Obtaining high-quality measurements close to a large earthquake is not easy: one has to be in the right place at the right time with the right instruments. Such a convergence happened, for the first ...time, when the 28 September 2004 Parkfield, California, earthquake occurred on the San Andreas fault in the middle of a dense network of instruments designed to record it. The resulting data reveal aspects of the earthquake process never before seen. Here we show what these data, when combined with data from earlier Parkfield earthquakes, tell us about earthquake physics and earthquake prediction. The 2004 Parkfield earthquake, with its lack of obvious precursors, demonstrates that reliable short-term earthquake prediction still is not achievable. To reduce the societal impact of earthquakes now, we should focus on developing the next generation of models that can provide better predictions of the strength and location of damaging ground shaking.
• Plant light interception efficiency is a crucial determinant of carbon uptake by individual plants and by vegetation. Our aim was to identify whole‐plant variables that summarize complex crown ...architecture, which can be used to predict light interception efficiency. • We gathered the largest database of digitized plants to date (1831 plants of 124 species), and estimated a measure of light interception efficiency with a detailed three‐dimensional model. Light interception efficiency was defined as the ratio of the hemispherically averaged displayed to total leaf area. A simple model was developed that uses only two variables, crown density (the ratio of leaf area to total crown surface area) and leaf dispersion (a measure of the degree of aggregation of leaves). • The model explained 85% of variation in the observed light interception efficiency across the digitized plants. Both whole‐plant variables varied across species, with differences in leaf dispersion related to leaf size. Within species, light interception efficiency decreased with total leaf number. This was a result of changes in leaf dispersion, while crown density remained constant. • These results provide the basis for a more general understanding of the role of plant architecture in determining the efficiency of light harvesting.
The diffuse gamma radiation arising from the interaction of cosmic-ray particles with matter and radiation in the Galaxy is one of the few probes available to study the origin of the cosmic rays. ...Data from the Milagro gamma-ray observatory--a water Cerenkov detector that continuously views 62 sr of the overhead sky--shows that the brightest extended region in the entire northern sky is the Cygnus region of the Galactic plane. The TeV image of the Cygnus region contains at least one new source, MGRO J2019+37, which is 10.9 s above the isotropic background, as well as correlations with the matter density in the region. However, the gamma-ray flux from the Cygnus region (after excluding MGRO J2019+37) as measured at 612 TeV exceeds that predicted from a model of cosmic-ray production and propagation. This observation indicates the existence of either hard-spectrum cosmic-ray sources and/or unresolved sources of TeV gamma rays in the region.
An indirect measurement of the antiproton flux in cosmic rays is possible as the particles undergo deflection by the geomagnetic field. This effect can be measured by studying the deficit in the ...flux, or shadow, created by the Moon as it absorbs cosmic rays that are headed toward the Earth. The shadow is displaced from the actual position of the Moon due to geomagnetic deflection, which is a function of the energy and charge of the cosmic rays. The displacement provides a natural tool for momentum/charge discrimination that can be used to study the composition of cosmic rays. Using 33 months of data comprising more than 80 billion cosmic rays measured by the High Altitude Water Cherenkov observatory, we have analyzed the Moon shadow to search for TeV antiprotons in cosmic rays. Here, we present our first upper limits on the p¯/p fraction, which in the absence of any direct measurements provide the tightest available constraints of ~1 % on the antiproton fraction for energies between 1 and 10 TeV.
The 7 year data set of the Milagro TeV observatory contains 2.2 x 10(11) events of which most are due to hadronic cosmic rays. These data are searched for evidence of intermediate scale structure. ...Excess emission on angular scales of approximately 10 degrees has been found in two localized regions of unknown origin with greater than 12sigma significance. Both regions are inconsistent with pure gamma-ray emission with high confidence. One of the regions has a different energy spectrum than the isotropic cosmic-ray flux at a level of 4.6sigma, and it is consistent with hard spectrum protons with an exponential cutoff, with the most significant excess at approximately 10 TeV. Potential causes of these excesses are explored, but no compelling explanations are found.
We present the result of a search of the Milagro sky map for spatial correlations with sources from a subset of the recent Fermi Bright Source List (BSL). The BSL consists of the 205 most significant ...sources detected above 100 MeV by the Fermi Large Area Telescope. We select sources based on their categorization in the BSL, taking all confirmed or possible Galactic sources in the field of view of Milagro. Of the 34 Fermi sources selected, 14 are observed by Milagro at a significance of 3 standard deviations or more. We conduct this search with a new analysis which employs newly optimized gamma-hadron separation and utilizes the full eight-year Milagro data set. Milagro is sensitive to gamma rays with energy from 1 to 100 TeV with a peak sensitivity from 10 to 50 TeV depending on the source spectrum and declination. These results extend the observation of these sources far above the Fermi energy band. With the new analysis and additional data, multi-TeV emission is definitively observed associated with the Fermi pulsar, J2229.0+6114, in the Boomerang pulsar wind nebula (PWN). Furthermore, an extended region of multi-TeV emission is associated with the Fermi pulsar, J0634.0+1745, the Geminga pulsar.
Results are presented of a harmonic analysis of the large-scale cosmic-ray (CR) anisotropy as observed by the Milagro observatory. We show a two-dimensional display of the sidereal anisotropy ...projections in right ascension (R.A.) generated by the fitting of three harmonics to 18 separate declination bands. The Milagro observatory is a water Cherenkov detector located in the Jemez mountains near Los Alamos, New Mexico. With a high duty cycle and large field of view, Milagro is an excellent instrument for measuring this anisotropy with high sensitivity at TeV energies. The analysis is conducted using a seven-year data sample consisting of more than 95 billion events, the largest such data set in existence. We observe an anisotropy with a magnitude around 0.1% for CRs with a median energy of 6 TeV. The dominant feature is a deficit region of depth (2.49 - 0.02 stat. - 0.09 sys.) X10-3 in the direction of the Galactic north pole centered at 189 deg R.A. We observe a steady increase in the magnitude of the signal over seven years.
Diffuse -ray emission produced by the interaction of cosmic-ray particles with matter and radiation in the Galaxy can be used to probe the distribution of cosmic rays and their sources in different ...regions of the Galaxy. With its large field of view and long observation time, the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory is an ideal instrument for surveying large regions of the northern hemisphere sky and for detecting diffuse -ray emission at very high energies. Here the spatial distribution and the flux of the diffuse -ray emission in the TeV energy range with a median energy of 15 TeV for Galactic longitude between 30 degree and 110 degree and between 136 degree and 216 degree and for Galactic latitude between -10 degree and 10 degree are determined. The measured fluxes are consistent with predictions of the GALPROP model everywhere, except for the Cygnus region. For the Cygnus region, the flux is twice the predicted value. This excess can be explained by the presence of active cosmic-ray sources accelerating hadrons, which interact with the local dense interstellar medium and produce gamma rays through pion decay.
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