated direct interactions of PilM with PilB and PilT. As a result, we propose a working model in which dynamic binding of PilN facilitates functionally relevant structural changes in PilM.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Making the most of the relic density for dark matter searches at the LHC 14 TeV Run

As the LHC continues to search for new weakly interacting particles, it is important to remember that the search is strongly motivated by the existence of dark matter. In view of a possible positive signal, it is essential to ask whether the newly discovered weakly interacting particle can be be assigned the label “dark matter”. Within a given set of simplified models and modest working assumptions, we reinterpret the relic abundance bound as a relic abundance range, and compare the parameter space yielding the correct relic abundance with projections of the Run II exclusion regions. Assuming that dark matter is within the reach of the LHC, we also make the comparison with the potential 5σ discovery regions. Reversing the logic, relic density calculations can be used to optimize dark matter searches by motivating choices of parameters where the LHC can probe most deeply into the dark matter parameter space. In the event that DM is seen outside of the region giving the correct relic abundance, we will learn that either thermal relic DM is ruled out in that model, or the DM-quark coupling is suppressed relative to the DM coupling strength to other SM particles.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Detailed Characterization of Nuclear Recoil Pulse Shape Discrimination in the DarkSide-50 Direct Dark Matter Experiment

While evidence of non-baryonic dark matter has been accumulating for decades, its exact nature continues to remain a mystery. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are a well motivated candidate which appear in certain extensions of the Standard Model, independently of dark matter theory. If such particles exist, they should occasionally interact with particles of normal matter, producing a signal which may be detected. The DarkSide-50 direct dark matter experiment aims to detect the energy of recoiling argon atoms due to the elastic scattering of postulated WIMPs. In order to make such a discovery, a clear understanding of both the background and signal region is essential. This understanding requires a careful study of the detector's response to radioactive sources, which in turn requires such sources may be safely introduced into or near the detector volume and reliably removed. The CALibration Insertaion System (CALIS) was designed and built for this purpose in a j oint effort between Fermi National Laboratory and the University of Hawaii. This work describes the design and testing of CALIS, its installation and commissioning at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) and the multiple calibration campaigns which have successfully employed it. As nuclear recoils produced by WIMPs are indistinguishable from those produced by neutrons, radiogenic neutrons are both the most dangerous class of background and a vital calibration source for the study of the potential WIMP signal. Prior to the calibration of DarkSide-50 with radioactive neutron sources, the acceptance region was determined by the extrapolation of nuclear recoil data from a separate, dedicated experiment, ScENE, which measured the distribution of the pulse shape discrimination parameter, $f_{90}$, for nuclear recoils of known energies. This work demonstrates the validity of the extrapolation of ScENE values to DarkSide-50, by direct comparison of the $f_{90}$ distributio n of nuclear recoils from ScENE and an AmBe calibration sour! ce. The combined acceptance as defined by ScENE and the \textit{in-situ} AmBe calibration were used to establish the best WIMP exclusion limit on an argon target. Unfortunately, radioactive sources used for the calibration of DarkSide-50 are universally accompanied by gamma decays, which obscure the low energy region where most WIMP interactions are expected to occur and seem to make continuing dependence on an external measurement such as ScENE inevitable. However, this work presents a novel method of nuclear recoil calibration employing event selection, unique to the design of DarkSide-50, which produces a nearly pure sample of nuclear recoils. Further, it describes the execution of a neutron calibration campaign, from planning to analysis, which yielded a valuable data set for defining the acceptance region. Together with the event selection techniques, this allows for the definition of the acceptance region independent of ScENE values. Two analytical models of the $f_{90 }$ distribution are described and their results for nuclear recoils are compared. Finally, a detailed study of integrated noise in nuclear and electron recoil

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Crystal structure of E. coli ZinT with one zinc-binding mode and complexed with citrate

Highlights: • Crystal structure of E. coli ZinT complexed with citrate in one zinc-binding mode. • The bound zinc shows octahedral coordination by histidine residues and citrate. • EcZinT exists as a monomer in solution in the absence and presence of zinc ions. The ZnuABC ATP-binding cassette transporter found in gram-negative bacteria has been implicated in ensuring adequate zinc import into Zn(II)-poor environments. ZinT is an essential component of ZnuABC and contributes to metal transport by transferring metals to ZnuA, which delivers them to ZnuB in periplasmic zinc recruitment. Although several structures of E. coli ZinT have been reported, its zinc-binding sites and oligomeric state have not been clearly identified. Here, we report the crystal structure of E. coli ZinT at 1.76 Å resolution. This structure contains one zinc ion in its calycin-like domain, and this ion is coordinated by three highly conserved histidine residues (His167, His176 and His178). Moreover, three oxygen atoms (O{sub 1}, O{sub 6} and O{sub 7}) from the citrate molecule interact with zinc, giving the zinc ion stable octahedral coordination. Our EcZinT structure shows the fewest zinc ions bound of all reported EcZinT structures. Crystallographic packing and size exclusion chromatography suggest that EcZinT prefers to form monomers in solution. Our results provide insights into the molecular function of ZinT.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Structural Basis for Noncanonical Substrate Recognition of Cofilin/ADF Proteins by LIM Kinases

Cofilin/actin-depolymerizing factor (ADF) proteins are critical nodes that relay signals from protein kinase cascades to the actin cytoskeleton, in particular through site-specific phosphorylation at residue Ser3. This is important for regulation of the roles of cofilin in severing and stabilizing actin filaments. Consequently, cofilin/ADF Ser3 phosphorylation is tightly controlled as an almost exclusive substrate for LIM kinases. Here we determine the LIMK1:cofilin-1 co-crystal structure. We find an interface that is distinct from canonical kinase-substrate interactions. We validate this previously unobserved mechanism for high-fidelity kinase-substrate recognition by in vitro kinase assays, examination of cofilin phosphorylation in mammalian cells, and functional analysis in S. cerevisiae. The interface is conserved across all LIM kinases. Remarkably, we also observe both pre- and postphosphotransfer states in the same crystal lattice. Furthermore, this study therefore provides a molecular understanding of how kinase-substrate recognition acts as a gatekeeper to regulate actin cytoskeletal dynamics.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗