Root endophytic bacterial and fungal communities in a natural hot desert are differentially regulated in dry and wet seasons by stochastic processes and functional traits

Taniguchi, Takeshi*; Isobe, Kazuo*; Imada, Shogo*; Eltayeb, M. M.*; Akaji, Yasuaki*; Nakayama, Masataka; Allen, M. F.*; Aronson, E. L.*

Science of the Total Environment, 899, p.165524_1 - 165524_13, 2023/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165524

Dryland ecosystems experience seasonal cycles of severe drought and moderate precipitation. Desert plants typically have patchy distributions, and many may develop symbiotic relationships with root endophytic microbes to survive under the repeated wet and extremely dry conditions. Although community coalescence has been found in many systems, the colonization by functional microbes and its relationship to seasonal transitions in arid regions are not well understood. Here we examined root endophytic microbial taxa, and their traits in relation to their root colonization, during the dry and wet seasons in a hot desert of the southwestern United States. We used high-throughput DNA sequencing of 16S rRNA and ITS gene profiling of five desert shrubs, and analyzed the seasonal change in endophytic microbial lineages. In summer, Actinobacteria increased, although this was not genus-specific. For fungi, Glomeraceae selectively increased in summer. In winter, Gram-negative bacterial genera, including those capable of nitrogen fixation and plant growth promotion, increased. Neutral model analysis revealed a strong stochastic influence on endophytic bacteria but a weak effect for fungi, especially in summer. The taxa with higher frequency than that predicted by the neutral model shared environmental adaptability and symbiotic traits, whereas the frequency of pathogenic fungi was at or under the predicted value. These results suggest that community assembly of bacteria and fungi is regulated differently. The bacterial community was affected by stochastic and deterministic processes via the bacterial response to drought (response trait) and beneficial effect on plants (effect trait). For fungi, mycorrhizal fungi were selected by plants in summer. The regulation of beneficial microbes by plants in both dry and wet seasons suggests the presence of plant-soil positive feedback in this natural desert ecosystem.

Level structures of Ca cast doubt on a doubly magic Ca

Chen, S.*; Browne, F.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Lee, J.*; Obertelli, A.*; Tsunoda, Yusuke*; Otsuka, Takaharu*; Chazono, Yoshiki*; Hagen, G.*; Holt, J. D.*; et al.

Physics Letters B, 843, p.138025_1 - 138025_7, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2023.138025

Gamma decays were observed in Ca and Ca following quasi-free one-proton knockout reactions from Sc. For Ca, a ray transition was measured to be 1456(12) keV, while for Ca an indication for a transition was observed at 1115(34) keV. Both transitions were tentatively assigned as the decays. A shell-model calculation in a wide model space with a marginally modified effective nucleon-nucleon interaction depicts excellent agreement with experiment for level energies, two-neutron separation energies, and reaction cross sections, corroborating the formation of a new nuclear shell above the N = 34 shell. Its constituents, the and orbitals, are almost degenerate. This degeneracy precludes the possibility for a doubly magic Ca and potentially drives the dripline of Ca isotopes to Ca or even beyond.

Multiple mechanisms in proton-induced nucleon removal at 100 MeV/nucleon

Pohl, T.*; Sun, Y. L.*; Obertelli, A.*; Lee, J.*; Gmez-Ramos, M.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Cai, B. S.*; Yuan, C. X.*; Brown, B. A.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 130(17), p.172501_1 - 172501_8, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.172501

We report on the first proton-induced single proton- and neutron-removal reactions from the neutron deficient O nucleus with large Fermi-surface asymmetry at 100 MeV/nucleon. Our results provide the first quantitative contributions of multiple reaction mechanisms including the quasifree knockout, inelastic scattering, and nucleon transfer processes. It is shown that the inelastic scattering and nucleon transfer, usually neglected at such energy regime, contribute about 50% and 30% to the loosely bound proton and deeply bound neutron removal, respectively.

"Southwestern" boundary of the island of inversion; First study of low-lying bound excited states in V and V

Elekes, Z.*; Juhsz, M. M.*; Sohler, D.*; Sieja, K.*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Achouri, N. L.*; Baba, Hidetada*; et al.

Physical Review C, 106(6), p.064321_1 - 064321_10, 2022/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.106.064321

The low-lying level structure of V and V was investigated for the first time. The neutron knockout reaction and inelastic proton scattering were applied for V while the neutron knock-out reaction provided the data for V. Four and five new transitions were determined for V and V, respectively. Based on the comparison to our shell-model calculations using the Lenzi-Nowacki-Poves-Sieja (LNPS) interaction, three of the observed rays for each isotope could be placed in the level scheme and assigned to the decay of the first 11/2 and 9/2 levels. The (,) excitation cross sections for V were analyzed by the coupled-channels formalism assuming quadrupole plus hexadecapole deformations. Due to the role of the hexadecapole deformation, V could not be unambiguously placed on the island of inversion.

Fuel unloading operations -2020- in the decommissioning of the prototype fast breeder reactor "Monju"

Shiota, Yuki; Ariyoshi, Hideo; Shiohama, Yasutaka; Isobe, Yuta; Takeuchi, Ryotaro; Kudo, Junki; Hanaki, Shotaro; Hamano, Tomoharu; Takagi, Tsuyohiko

JAEA-Technology 2022-019, 95 Pages, 2022/09

JAEA-Technology-2022-019.pdf:7.59MB

In the first stage of "Monju" decommissioning project, "Fuel Unloading Operations" have been carrying out. The operations consists of two processes. The first process is "Fuel Treatment and Storage" is that the fuel assemblies unloaded from the Ex-Vessel fuel Storage Tank (EVST) are canned after sodium cleaning, and then transferred to the storage pool. The second process is "Fuel Unloading" that the fuel assemblies in the reactor core are replaced with dummy fuel assemblies and stored in the EVST. "Fuel Treatment and Storage" and "Fuel Unloading" are performed alternately until 370 fuel assemblies in the core and 160 fuel assemblies in the EVST are all transferred to the storage pool. This is a summary of "Fuel Unloading" in the third quarter of "Fuel Unloading Operation". In fiscal 2020, as "Fuel Unloading", 72 fuel assemblies and 74 blanket fuel assemblies were unloaded from the core, and stored in the EVST. From the EVST, 145 dummy fuel assemblies and 1 fixed absorber were loaded in the core instead. During these operations, a total of 36 cases alarming or equipment malfunctions classified into 4 types occurred. However, these events were estimated in advance, there were no significant events that menaces to safety of fuel assemblies and equipment. Therefore, there were no serious problem like fall of fuel assemblies and events that may affect schedule of the project like stick of gripper of ex-vessel fuel transfer machine. When equipment's work or performance fail, the operation continued with safety by elimination of causes of problem. Fuel handling system of Monju has function that is endemic to sodium cooling fast breeding reactor. Because continuous operations of fuel handling system with actual fuel assemblies start recently, we don't have as much experience as PWR and BWR. With estimation of various troubles, reduction of frequency of trouble occurrence and minimization of impacts on schedule performed.

Fuel unloading work in decommissioning of the prototype fast breeder reactor Monju; Fuel treatment and storage work in 2018 and 2019

Shiota, Yuki; Yabe, Takanori; Murakami, Makio; Isobe, Yuta; Sato, Masami; Hamano, Tomoharu; Takagi, Tsuyohiko; Nagaoki, Yoshihiro

JAEA-Technology 2022-001, 117 Pages, 2022/07

JAEA-Technology-2022-001.pdf:25.55MB

In the first stage of Monju decommissioning project, fuel unload work began to be carried out. There are two tasks in this work. One is fuel treatment and storage work that gets rid of sodium on the fuel assemblies unloaded from Ex-Vessel fuel Storage Tank (EVST) and carries it in the storage pool, and the other is fuel unloading that the fuel assemblies in the reactor core is replaced with dummy fuels and stored in EVST. Fuel treatment and storage work and fuel unloading work are performed alternately, and 370 bodies in the core and 160 pieces in EVST are all carried to the storage pool. 86 fuel assemblies was carried to the storage pool in fuel treatment and storage work in 2018 and 76 dummy fuels were stored in EVST for fuel unloading work. During the work, 86 types and 232 alarms / malfunctions occurred, but there was no impact on safety. There was one equipment's failure at gripper's claw open / close clutch of ex-vessel fuel transfer machine B, but it was repaired and restarted. Also it was eliminated the cause of problem or concession that the equipment failure due to the sticking of the sodium compound and continuous use of the equipment. Some problems related to system control occurred, but the work was done after checking the safety. With estimation of various troubles, reduction of frequency of trouble occurrence and minimization of impacts on schedule performed.

Investigation of the ground-state spin inversion in the neutron-rich Cl isotopes

Linh, B. D.*; Corsi, A.*; Gillibert, A.*; Obertelli, A.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Barbieri, C.*; Chen, S.*; Chung, L. X.*; Duguet, T.*; Gmez-Ramos, M.*; et al.

Physical Review C, 104(4), p.044331_1 - 044331_16, 2021/10

AA2021-0468.pdf:1.29MB

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.104.044331

no abstracts in English

Deexcitation dynamics of muonic atoms revealed by high-precision spectroscopy of electronic X rays

Okumura, Takuma*; Azuma, Toshiyuki*; Bennet, D. A.*; Caradonna, P.*; Chiu, I. H.*; Doriese, W. B.*; Durkin, M. S.*; Fowler, J. W.*; Gard, J. D.*; Hashimoto, Tadashi; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 127(5), p.053001_1 - 053001_7, 2021/07

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.053001

We observed electronic X rays emitted from muonic iron atoms using a superconducting transition-edge-type sensor microcalorimeter. The energy resolution of 5.2 eV in FWHM allowed us to observe the asymmetric broad profile of the electronic characteristic and X rays together with the hypersatellite X rays around 6 keV. This signature reflects the time-dependent screening of the nuclear charge by the negative muon and the -shell electrons, accompanied by electron side-feeding. Assisted by a simulation, this data clearly reveals the electronic - and -shell hole production and their temporal evolution during the muon cascade process.

Giant multiple caloric effects in charge transition ferrimagnet

Kosugi, Yoshihisa*; Goto, Matato*; Tan, Z.*; Kan, Daisuke*; Isobe, Masahiko*; Yoshii, Kenji; Mizumaki, Masaichiro*; Fujita, Asaya*; Takagi, Hidenori*; Shimakawa, Yuichi*

Scientific Reports (Internet), 11(1), p.12682_1 - 12682_8, 2021/06

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91888-8

Caloric effects of solids provide more efficient and environment-friendly innovative refrigeration systems compared to the widely-used conventional vapor compressive cooling systems. Exploring novel caloric materials is challenging but critically important in developing future technologies. Here we discovered that the quadruple perovskite structure ferrimagnet BiCuCrO shows a large multicaloric effect at the first-order charge transition occurred around 190 K. Large latent heat and the corresponding isothermal entropy changes 28.2 J K kg can be fully utilized by applying both magnetic fields (magnetocaloric effect) and pressure (barocaloric effect). Adiabatic temperature changes reach 3.9 K for the 50 kOe magnetic field and 4.8 K for the 4.9 kbar pressure, and thus highly efficient thermal controls are achieved by multiple ways.

Quasifree neutron knockout reaction reveals a small -Orbital component in the Borromean nucleus B

Yang, Z. H.*; Kubota, Yuki*; Corsi, A.*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Sun, X.-X.*; Li, J. G.*; Kimura, Masaaki*; Michel, N.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Yuan, C. X.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 126(8), p.082501_1 - 082501_8, 2021/02

AA2020-0819.pdf:1.29MB

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.082501

A quasifree (,) experiment was performed to study the structure of the Borromean nucleus B, which had long been considered to have a neutron halo. By analyzing the momentum distributions and exclusive cross sections, we obtained the spectroscopic factors for and orbitals, and a surprisingly small percentage of 9(2)% was determined for . Our finding of such a small component and the halo features reported in prior experiments can be explained by the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum, revealing a definite but not dominant neutron halo in B. The present work gives the smallest - or -orbital component among known nuclei exhibiting halo features and implies that the dominant occupation of or orbitals is not a prerequisite for the occurrence of a neutron halo.