Description: Stable barium isotopes are a potential proxy for riverine inputs into the ocean that reflect monsoon variability and climate change. However, dissolved Ba isotope (δ138BaDBa) geochemistry in river estuaries, a dynamic land to ocean transition zone, has rarely been systematically examined to date. Here, we show that significant Ba isotope fractionation occurs at near-zero salinities in the Yangtze and Pearl River Estuary, whereas conservative mixing dominates δ138BaDBa distributions beyond low salinities, which are well predicted by an ion exchange model. Elevated δ138BaDBa in the river endmember results from preferential removal of light Ba isotopes by adsorption to fluvial particles. Subsequently, δ138BaDBa rapidly drops to minimum signatures at increased salinities indicating particle desorption of isotopically light Ba. Nevertheless, the apparently conservative δ138BaDBa-salinity relationship beyond the low-salinity minimum in both estuaries provides a modern calibration for using Ba isotopes as a proxy for paleosalinity and river water inputs into the ocean.

Description: The development of stable barium (Ba) isotope measurements provides a novel tool to investigate the geochemical cycling of Ba in the ocean and its sediments. In sediment pore waters, gradients of dissolved Ba concentrations result from various diagenetic processes. The distribution and fractionation of Ba isotopes in the pore waters are expected to further improve our understanding of these early diagenetic control mechanisms. Here, we present pore water profiles of dissolved stable Ba isotopic signatures (δ138Bapw) from shallow water sediments covering the entire Pearl River Estuary (PRE) in Southern China. We find pronounced depth-dependent Ba isotope variations generally showing a shift from heavy to light δ138Bapw signatures from the sediment surface down to 15 cm depth. These gradients are well reproduced by a diffusion-reaction model, which generates an apparent fractionation factor (138ε) of −0.60 ± 0.10‰ pointing to preferential removal of low-mass Ba isotopes from the pore water during solution-solid phase interactions. Consequently, the combined diagenetic processes induce the highest δ138Bapw values of +0.5 to +0.7‰ in the pore waters of the topmost sediment layer. Although the detrital fraction dominates the Ba content in the PRE surface sediments, the determined gradients of pore water Ba isotopes, together with concentration variations of Ba and other redox-sensitive elements such as manganese (Mn), show that non-detrital excess Ba carriers including Mn oxides and authigenic barite clearly affect the post-depositional Ba dynamics. Stable Ba isotopes are thus a potentially powerful tracer of Ba geochemistry during early sediment diagenesis in estuarine depositional environments. Key Points We present a data set of dissolved stable Ba isotopic compositions in surface sediment pore waters of a large river estuary Pore water Ba isotope values generally decrease with increasing sediment depth, reflecting post-depositional Ba isotope fractionation A diffusion-reaction model predicts the distribution and fractionation of stable Ba isotopes in the sediment pore waters well

Description: In this paper, a division-of-amplitude photopolarimeter (DOAP) for measuring the polarization state of a free-electron laser (FEL) pulse is described. The incident FEL beam is divided into four separate beams, and four Stokes parameters can be measured in a single-shot. In the crossed-planar undulators experiment at the Shanghai deep ultraviolet FEL test facility, this DOAP instrument constructed in house responsed accurately and timely while the polarization-state of fully coherent FEL pulses were switched, which is helpful for confirming the crossed-planar undulators technique for short-wavelength FELs.

Description: In situ high pressure XRD diffraction and Raman spectroscopy have been performed on 12 nm CeO 2 nanoparticles. Surprisingly, under quasihydrostatic conditions, 12 nm CeO 2 nanoparticles maintain the fluorite-type structure in the whole pressure range (0–51 GPa) during the experiments, much more stable than the bulk counterpart ( P T ~31 GPa). In contrast, they experienced phase transition at pressure as low as 26 GPa under non-hydrostatic conditions (adopting CsCl as pressure medium). Additionally, 32–36 nm CeO 2 nanoparticles exhibit an onset pressure of phase transition at 35 GPa under quasihydrostatic conditions, and this onset pressure is much lower than our result. Further analysis shows both the experimental condition (i.e., quasihydrostatic or non-hydrostatic) and grain size effect have a significant impact on the high pressure behaviors of CeO 2 nanomaterials.

Description: The vacuum fluctuation (VF) effects on the properties of the hyperonic neutron star matter are investigated in the framework of the relativistic mean field (RMF) theory. The VF corrections result in the density dependence of in-medium baryon and meson masses. We compare our results obtained by adopting three kinds of meson-hyperon couplings. The introduction of both hyperons and VF corrections softens the equation of state (EoS) for the hyperonic neutron star matter and hence reduces hyperonic neutron star masses. The presence of the δ field enlarges the masses and radii of hyperonic neutron stars. Taking into account the uncertainty of meson-hyperon couplings, the obtained maximum masses of hyperonic neutron stars are in the range of 1.33 M ⊙ –1.55 M ⊙ .

Description: Dalian Coherent Light Source will use a 300 MeV LINAC to produce fully coherent photon pulses in the wavelength range between 150–50 nm by high gain harmonic generation free electron laser (FEL) scheme. To generate stable FEL pulses, a stringent tolerance budget is required for the LINAC output parameters, such as the mean beam energy stability, electron bunch arrival time jitter, peak current variation and the transverse beam position offset. In order to provide guidance for the design of the Dalian Coherent Light Source, in this paper, the sensitivity of FEL pulse energy fluctuation to various error sources of the electron bunch was performed using intensive start-to-end FEL simulations.

Description: Atmospheric lasing has aroused much interest in the past few years. The ‘air–laser’ opens promising potential for remote chemical sensing of trace gases with high sensitivity and specificity. At present, several approaches have been successfully implemented for generating highly coherent laser beams in atmospheric condition, including both amplified-spontaneous emission, and narrow-bandwidth stimulated emission in the forward direction in the presence of self-generated or externally injected seed pulses. Here, we report on generation of multiple-wavelength Raman lasers from nitrogen molecular ions ( ##IMG## [http://ej.iop.org/images/1367-2630/20/3/033035/njpaab087ieqn1.gif] {${{\rm{N}}}_{2}^{+}$} ), driven by intense mid-infrared laser fields. Intuitively, the approach appears problematic for the small nonlinear susceptibility of ##IMG## [http://ej.iop.org/images/1367-2630/20/3/033035/njpaab087ieqn2.gif] {${{\rm{N}}}_{2}^{+}$} ions, wher...