Search for correlations of GRB and cosmic rays

It is possible that violent processes resulting in Gamma Ray Bursts produce also high energy photons and cosmic rays. The possible correlations of very short GRB with, e.g., CMB, cosmic rays is briefly discussed. We have also begun preparation of the experiment correlating in real time data from Maze cosmic ray detector and Pi of the Sky robotic telescope.     

Evaluation of the thermal conductivity of sandstone solid skeleton using the concept of equivalent microstructure

Acta Geotechnica - We evaluate thermal conductivity of the skeleton of porous sandstone from the measurements of the effective thermal conductivities of dry and saturated specimens provided by...     

Chloropigments a in the Gulf of Gdańsk (Baltic Sea) as markers of the state of this environment

The Gulf of Gdańsk receives the waters of the Wis?a (Vistula), the largest Polish river and the second largest river flowing into the Baltic Sea. Chloropigments a (chlorophyll a and its derivatives) were determined in water and sediments from the Gulf. Samples were collected during cruises of R.V. 'Oceania' at 19 stations located at different water depths and distances from the shore, in May (2003) and October (2004), i.e., at the beginning and at the end of the growing season, respectively. Seawater was also sampled on the beach at Sopot in June, July and August 2004, i.e., during the height of the growing season. All water samples were collected with a bathometer and passed through Whatman GF/F filters. Recent sediments (0-10 cm) were collected with a core sampler and divided into sub-samples (0-1, 1-5 and 5-10 cm). The pigments were determined using HPLC-DAD. The results were first correlated with a set of parameters measured in situ during sample collection (salinity, temperature, oxygen content of seawater) and determined in the same material (organic carbon content, granulometry), then worked up statistically. Although this investigation shows that particular chloropigments a in recent sediments are indicative of the prevailing environmental conditions in the study area and the trends in their variations, they should be treated as a relative and not an absolute measure, since this is the first such study based on a large and coherent set containing both chloropigment a and environmental data. In addition, a chlorophyll a budget is estimated for the Gulf of Gdańsk on the basis of the literature and the authors' own data. Only c. 10% of the chlorophyll a produced annually in the Gulf of Gdańsk is transferred to sediments in the form of chloropigments a; 2.8% is in the form of undecomposed chlorophyll a and 7.2% in the form of chlorophyll a derivatives. About 90% of chlorophyll a is decomposed to colourless products.     

Modelling of a medium-term dynamics in a shallow tidal sea, based on combined physical and neural network methods

The paper presents an approach towards a medium-term (decades) modelling of water levels and currents in a shallow tidal sea by means of combined hydrodynamic and neural network models. The two-dimensional version of the hydrodynamic model Delft3D, forced with realistic water level and wind fields, is used to produce a two-year-database of water levels and currents in the study area. The linear principal component analysis (PCA) of the results is performed to reveal dominating spatial patterns in the analyzed dataset and to significantly reduce the dimensionality of the data. It is shown that only a few principal components (PCs) are necessary to reconstruct the data with high accuracy (over 95% of the original variance). Feed-forward neural networks are set up and trained to effectively simulate the leading PCs based on water level and wind speed and direction time series in a single, arbitrarily chosen point in the study area. Assuming that the spatial modes resulting from the PCA are ‘universally’ applicable to the data from time periods not modelled with Delft3D, the trained neural networks can be used to very effectively and reliably simulate temporal and spatial variability of water levels and currents in the study area. The approach is shown to be able to accurately reproduce statistical distribution of water levels and currents in various locations inside the study area and thus can be viewed as a reliable complementary tool e.g., for computationally expensive hydrodynamic modelling. Finally, a detailed analysis of the leading PCs is performed to estimate the role of tidal forcing and wind (including its seasonal and annual variability) in shaping the water level and current climate in the study area.     

Clogging microstructures in the vadose zone—laboratory and field studies

Long-term water infiltration into porous media, like clastic deposits, causes colmatage (clogging), which is expressed by the decrease of permeability. It is caused by progressive filling of pore spaces with fine particles carried in suspension (mechanical colmatage) and minerals precipitated from water (chemical colmatage or biochemical colmatage, when the process is affected by bacterial activity). Although this material is introduced into the sediment after deposition, it does not destroy the primary framework of it but it only coats grains and fills voids. This process results in some characteristic microstructures that are called ‘clogging microstructures’. The research included: (1) experiments on sands exposed to mechanical colmatage in laboratory conditions, which aimed to describe clogging microstructures and to examine the effects of grain size distribution on the rate and degree of clogging; (2) field and laboratory studies of deposits in which colmatage occurred in natural conditions in the infiltrating water intake ‘Dębina’ in Poznań, Poland. The main goal of the research was to identify post-depositional changes that took place in fluvial deposits affected by forced river water infiltration in the Warta River valley. Examples are presented of clogging microstructures formed in deposits affected by colmatage in the laboratory and in natural conditions.

2-Gyr Simulation of the Oort-Cloud Formation. I. Introduction on a New Model of the Outer Oort-Cloud Formation

The study of the reservoirs of small bodies in the Solar System can help us to refine our theory of the origin and evolution of the whole planetary system we live in. In this contribution, we introduce a simulation of the evolution of an initial proto-planetary disc (PPD) for 2 Gyr period, in which 10,038 studied test particles (TPs), representing the disc, are perturbed by four giant planets in their current orbits and having their current masses. In addition, Galactic-tide and stellar perturbations are considered. The outer Oort cloud (OC) appears to be formed within about 0.5 Gyr. At 2 Gyr, only 0.14% of all TPs reside in the outer OC, according to our simulation. This is the largest discrepancy with the results of previous authors. The TPs in the outer OC originate from almost all regions of the PPD. Specifically, 14, 7, 29, 21, and 29% of all TPs, that are the members of the outer OC at 2 Gyr, originate in the Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Edgeworth-Kuiper-belt regions, respectively. The largest number of the TPs, 6,669 (66.4%), was ejected into the interstellar space. Besides other results, we found a dominance of high galactic inclinations of outer-OC orbits. Obviously, this is a consequence of the action of Galactic tide.     

Few Comments on the Relation Between the Initial Proto-planetary Disc Model and the Oort Cloud Formation

A fraction of small bodies from the once existing proto-planetary disc was ejected, by the giant planets, to large heliocentric distances and start to build the comet Oort cloud. Considering four models of initial proto-planetary disc, we attempt to roughly map a dependence between the initial disc’s structure and some properties of the Oort cloud. We find that it is difficult to construct the proto-planetary disc if (i) the amount of heavy chemical elements in Jupiter and Saturn is as high as currently accepted and (ii) the total mass of the minimum-mass solar nebula is assumed to be lower than $\approx0.05\,\hbox{M}_{\odot}.$ The behaviour of the Oort cloud formation does not crucially depend on the initial disc model. Some differences in its structure are obvious: since the cloud is known to be filled mainly by Uranus and Neptune, the efficiency of its formation is higher when the initial amount of particles in the Uranus-Neptune region is relatively higher. A significantly large number of Jupiter Trojans in our simulation appears, however, only in the case of the initially non-gapped disc, with the particles situated also close to the Jupiter’s orbit.     

The impact origin of Eunomia and Themis families

Abstract— Criteria for finding asteroid families (Zappala et al. 1995) are applied to a large (205,770 member) data set of asteroid orbital elements. The cases of the Eunomia and Themis families are considered as examples. This is combined with the cratering criteria for catastrophic disruption of small bodies in the solar system (Leliwa‐Kopystyński et al. 2008). We find that the Eunomia parent body itself was not catastrophically disrupted in the family‐generating impact event; after impact, the current body contains as much as 70% of its primordial mass. However, by contrast with Eunomia, the present mass of 24 Themis is only about 21% of that of its primordial body. Limits are placed on the sizes of the impactors in both examples, and for the case of Eunomia, the radius of the just sub‐critical crater (which may be present on 15 Eunomia) is predicted as <58 km.     

The Maunder Minimum and the Sun as the Possible Source of Particles Creating Increased Abundance of the <Superscript>14</Superscript>C Carbon Isotope

The Maunder Minimum was the time during the second part of the 17th century, nominally from 1645 to 1717 AD, when unusually low numbers of sunspots were observed. On the basis of numerous recorded observations of auroras in the early 18th century, the end of the Minimum could be regarded as around 1700, but details of sunspot observations by Jan Heweliusz (Heweliusz, Machina Coelestis, 1679), John Flamsteed and Philippe de La Hire in 1684 allow us to interpret the Maunder Minimum as the period without a significant cessation of activity. This Minimum was also recognized in ¹⁴C data from trees which grew during the second part of 17th century. The variation in the production rate of radioactive carbon isotope ¹⁴C is due to modulation of the cosmic ray flux producing it by the changing level of solar activity and solar magnetic flux. Stronger magnetic fields in the solar wind make it more difficult for cosmic rays to reach the Earth, causing a drop in the production rate of ¹⁴C. However, more detailed analyses of ¹⁴C data indicate that the highest isotope abundances do not occur at the time of sunspot minima, as would be expected on the basis of modulation of the cosmic ray flux by the solar magnetic field, but two years after the sunspot number maximum. This time difference (or phase delay) can be accounted for if in fact there are both solar and non-solar cosmic ray contributions. Solar flares could also contribute high-energy particles and produce ¹⁴C and are generally not most frequent at the time of the highest sunspot numbers in the cycle.     

Particle sedimentation patterns in the eastern Fram Strait during 2000–2005: Results from the Arctic long-term observatory HAUSGARTEN

Since 2000 long-term measurements of vertical particle flux have been performed with moored sediment traps at the long-term observatory HAUSGARTEN in the eastern Fram Strait (79°N/4°E). The study area, which is seasonally covered with ice, is located in the confluence zone of the northward flowing warm saline Atlantic water with cold, low salinity water masses of Arctic origin. Current projections suggest that this area is particularly vulnerable to global warming. Total matter fluxes and components thereof (carbonate, particulate organic carbon and nitrogen, biogenic silica, biomarkers) revealed a bimodal seasonal pattern showing elevated sedimentation rates during May/June and August/September. Annual total matter flux (dry weight, DW) at ～300 m depth varied between 13 and 32 g m^?2 a^?1 during 2000 and 2005. Of this total flux 6–13% was due to CaCO₃, 4–21% to refractory particulate organic carbon (POC), and 3–8% to biogenic particulate silica (bPSi). The annual flux of all biogenic components together was almost constant during the period studied (8.5–8.8 g m^?2 a^?1), although this varied from 27% to 67% of the total annual flux. The fraction was lowest in a year characterized by the longest duration of ice coverage (91 and 70 days for the calendar year and summer season, May–September, respectively). Biomarker analyses revealed that organic matter originating from marine sources was present in excess of terrigenious material in the sedimented matter throughout most of the study period. Fluxes of recognizable phyto- and protozooplankton cells amounted up to 60×10⁶ m^?2 d^?1. Diatoms and coccolithophorids were the most abundant organisms. Diatoms, mainly pennate species, dominated during the first years of the investigation. A shift in the composition occurred during the last year when numbers of diatoms declined considerably, leading to a dominance of coccolithoporids. This was also reflected in a decrease in the sedimentation of bPSi. The sedimentation of biogenic matter, however, did not differ from the amount observed during the previous years. Among the larger organisms, pteropods at times contributed significantly to both the total matter and CaCO₃, fluxes.