We present a model to explain the wide range of abundances for heavy r-process elements (mass number A>130) at low [Fe/H]. This model requires rapid star formation and/or an initial population of supermassive stars in the earliest condensed clots of matter in order to provide a prompt or initial Fe inventory. Subsequent Fe and r-process enrichment was provided by two types of supernovae: one pr...

In this study, the concentrations of heavy metals (Ca, Zn, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni) in thesediment of Shavoor River in Khuzestan Province in Iran has been investigated. After the library studies and field studies, six samples of water and sediment were taken from the river in order to evaluate heavy metal pollution in sediments. To determine the geochemical phases of metals in sediment samples the 5-ste...

Portfolio Description This activity supports basic research on the fundamental chemistry of the elements beyond actinium (those elements with an atomic number greater than 89); typically uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium, and curium. The goal of this activity is to understand the underlying chemical and physical principles that determine the behavior of the actinides and transactinides e...

An overview of the sources for heavy elements in the early Galaxy is given. It is shown that observations of abundances in metal-poor stars can be used along with a basic understanding of stellar models to guide the search for the source of the heavy r-process nuclei (r-nuclei). Observations show that this source produces very little of the elements from C through Zn including Fe. This strongly...

Reparametrization invariance is the invariance of the heavy mass limit under small changes of the heavy-quark four velocity. We discuss the implications of this invariance for non-local light cone operators, the matrix elements of which are relevant for the leading and subleading shape functions describing differential rates for inclusive heavy-to-light transitions.

Synchrotron X-ray fluorescence microscopy (SXRF) is a microanalytical technique for the quantitative mapping of elemental distributions. Among currently available imaging modalities, SXRF is the only technique that is compatible with fully hydrated biological samples such as whole cells or tissue sections, while simultaneously offering trace element sensitivity and submicron spatial resolution....

The heavy-quark expansion for inclusive semi-leptonic B decays introduces Λ̄ and λ1, which are matrix elements in heavy-quark effective field theory. We review how they can be obtained from an analysis of the heavy quark mass dependence of heavy-light meson masses in lattice QCD. We present preliminary results for the bottom quark mass, mb, using Λ̄ and λ1 for the Bs meson from a 2+1 sea-flavor u...