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At least 595 records · Page 33

Global variations in critical drought thresholds that impact vegetation

ABSTRACT Identifying the thresholds of drought that, if crossed, suppress vegetation functioning is vital for accurate quantification of how land ecosystems respond to climate variability and change. We present a globally applicable framework to identify drought thresholds for vegetation responses to different levels of known soil-moisture deficits using four remotely sensed vegetation proxies spanning 2001–2018. The thresholds identified represent critical inflection points for changing vegetation responses from highly resistant to highly vulnerable in response to drought stress, and as a warning signal for substantial vegetation impacts. Drought thresholds varied geographically, with much lower percentiles of soil-moisture anomalies in vegetated areas covered by more forests, corresponding to a comparably stronger capacity to mitigate soil water deficit stress in forested ecosystems. Generally, those lower thresholds are detected in more humid climates. State-of-the-art land models, however, overestimated thresholds of soil moisture (i.e. overestimating drought impacts), especially in more humid areas with higher forest covers and arid areas with few forest covers. Based on climate model projections, we predict that the risk of vegetation damage will increase by the end of the twenty-first century in some hotspots like East Asia, Europe, Amazon, southern Australia and eastern and southern Africa. Our data-based results will inform projections on future drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems and provide an effective tool for drought management.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Latitudinal shifts of soil microbial biomass seasonality

Soil microbes ultimately drive the mineralization of soil organic carbon and thus ecosystem functions. We compiled a dataset of the seasonality of microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and developed a semi-mechanistic model to map monthly MBC across the globe. MBC exhibits an equatorially symmetric seasonality between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. In the Northern Hemisphere, MBC peaks in autumn and is minimal in spring at low latitudes (<25°N), peaks in the spring and is minimal in autumn at mid-latitudes (25°N to 50°N), while peaks in autumn and is minimal in spring at high latitudes (>50°N). This latitudinal shift of MBC seasonality is attributed to an interaction of soil temperature, soil moisture, and substrate availability. The MBC seasonality is inconsistent with patterns of heterotrophic respiration, indicating that MBC as a proxy for microbial activity is inappropriate at this resolution. This study highlights the need to explicitly represent microbial physiology in microbial models. The interactive controls of environments and substrate on microbial seasonality provide insights for better representing microbial mechanisms in simulating ecosystem functions at the seasonal scale.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Coefficients for Estimating Prenatal Dose in Pregnant Workers from Acute Intakes

Inhalation and ingestion dose coefficients for the embryo and fetus from intakes of radionuclides by the mother are provided in the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) Publication 88 for intake of each of 74 radionuclides. To address the many other possible radionuclides to which workers may be exposed, effective dose coefficients were developed for the embryo/fetus for all additional radionuclides addressed in ICRP Publication 107 with half-life of 10 min or more. The general approach was to use the estimated dose to the mother’s uterus during pregnancy as a scalable proxy for the dose to the embryo/fetus. The set of scaling factors used in the study was derived from analyses of the relationships of the dose to the mother’s uterus and the effective dose to the embryo/fetus for the ~400 cases (considering two intake modes and multiple forms of many of the radionuclides) addressed in Publication 88.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Preserving isohydricity: vertical environmental variability explains Amazon forest water-use strategies

Abstract Increases in hydrological extremes, including drought, are expected for Amazon forests. A fundamental challenge for predicting forest responses lies in identifying ecological strategies which underlie such responses. Characterization of species-specific hydraulic strategies for regulating water-use, thought to be arrayed along an ‘isohydric–anisohydric’ spectrum, is a widely used approach. However, recent studies have questioned the usefulness of this classification scheme, because its metrics are strongly influenced by environments, and hence can lead to divergent classifications even within the same species. Here, we propose an alternative approach positing that individual hydraulic regulation strategies emerge from the interaction of environments with traits. Specifically, we hypothesize that the vertical forest profile represents a key gradient in drought-related environments (atmospheric vapor pressure deficit, soil water availability) that drives divergent tree water-use strategies for coordinated regulation of stomatal conductance (gs) and leaf water potentials (ΨL) with tree rooting depth, a proxy for water availability. Testing this hypothesis in a seasonal eastern Amazon forest in Brazil, we found that hydraulic strategies indeed depend on height-associated environments. Upper canopy trees, experiencing high vapor pressure deficit (VPD), but stable soil water access through deep rooting, exhibited isohydric strategies, defined by little seasonal change in the diurnal pattern of gs and steady seasonal minimum ΨL. In contrast, understory trees, exposed to less variable VPD but highly variable soil water availability, exhibited anisohydric strategies, with fluctuations in diurnal gs that increased in the dry season along with increasing variation in ΨL. Our finding that canopy height structures the coordination between drought-related environmental stressors and hydraulic traits provides a basis for preserving the applicability of the isohydric-to-anisohydric spectrum, which we show here may consistently emerge from environmental context. Our work highlights the importance of understanding how environmental heterogeneity structures forest responses to climate change, providing a mechanistic basis for improving models of tropical ecosystems.

Forestry↗

Nuclear Waste Tank Emission Contributions to Particle Size Distribution

Pollutants from anthropogenic activities including industrial processes are ubiquitous to the environment. To understand the impact from industrial aerosol on climate and human health, industrial aerosol needs to be better characterized. Here, in this study, particle number concentrations were used as a proxy for atmospheric pollutants, which include both particles and gases. Particle concentration and size distribution were measured using a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) approximately 4.5 km from primary industrial areas at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, SC. Industrial areas include numerous nuclear waste storage and processing tanks. The SMPS data were divided into two groups depending on the wind direction measured onsite to categorize transport from the industrial area or from elsewhere. Industrial contributions were found to have a higher concentration of particles with sizes less than 200 nm, 859 ± 564 cm -3 , in comparison to non-industrial attributed particles, 733 ± 495 cm -3 on average from March-July 2021. For sizes larger than 200 nm, industrial and non-industrial particles have a similar concentration, 89 ± 59 cm -3 and 99 ± 61 cm -3 , with non-industrial concentrations being slightly larger. To confirm that industrial particles could travel to the sampling location, air dispersion modeling was completed for specific case studies during the sampling period. The atmospheric dispersion modeling results confirmed that particles released at the industrial areas reached the sampling location when the wind direction was favorable for transport from the industrial areas. The greater concentration of smaller-sized particles in industrial emissions has implications for typical particulate measurements (PM2.5), heath impacts, and climatological influences.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Rare isotope-containing diamond colour centres for fundamental symmetry tests

Detecting a non-zero electric dipole moment in a particle would unambiguously signify physics beyond the Standard Model. A potential pathway towards this is the detection of a nuclear Schiff moment, the magnitude of which is enhanced by the presence of nuclear octupole deformation. However, due to the low production rate of isotopes featuring such ‘pear-shaped’ nuclei, capturing, detecting and manipulating them efficiently is a crucial prerequisite. Incorporating them into synthetic diamond optical crystals can produce defects with defined, molecule-like structures and isolated electronic states within the diamond band gap, increasing capture efficiency, enabling repeated probing of even a single atom and producing narrow optical linewidths. In this study, we used density functional theory to investigate the formation, structure and electronic properties of crystal defects in diamond containing 229 ⁢Pa, a rare isotope that is predicted to have an exceptionally strong nuclear octupole deformation. In addition, we identified and studied stable lanthanide-containing defects with similar electronic structures as non-radioactive proxies to aid in experimental methods. Our findings hold promise for the existence of such defects and can contribute to the development of a quantum information processing-inspired toolbox of techniques for studying rare isotopes.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

Feasibility of measuring the speed of sound of the quark-gluon plasma from the multiplicity and mean 𝑝 𝑇 of ultracentral heavy-ion collisions

The mean transverse momentum ⟨𝑝 𝑇 ⟩ of hadrons has been observed experimentally and in numerical simulations to have a power-law dependence on the hadronic multiplicity 𝑁 in ultracentral relativistic heavy-ion collisions: ⟨𝑝 𝑇 ⟩∝𝑁 𝑏 UC . It has been put forward that this exponent 𝑏 UC is the speed of sound of quark-gluon plasma measured at a temperature determined from ⟨𝑝 𝑇 ⟩. We study step by step the connection between (i) the energy and entropy of hydrodynamic simulations and (ii) experimentally measurable observables. We show that an argument based on energy and entropy should yield an exponent equal to the pressure over energy density 𝑃/ɛ, rather than the speed of sound 𝑐$_s^2$; however, we also observe that ⟨𝑝 𝑇 ⟩ and 𝑁 are not sufficiently accurate proxies for the energy and entropy to make this possible in practice. From simulations, we find that the exponent 𝑏 UC is significantly different whether the “effective volume” is strictly constant or not, a condition that cannot be enforced experimentally. Additional tests using a modified equation of state find that the exponent 𝑏 UC exhibits a variable degree of correlations with the speed of sound and with 𝑃/ɛ, but is not an accurate measurement of either quantity in general.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Measuring the growth of Alfvén wave parametric decay instability using counter-propagating waves: Theory and simulations

The parametric decay instability (PDI) of Alfvén waves—where a pump Alfvén wave decays into a backward-propagating child Alfvén wave and a forward ion acoustic wave—is a fundamental nonlinear wave-wave interaction and holds significant implications for space and laboratory plasmas. However, to date there has been no direct experimental measurement of PDI. Here, we propose a novel and experimentally viable scheme to quantify the growth of Alfvén wave PDI on a linear device using a large pump Alfvén wave and a small counter-propagating seed Alfvén wave, with the seed-wave frequency tuned to match the backward Alfvén wave generated by standard PDI. Using hybrid simulations, we show that energy transfer from the pump to the seed reduces the latter's spatial damping. By comparing seed-wave amplitudes with and without the pump wave, this damping reduction can be used as a direct and reliable proxy for PDI growth. The method is validated in our simulations across a range of plasma and wave parameters and agrees well with theoretical predictions. Notably, the scheme exhibits no threshold for PDI excitation and is, in principle, readily implementable under current laboratory conditions. Finally, this scheme is a critical step toward solving the challenge of experimentally accessing Alfvén wave PDI and provides an elegant method that may be used to validate fundamental theories of parametric instabilities in controlled laboratory settings.

heliosphere↗

Reexamining circular dichroism in photoemission from a topological insulator

The orbital angular momentum (OAM) of electron states is an essential ingredient for topological and quantum geometric quantities in solids. For example, Dirac surface states with helical spin- and orbital-angular momenta are a hallmark of a 3D topological insulator. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) with variable circular light polarization, known as circular dichroism (CD), has been assumed to be a direct probe of OAM and, by proxy, of the Berry curvature of electronic bands in energy- and momentum-space. Indeed, topological surface states have been shown to exhibit angle-dependent CD (CDAD), and more broadly, CD is often interpreted as evidence of spin-orbit coupling. Meanwhile, it is well-established that CD originates from the photoemission matrix elements, which can have extrinsic contributions related to the experimental geometry and the inherently broken inversion symmetry at the sample surface. Therefore, it is important to broadly examine CD-ARPES to determine the scenarios in which it provides a robust probe of intrinsic material physics. We performed CD-ARPES on the canonical topological insulator Bi 2 ⁢Se 3 over a wide range of incident photon energies. Not only do we observe angle-dependent CD in the surface states, as expected, but we also find CD of a similar magnitude in virtually all bulk bands. Since OAM is forbidden by inversion symmetry in the bulk, we conclude this originates from symmetry-breaking in the photoemission process. Comparison with theoretical calculations supports this view and suggests that “hidden” OAM—localized to atomic sites within each unit cell—contributes significantly. Additional effects, including inter-atomic interference and final-state resonances, are responsible for the rapid variation of the CDAD signal with photon energy.

Sidilkover, Ittai [Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv (↗

First Demonstration of Resonant Pitch-Angle Scattering of Relativistic Electrons by Externally Launched Helicon Waves

Helicon waves (a.k.a whistler waves) satisfying the normal wave-particle cyclotron resonance are observed to limit the growth and maximum energy of relativistic electrons (REs) in low-density Ohmic DIII-D tokamak plasmas. Following the application of helicon waves, pitch-angle scattering of high-energy REs causes an increase in both synchrotron and electron-cyclotron emissions. The hard x-ray emission, a proxy for the RE population, ceases to grow. Energy-resolved hard x-ray measurements also show a striking decrease in the number of high-energy REs (above the resonance at approximately 8MeV) to below the noise floor and an increase in low-energy (∼ 4 MeV) REs. This occurs despite the toroidal electric field remaining high enough to drive exponential RE growth in the absence of helicon waves. Furthermore, these results open new directions for limiting the maximum energy of RE populations in laboratory and fusion plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Sparse non-Markovian Noise Modeling of Transmon-Based Multi-Qubit Operations

The influence of noise on quantum dynamics is one of the main factors preventing current quantum processors from performing accurate quantum computations. Sufficient noise characterization and modeling can provide key insights into the effect of noise on quantum algorithms and inform the design of targeted error protection protocols. However, constructing effective noise models that are sparse in model parameters, yet predictive can be challenging. In this work, we present an approach for effective noise modeling of multi-qubit operations on transmon-based devices. Through a comprehensive characterization of seven devices offered by the IBM Quantum Platform, we show that the model can capture and predict a wide range of single- and two-qubit behaviors, including non-Markovian effects resulting from spatiotemporally correlated noise sources. The model’s predictive power is further highlighted through multi-qubit dynamical decoupling demonstrations and an implementation of the variational quantum eigensolver. As a training proxy for the hardware, we show that the model can predict expectation values within a relative error of 0.5%; this is a sevenfold improvement over default hardware noise models. Through these demonstrations, we highlight key error sources in superconducting qubits and illustrate the utility of reduced noise models for predicting hardware dynamics.

open quantum systems & decoherence↗

Scrambling and quantum chaos indicators from long-time properties of operator distributions

Scrambling is a key concept in the analysis of nonequilibrium properties of quantum many-body systems. Most studies focus on its characterization via out-of-time-ordered correlation (OTOC) functions, particularly through the early-time decay of the OTOC. However, scrambling is a complex process which involves operator spreading and operator entanglement, and a full characterization requires one to access more refined information on the operator dynamics at several timescales. In this work we analyze operator scrambling by expanding the target operator in a complete basis and studying the structure of the expansion coefficients treated as a coarse-grained probability distribution in the space of operators. Here we study different features of this distribution, such as its mean, variance, and participation ratio, for the Ising model with longitudinal and transverse fields, kicked collective spin models, and random circuit models. We show that the long-time properties of the operator distribution display common features across these cases and discuss how these properties can be used as a proxy for the onset of quantum chaos. Finally, we discuss the connection with OTOCs and analyze the cost of probing the operator distribution experimentally using these correlation functions.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Entangling quantum logic gates in neutral atoms via the microwave-driven spin-flip blockade

The Rydberg dipole blockade has emerged as the standard mechanism to induce entanglement between neutral-atom qubits. In these protocols, laser fields that couple qubit states to Rydberg states are modulated to implement entangling gates. Here, in this study, we present an alternative protocol to implement entangling gates via Rydberg dressing and a microwave-field-driven spin-flip blockade. We consider the specific example of qubits encoded in the clock states of cesium. An auxiliary hyperfine state is optically dressed so that it acquires partial Rydberg character. It thus acts as a proxy Rydberg state, with a nonlinear light shift that plays the role of blockade strength. A microwave-frequency field coupling a qubit state to this dressed auxiliary state can be modulated to implement entangling gates. Logic gate protocols designed for the optical regime can be imported to this microwave regime, for which experimental control methods are more robust. We show that unlike the strong dipole-blockade regime usually employed in Rydberg experiments, going to a moderate-spin-flip-blockade regime results in faster gates and smaller Rydberg decay. We study various regimes of operations that can yield high-fidelity two-qubit entangling gates and characterize their analytical behavior. In addition to the inherent robustness of microwave control, we can design these gates to be more robust to laser amplitude and frequency noises at the cost of a small increase in Rydberg decay.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Confined magnons

Magnetic structures are known to possess magnon excitations confined to their surfaces and interfaces, but these spatially localized modes are often not resolved in spectroscopy experiments. In this work, we develop a theory to calculate the confined magnon spectra and its associated spin scattering function, which is the physical observable in neutron and electron scattering, and a proxy for photon spectroscopy based on x-ray, Raman, and terahertz (THz) sources. We show that extra anisotropy at the surface or interface plays a key role in magnon confinement. We obtain analytical expressions for the confinement length scale and show that it is qualitatively similar for ferromagnets and antiferromagnets in dimension d≥2. For d=1, we find remarkable differences between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic models. The theory indicates the presence of several confined magnon resonances in addition to the usual magnons thought to explain the excitations of magnetic nanostructures. Detecting these modes may elucidate the impact of the interface on spin anisotropy and magnetic order.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Heat transport in liquid water from first-principles and deep neural network simulations

In this work, we compute the thermal conductivity of water within linear response theory from equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, by adopting two different approaches. In one, the potential energy surface (PES) is derived on the fly from the electronic ground state of density functional theory (DFT) and the corresponding analytical expression is used for the energy flux. In the other, the PES is represented by a deep neural network (DNN) trained on DFT data, whereby the PES has an explicit local decomposition and the energy flux takes a particularly simple expression. By virtue of a gauge invariance principle, established by Marcolongo, Umari, and Baroni, the two approaches should be equivalent if the PES were reproduced accurately by the DNN model. We test this hypothesis by calculating the thermal conductivity, at the GGA (PBE) level of theory, using the direct formulation and its DNN proxy, finding that both approaches yield the same conductivity, in excess of the experimental value by approximately 60%. Besides being numerically much more efficient than its direct DFT counterpart, the DNN scheme has the advantage of being easily applicable to more sophisticated DFT approximations, such as meta-GGA and hybrid functionals, for which it would be hard to derive analytically the expression of the energy flux. We find in this way that a DNN model, trained on meta-GGA (SCAN) data, reduces the deviation from experiment of the predicted thermal conductivity by about 50%, leaving the question open as to whether the residual error is due to deficiencies of the functional, to a neglect of nuclear quantum effects in the atomic dynamics, or, likely, to a combination of the two.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Measurement of D 0 -meson + hadron two-dimensional angular correlations in Au + Au collisions at s N N = 200 GeV

Open heavy flavor hadrons provide unique probes of the medium produced in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Due to their increased mass relative to light-flavor hadrons, long lifetime, and early production in hard-scattering interactions, they provide access to the full evolution of the partonic medium formed in heavy-ion collisions. This paper reports two-dimensional (2D) angular correlations between neutral D-mesons and unidentified charged particles produced in minimum-bias Au+Au collisions at s N N = 200 GeV. D 0 and D 0 ¯ mesons are reconstructed via their weak decay to K ∓ π ± using the Heavy Flavor Tracker (HFT) in the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) experiment. Correlations on relative pseudorapidity and azimuth (Δη,ΔΦ) are presented for peripheral, mid-central and central collisions with D 0 transverse momentum from 2 to 10 GeV/c. Attention is focused on the 2D peaked correlation structure near the triggered D 0 -meson, the {\em near-side} (NS) peak, which serves as a proxy for a charm-quark containing jet. The correlated NS yield of charged particles per D 0 -meson and the 2D widths of the NS peak increase significantly from peripheral to central collisions. These results are compared with similar correlations using unidentified charged particles, consisting primarily of light-flavor hadrons, at similar trigger particle momenta. Similar per-trigger yields and widths of the NS correlation peak are observed. Here, the present results provide additional evidence that D 0 -mesons undergo significant interactions with the medium formed in heavy-ion collision and show, for the first time, significant centrality evolution of the NS 2D peak in the correlations of particles associated with a heavy-flavor hadron produced in these collisions.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Beam energy dependence of net- Λ fluctuations measured by the STAR experiment at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

The measurements of particle multiplicity distributions have generated considerable interest in understanding the fluctuations of conserved quantum numbers in the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) hadronization regime, in particular near a possible critical point and near the chemical freeze-out. Net-protons and net-kaons have been used as proxies for the net-baryon number and net-strangeness, respectively. We report the measurement of efficiency- and centrality-bin width-corrected cumulant ratios (C 2 /C 1 , C 3 /C 2 ) of net- Λ distributions, in the context of both strangeness and baryon number conservation, as a function of collision energy, centrality, and rapidity. The results are for Au + Au collisions at five beam energies ( √s NN = 19.6 , 27, 39, 62.4, and 200 GeV) recorded with the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR). We compare our results to the Poisson and negative binomial (NBD) expectations, as well as to ultrarelativistic quantum molecular dynamics (UrQMD) and hadron resonance gas (HRG) model predictions. Both NBD and Poisson baselines agree with data within the statistical and systematic uncertainties. UrQMD describes the measured net- Λ C 1 and C 3 at 200 GeV reasonably well but deviates from C 2 , and the deviation increases as a function of collision energy. The ratios of the measured cumulants show no features of critical fluctuations. The chemical freeze-out temperatures extracted from a recent HRG calculation, which was successfully used to describe the net-proton, net-kaon, and net-charge data, indicate Λ freeze-out conditions similar to those of kaons. However, large deviations are found when comparing with temperatures obtained from net-proton fluctuations. The net- Λ cumulants show a weak but finite dependence on the rapidity coverage in the acceptance of the detector, which can be attributed to quantum number conservation.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

From noise to information: The transfer function formalism for uncertainty quantification in reconstructing the nuclear density

The neutron distribution of neutron-rich nuclei provides critical information on the structure of finite nuclei and neutron stars. Parity violating experiments—such as PREX and CREX—provide a clean and largely model-independent determination of neutron densities. Such experiments, however, are challenging and expensive, which is why sound statistical arguments are required to maximize the information gained. We introduce a new framework, the “transfer function formalism,” aimed at uncertainty quantification, model selection, and experimental design in the context of neutron densities. The transfer functions (TFs) are built analytically by expressing the linear response of the objective function (e.g., χ2) to small perturbations of the data. Using the TF formalism, we are able to analyze the expected overall uncertainty—quantified in terms of bias and variance—of the mean square radius and interior density of 48 Ca and 208 Pb. Using relativistic mean field models as a proxy for the weak-charge density—and assuming that a total of five measurements could be performed on the weak form factor of 48 Ca and 208 Pb—we identify the optimal models and experimental locations that minimize the uncertainty in the extraction of the radius and interior density. We also explore the use of the TF formalism to understand the influence of prior distributions for the model parameters, as well as the optimization of model hyperparameters not constrained by the data. Here,we establish how the choice of experimental locations and the model that is used can have a significant impact on the final uncertainties of the extracted quantities of interest. For challenging experiments such as CREX and PREX, a proper quantification of such uncertainties is critical. We have demonstrated how the TF formalism provides several advantages for this type of analysis.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗