Heavy metals in Oxisols amended with biosolids and cropped with maize in a long-term experiment

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Heavy metals in a degraded soil treated with sludge from water treatment plant

A aplicação do lodo de estação de tratamento de água (LETA) em solos degradados é uma alternativa tanto para disposição desse resíduo como para a recuperação do solo. Neste trabalho avaliaram-se os efeitos do LETA nos teores de metais pesados em um Latossolo degradado por mineração de cassiterita na Floresta Nacional do Jamari, RO, Brasil. Utilizou-se delineamento experimental inteiramente casualizado com cinco tratamentos: testemunha (n = 4); testemunha química, que recebeu apenas calagem (n = 4) e doses D100, D150 e D200 (respectivamente 100, 150 e 200 mg de N kg-1 solo na forma de LETA), aplicadas antes da calagem (n = 20). Após 30 dias da calagem, período em que o solo contido nos vasos foi mantido com teor de umidade próximo à capacidade de retenção, coletaram-se amostras de solo, que foram analisadas com relação aos teores totais e extraíveis de Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn, Cd, Pb, Ni e Cr. A aplicação de LETA aumentou os teores dos metais pesados do solo. A aplicação deste tipo de lodo em áreas degradadas pode causar impacto ambiental e, portanto, deve ser monitorada.

Hadronic physics in peripheral heavy Ion collisions

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Ground state masses and binding energies of the nucleon, hyperon and heavy baryons in a light-front model

The ground state masses and binding energies of the nucleon, lambda0, lambdac+ , lambdab0 are studied within a constituent quark QCD-inspired light-front model. The light-front Faddeev equations for the Qqq composite spin 1/2 baryons, are derived and solved numerically. The experimental data for the masses are qualitatively described by a flavor independent effective interaction.

Accelerating solutions of perfect fluid hydrodynamics for initial energy density and life-time measurements in heavy ion collisions

A new class of accelerating, exact, explicit and simple solutions of relativistic hydrodynamics is presented. Since these new solutions yield a finite rapidity distribution, they lead to an advanced estimate of the initial energy density and life-time of high energy heavy ion collisions. Accelerating solutions are also given for spherical expansions in arbitrary number of spatial dimensions.

THRESHOLD EFFECTS ON HEAVY QUARK PRODUCTION IN GAMMA-GAMMA-INTERACTIONS

The exchange of gluons between heavy quarks produced in e+e- interactions results in an enhancement of their production near threshold. We study QCD threshold effects in gammagamma collisions. The results are relevant to heavy quark production by beamstrahlung and laser backscattering in future linear collider experiments. Detailed predictions for top-, bottom-, and charm-quark production are presented.

SU(3) mixing for excited mesons

The SU(3)-flavour symmetry breaking and the quark-antiquark annihilation mechanism are taken into account for describing the singlet-octet mixing for several nonets assigned by the Particle Data Group (PDG). This task is approached with the mass matrix formalism.

ZERO SOUND-VELOCITY IN PI, RHO-MESON GASES

Sharp transitions are perhaps absent in QCD, so that one looks for physical quantities which may reflect the phase change. One such quantity is the sound velocity which was shown in lattice theory to become zero at the transition point for pure glue. We show that even in a simple bag model the sound velocity goes to zero at temperature T = T(v) not-equal 0 and that the numerical value of this T(v) depends on the nature of the meson. The average thermal energy of mesons goes linearly with T near T(v), with much smaller slope for the pion. The T(v) - s can be connected with the Boltzmann temperatures obtained from transverse momentum spectrum of these mesons in heavy-ion collision at mid-rapidity. It would be interesting to check the presence of different T(v) - s in present day finite T lattice theory.

Radionuclides, heavy metals and fluorine incidence at Tapira phosphate rocks, Brazil, and their industrial (by) products

Inorganic phosphate fertilizers may contain radionuclides, heavy metals and fluorine. This paper presents the possible environmental hazards from Tapira phosphate rocks and their (by) products (Brazil) utilized as phosphate fertilizers. The activity concentration of U-238, U-234, Ra-226 and K-40 in Tapira phosphate rocks is within the world range for these rock types. The Th-232 activity concentration is higher than the mean reported in phosphate rocks. A value of 2184 nGy h(-1) was obtained for the exposure dose rate in Tapira phosphate deposit area, which is indicative of a high background radiation area. The flotation-separation process causes the incorporation of no more than 9%, 11 % and 24% of radionuclides, heavy metals and fluorine, respectively, into the phosphate concentrate. The radionuclides and heavy metals existing in phosphate fertilizers applied in Brazilian crops according to the recommended rates, do not raise their concentration in soils to harmful levels. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

HEAVY-LEPTON PRODUCTION IN THE MINIMAL SUPERSYMMETRIC STANDARD MODEL

We study the production of a charged-heavy-lepton pair considering the minimal supersymmetric standard model. We show that the cross section for the process pp --> gg --> l+l- is enhanced for large values of the ratio between the two-Higgs-doublet vacuum expectation values, in comparison with the standard model result. The gluon fusion mechanism is the most important contribution to the lepton pair production for M(l) > 50 GeV.

Upconversion fluorescence spectroscopy of Er3+/Yb3+-doped heavy metal Bi2O3-Na2O-Nb2O5-GeO2 glass

Upconversion fluorescence emission of Er3+/Yb3+-doped Bi2O3-Na2O-Nb2O5-GeO2 heavy metal glass samples excited at 1.06 mu m is experimentally investigated. The results reveal the existence of intense emission bands centered around 520, 545, and 655 nm. The germano-niobate based host glass presents high transparency in the region of 400-2700 nm, the capability of incorporating high dopant concentrations, high melting temperature, and large resistance to atmospheric moisture. The observed intensity of the green fluorescence emission, suggested that the niobium based host glass material plays an important role in the efficiency of the upconversion process. Emission lines centered at 425, 483, 503, 608, and 628 nm were also observed. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.

LIMIT ON A HEAVY DIRAC NEUTRINO THROUGH OBLIQUE RADIATIVE-CORRECTIONS

We compute the one-loop oblique corrections in a typical model with neutrino masses due to the seesaw mechanism. We verify that a Dirac neutrino mass up to 178 GeV is still allowed by the experimental data.

NONSTANDARD GAMMA-GAMMA-]L+L- PROCESSES IN RELATIVISTIC HEAVY-ION COLLISIONS

We study lepton pair production in heavy-ion collisions with emphasis on nonstandard contributions to the QED subprocess gamma-gamma --> l+l-. The existence of compositeness of fermions and/or bosons can be tested in this reaction up to the TeV mass scale. We show that for some processes the capabilities of relativistic heavy-ion colliders to disclose new physics surpass the possibilities of e+e- or ppBAR machines. In particular, spin-zero composite particles which couple predominantly to two photons, predicted in composite models, can be studied in a broad range of masses.