Processes forming and sustaining Saturn’s proton radiation belts     

P. Kollmann  E. Roussos  C. Paranicas  N. Krupp  D.K. Haggerty 《Icarus》2013,222(1):323-341

Saturn’s proton radiation belts extend over the orbits of several moons that split this region of intense radiation into several distinct belts. Understanding their distribution requires to understand how their particles are created and evolve. High-energy protons are thought to be dominantly produced by cosmic ray albedo neutron decay (CRAND). The source of the lower energies and the role of other effects such as charge exchange with the gas originating from Enceladus is still an open question. There is also no certainty so far if the belts exist independently from each other and the rest of the magnetosphere or if and how particles are exchanged between these regions. We approach these problems by using measurements acquired by the MIMI/LEMMS instrument onboard the Cassini spacecraft. Protons in the range from 500 keV to 40 MeV are considered. Their intensities are averaged over 7 years of the mission and converted to phase space densities at constant first and second adiabatic invariant. We reproduce the resulting radial profiles with a numerical model that includes radial diffusion, losses from moons and interactions with gas, and a phenomenological source. Our results show that the dominating effects away from the moon sweeping corridors are diffusion and the source, while interactions with gas are secondary. Based on a GEANT4 simulation of the interaction of cosmic rays with Saturn’s rings, we conclude that secondary particles produced within the rings can only account for the high-energy part of the source. A comparison with the equivalent processes within Earth’s atmosphere shows that Saturn’s atmosphere can contribute to the production of the lower energies and might be even dominating at the higher energies. Other possibilities to supply the belts and exchange particles between them, as diffusion and injections from outside the belts, or stripping of ENAs, can be excluded.  相似文献   

Geochemical studies of the SUBO 18 (Enkingen) drill core and other impact breccias from the Ries crater,Germany     

Wolf Uwe Reimold  Iain McDonald  Ralf‐Thomas Schmitt  Birgit Hansen  Juliane Jacob  Christian Koeberl 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2013,48(9):1531-1571

Suevite and melt breccia compositions in the boreholes Enkingen and Polsingen are compared with compositions of suevites from other Ries boreholes and surface locations and discussed in terms of implications for impact breccia genesis. No significant differences in average chemical compositions for the various drill cores or surface samples are noted. Compositions of suevite and melt breccia from southern and northeastern sectors of the Ries crater do not significantly differ. This is in stark contrast to the published variations between within‐crater and out‐of‐crater suevites from northern and southern sectors of the Bosumtwi impact structure, Ghana. Locally occurring alteration overprint on drill cores—especially strong on the carbonate‐impregnated suevite specimens of the Enkingen borehole—does affect the average compositions. Overall, the composition of the analyzed impact breccias from Ries are characterized by very little macroscopically or microscopically recognized sediment‐clast component; the clast populations of suevite and impact melt breccia are dominated consistently by granitic and intermediate granitoid components. The Polsingen breccia is significantly enriched in a dioritic clast component. Overall, chemical compositions are of intermediate composition as well, with dioritic‐granodioritic silica contents, and relatively small contributions from mafic target components. Selected suevite samples from the Enkingen core have elevated Ni, Co, Cr, and Ir contents compared with previously analyzed suevites from the Ries crater, which suggest a small meteoritic component. Platinum‐group element (PGE) concentrations for some of the enriched samples indicate somewhat elevated concentrations and near‐chondritic ratios of the most immobile PGE, consistent with an extraterrestrial contribution of 0.1–0.2% chondrite‐equivalent.  相似文献   

Editorial     

Brian Horsfield  Ralf Littke  James J. Mori  G. S. Lynn Soreghan 《International Journal of Earth Sciences》2015,104(6):1497-1498

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Controls on event runoff coefficients in the eastern Italian Alps   总被引：3，自引：0，他引：3  

Daniele Norbiato  Marco Borga  Ralf Merz  Günther Blschl  Alberto Carton 《Journal of Hydrology》2009,375(3-4):312-325

Analyses of event runoff coefficients provide essential insight on catchment response, particularly if a range of catchments and a range of events are compared by a single indicator. In this study we examine the effect of climate, geology, land use, flood types and initial soil moisture conditions on the distribution functions of the event runoff coefficients for a set of 14 mountainous catchments located in the eastern Italian Alps, ranging in size from 7.3 to 608.4 km². Runoff coefficients were computed from hourly precipitation, runoff data and estimates of snowmelt. A total of 535 events were analysed over the period 1989–2004. We classified each basin using a “permeability index” which was inferred from a geologic map and ranged from “low” to “high permeability”. A continuous soil moisture accounting model was applied to each catchment to classify ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ initial soil moisture conditions. The results indicate that the spatial distribution of runoff coefficients is highly correlated with mean annual precipitation, with the mean runoff coefficient increasing with mean annual precipitation. Geology, through the ‘permeability index’, is another important control on runoff coefficients for catchments with mean annual precipitation less than 1200 mm. Land use, as indexed by the SCS curve number, influences runoff coefficient distribution to a lesser degree. An analysis of the runoff coefficients by flood type indicates that runoff coefficients increase with event snowmelt. Results show that there exists an intermediate region of subsurface water storage capacity, as indexed by a flow–duration curve-based index, which maximises the impact of initial wetness conditions on the runoff coefficient. This means that the difference between runoff coefficients characterised by wet and dry initial conditions is negligible both for basins with very large storage capacity and for basins with small storage capacity. For basins with intermediate storage capacities, the impact of the initial wetness conditions may be relatively large.  相似文献   

Evaluation of Combined Direct-Push Methods Used for Aquifer Model Generation   总被引：4，自引：0，他引：4  

by Ralf Köber  Götz Hornbruch  Carsten Leven  Lars Tischer  Jochen Großmann  Peter Dietrich  Holger Weiß  Andreas Dahmke 《Ground water》2009,47(4):536-546

Most established methods to characterize aquifer structure and hydraulic conductivities of hydrostratigraphical units are not capable of delivering sufficient information in the spatial resolution that is desired for sophisticated numerical contaminant transport modeling and adapted remediation design. With hydraulic investigation methods based on the direct-push (DP) technology such as DP slug tests, DP injection logging, and the hydraulic profiling tool, it is possible to rapidly delineate hydrogeological structures and estimate their hydraulic conductivity in shallow unconsolidated aquifers without the need for wells. A combined application of these tools was used for the investigation of a contaminated German refinery site and for the setup of hydraulic aquifer models. The quality of DP investigation and the models was evaluated by comparisons of tracer transport simulations using these models and measured breakthroughs of two natural gradient tracer tests. Model scenarios considering the information of all tools together showed good reproduction of the measured breakthroughs, indicating the suitability of the approach and a minor impact of potential technical limitations. Using the DP slug tests alone yielded significantly higher deviations for the determined hydraulic conductivities compared to considering two or three of the tools. Realistic aquifer models developed on basis of such combined DP investigation approaches can help optimize remediation concepts or identify flow regimes for aquifers with a complex structure.  相似文献   

Climate change impact on extreme wave conditions in the North Sea: an ensemble study   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Iris Grabemann  Ralf Weisse 《Ocean Dynamics》2008,58(3-4):199-212

An analysis of today’s mean and extreme wave conditions in the North Sea and their possible future changes due to anthropogenic climate change are presented. The sea state was simulated for the 30-year period 2071–2100 using the wave model WAM and an ensemble of wind field data sets for four climate change realizations as driving data. The wind field data sets are based on simulation outputs from two global circulation models (GCMs: HadAM3H and ECHAM4/OPYC3) for two emission scenarios (A2 and B2, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on Emission Scenarios). They were regionalized by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute using the regional climate model RCAO. The effects of the climate realizations on the sea state statistics were assessed by analyzing the differences between the patterns in the four CGM/emission scenario combinations and those in two control simulations representing reference wave climate conditions for the 30-year period 1961–1990. The analysis of the four emission scenario/GCM combinations has shown that the future long-term 99 percentile wind speed and significant wave height increase by up to 7% and 18%, respectively, in the North Sea, except for significant wave height off the English coast and to the north in the HadAM3H-driven simulation. The climate change response in the ECHAM4/OPYC3-forced experiments is generally larger than in the HadAM3H-driven simulations. The differences in future significant wave height between the different combinations are in the same order of magnitude as those between the control runs for the two GCMs. Nevertheless, there is agreement among the four combinations that extreme wave heights may increase in large parts in the southern and eastern North Sea by about 0.25 to 0.35 m (5–8% of present values) towards the end of the twenty first century in case of global warming. All combinations also show an increase in future frequency of severe sea state.  相似文献   

Polyfluorinated compounds in waste water treatment plant effluents and surface waters along the River Elbe, Germany   总被引：4，自引：0，他引：4  

Lutz Ahrens  Sebastian Felizeter  Renate Sturm  Zhiyong Xie  Ralf Ebinghaus 《Marine pollution bulletin》2009,58(9):1326-1333

Polyfluorinated compounds (PFCs) were investigated in waste water treatment plant (WWTP) effluents and surface waters of the River Elbe from samples collected in 2007. Concentrations of various PFCs, including C₄–C₈ perfluorinated sulfonates (PFSAs), C₆ and C₈ perfluorinated sulfinates, 6:2 fluorotelomer sulfonate, C₅–C₁₃ perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs), C₄ and C₈ perfluoroalkyl sulfonamides and 6:2, 8:2 and 10:2 unsaturated fluorotelomercarboxylic acids were quantified. ∑PFC concentrations of the river water ranged from 7.6 to 26.4 ng L⁻¹, whereas ∑PFC concentrations of WWTP effluents were approximately 5–10 times higher (30.5–266.3 ng L⁻¹), indicating that WWTPs are potential sources of PFCs in the marine environment. PFC patterns of different WWTP effluents varied depending on the origin of the waste water, whereas the profile of PFC composition in the river water was relatively constant. In both kinds of water samples, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was the major PFC, whereas perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS) was the predominant PFSA.  相似文献   

Active Galactic Nuclei     

Martin Haas  Peter Biermann  Rolf Chini  Jochen Heidt  Wolfram Kollatschny  Helmut Meusinger  Ralf Siebenmorgen 《Astronomische Nachrichten》2007,328(7):665-680

F11 Jets, supernovae, gammabursts – more light for theory? F35 A Direct Comparison of the QSO Samples from VPMS and SDSS F36 Gravitational Microlensing Simulations and Ensemble Broad‐Band Variability of the QSOs from VPMS F42 Luminosity function of low redshift quasars F43 Star Formation around Active Galactic Nuclei – Results from near infrared observations F58 High‐Redshift Quasars as Probes of Early Star Formation F66 On the dust emission of Seyfert nuclei F72 Propagation of Very Light MHD Jets F78 Giant Outflows in MassiveHigh‐z Radio Galaxies: Direct Evidence for AGNFeedback in the Early Universe F89 Lowfrequency mapping of ‘normal’ FR II radio galaxies: Resolving the puzzle of X‐shaped radio sources F90 Nature of X‐shaped radio sources: A statistical approach F100 Cosmological growth of Supermassive Black Holes: constraints on kinetic and radiative energy feedback F107 Molecular Tori in AGN F136 Electron‐Ion Recombination Rate Coefficients of Iron M‐Shell Ions for X‐Ray Astronomy F139 Hydrodynamic models of obscuring tori F145 The unique BL Lac Object S5 0716+714 F158 On the Cluster Environment of the BL Lac Object OJ 287 F179 The circumnuclear dust in nearby AGN resolved by mid‐infrared interferometry F184 NIR‐imaging of SDSS BL Lac objects F190 Blazar Observations in the TeV energy range with the MAGIC Telescope F198 Gas Inflow Rates in Nearby AGN Galaxies F202 Two zone SSC model for blazar jets F215 Long‐termVHE γ ‐ray monitoring of bright blazars with a dedicated telescope F218 Long termmonitoring of bright TeV Blazars with the MAGIC telescope F220 Fifteen Blazars in Very‐High Energy Gamma Rays: A Comparative Study F229 Numerical calculation of blazar spectra. Application to 1 ES 1218+30.4 F230 Blazar spectral energy distributions corrected for gamma ray attenuation F240 Observation of PG 1553+113 with the MAGIC Telescope F243 VHE Gamma‐Ray Flare of PKS2155‐304 detected by the MAGIC telescope F245 Observations of 3C279 with the MAGIC Telescope F258 Diffraction limited near infrared imaging spectroscopy of the NLR of NGC4151  相似文献   

Methane exchange between coal-bearing basins and the atmosphere: the Ruhr Basin and the Lower Rhine Embayment, Germany   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Thomas Thielemann  Andreas Lücke  Gerhard H. Schleser  Ralf Littke   《Organic Geochemistry》2000,31(12):121

A precise knowledge of methane exchange processes is required to fully understand the recent rise of atmospheric methane concentration. Three of these processes take place at the lithosphere/atmosphere boundary: bacterial consumption of methane and emission of bacterial or thermogenic methane. This study was initiated to quantify these processes on a regional scale in the Ruhr Basin and the Lower Rhine Embayment. Since these areas are subject to bituminous coal and lignite mining, natural and anthropogenically-induced methane exchange processes could be studied. The methane emission and consumption rates and their carbon isotope signal were measured at the lithosphere/atmosphere boundary using flux chambers. On most of the soils studied, methane consumption by bacteria was identified. Thermogenic methane was released only at some of the natural faults examined. In active and abandoned bituminous coal mining areas methane emissions were restricted to small areas, where high emission rates were measured. The carbon isotope composition of methane at natural faults and in mining subsidence troughs was typical of thermogenic methane (−45 to −32 ‰ δ¹³C). Methane exchange balancing revealed that natural methane emissions from these two basins represent no source of atmospheric importance. However, methane release by upcast mining shafts dominates the methane exchange processes and is by about two orders of magnitude greater than methane consumption by bacterial oxidation in the soils.  相似文献   

Node-centered finite volume discretizations for the numerical simulation of multiphase flow in heterogeneous porous media     

Ralf Huber  Rainer Helmig 《Computational Geosciences》2000,4(2):141-164

Three node-centered finite volume discretizations for multiphase porous media flow are presented and compared. By combination of these methods two additional discretization methods are generated. The ability of these schemes to describe flows at textural interfaces of different geologic formations is investigated. It was found that models with nonzero-entry pressures for the capillary pressure-saturation relationship in conjunction with the Box discretization may give rise to spurious oscillations for flows around low permeable lenses. Furthermore, the applicability and sensitivity of the discretization methods with regard to the used computational grids is discussed. The schemes are used for the numerical study of two-phase flow in porous media with zones of different material properties. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献