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  1. Unmitigated climate change will likely produce major problems for human populations worldwide. Although many researchers and policy-makers believe that drought may be an important “push” factor underlying migration in the future, the precise relationship between drought and migration remains unclear. This article models the potential scope of such movements for the emissions policy choices facing all nation-states today. Applying insights from climate science and computational modeling to migration research, we examine the likely surge of drought-induced migration and assess the prospects of different policy scenarios to mitigate involuntary displacement. Using an ensemble of 16 climate models in conjunction with high-resolution geospatial population data and different policy scenarios, we generate drought projections worldwide and estimate the potential for internal and international population movement due to extreme droughts through the remainder of the 21stcentury. Our simulations suggest that a potential for drought-induced migration increases by approximately 200 percent under the current international policy scenario (corresponding to the current Paris Agreement targets). In contrast, total migration increases by almost 500 percent, should current international cooperation fail and should unrestricted policies toward greenhouse gas emissions prevail. We argue that despite the continued growth projections of drought-induced migration in all cases, international cooperation on climate change can substantially reduce the global potential for such migration, in contrast to unilateral policy approaches to energy demands. This article highlights the importance of modeling future environmental migrations, in order to manage the pressures and unprecedented policy challenges which are expected to dramatically increase under conditions of unmitigated climate change.

     
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  2. ABSTRACT

    We present MeqSilhouette v2.0 (MeqSv2), a fully polarimetric, time-and frequency-resolved synthetic data generation software for simulating millimetre (mm) wavelength very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations with heterogeneous arrays. Synthetic data are a critical component in understanding real observations, testing calibration and imaging algorithms, and predicting performance metrics of existing or proposed sites. MeqSv2 applies physics-based instrumental and atmospheric signal corruptions constrained by empirically derived site and station parameters to the data. The new version is capable of applying instrumental polarization effects and various other spectrally resolved effects using the Radio Interferometry Measurement Equation (RIME) formalism and produces synthetic data compatible with calibration pipelines designed to process real data. We demonstrate the various corruption capabilities of MeqSv2 using different arrays, with a focus on the effect of complex bandpass gains on closure quantities for the EHT at 230 GHz. We validate the frequency-dependent polarization leakage implementation by performing polarization self-calibration of synthetic EHT data using PolSolve. We also note the potential applications for cm-wavelength VLBI array analysis and design and future directions.

     
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  3. ABSTRACT

    Radio interferometers aiming to measure the power spectrum of the redshifted 21 cm line during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) need to achieve an unprecedented dynamic range to separate the weak signal from overwhelming foreground emissions. Calibration inaccuracies can compromise the sensitivity of these measurements to the effect that a detection of the EoR is precluded. An alternative to standard analysis techniques makes use of the closure phase, which allows one to bypass antenna-based direction-independent calibration. Similarly to standard approaches, we use a delay spectrum technique to search for the EoR signal. Using 94 nights of data observed with Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), we place approximate constraints on the 21 cm power spectrum at z = 7.7. We find at 95 per cent confidence that the 21 cm EoR brightness temperature is ≤(372)2 ‘pseudo’ mK2 at 1.14 ‘pseudo’ h Mpc−1, where the ‘pseudo’ emphasizes that these limits are to be interpreted as approximations to the actual distance scales and brightness temperatures. Using a fiducial EoR model, we demonstrate the feasibility of detecting the EoR with the full array. Compared to standard methods, the closure phase processing is relatively simple, thereby providing an important independent check on results derived using visibility intensities, or related.

     
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  4. null (Ed.)
  5. Abstract

    In the local universe, OH megamasers (OHMs) are detected almost exclusively in infrared-luminous galaxies, with a prevalence that increases with IR luminosity, suggesting that they trace gas-rich galaxy mergers. Given the proximity of the rest frequencies of OH and the hyperfine transition of neutral atomic hydrogen (Hi), radio surveys to probe the cosmic evolution of Hiin galaxies also offer exciting prospects for exploiting OHMs to probe the cosmic history of gas-rich mergers. Using observations for the Looking At the Distant Universe with the MeerKAT Array (LADUMA) deep Hisurvey, we report the first untargeted detection of an OHM atz> 0.5, LADUMA J033046.20−275518.1 (nicknamed “Nkalakatha”). The host system, WISEA J033046.26−275518.3, is an infrared-luminous radio galaxy whose optical redshiftz≈ 0.52 confirms the MeerKAT emission-line detection as OH at a redshiftzOH= 0.5225 ± 0.0001 rather than Hiat lower redshift. The detected spectral line has 18.4σpeak significance, a width of 459 ± 59 km s−1, and an integrated luminosity of (6.31 ± 0.18 [statistical] ± 0.31 [systematic]) × 103L, placing it among the most luminous OHMs known. The galaxy’s far-infrared luminosityLFIR= (1.576 ±0.013) × 1012Lmarks it as an ultraluminous infrared galaxy; its ratio of OH and infrared luminosities is similar to those for lower-redshift OHMs. A comparison between optical and OH redshifts offers a slight indication of an OH outflow. This detection represents the first step toward a systematic exploitation of OHMs as a tracer of galaxy growth at high redshifts.

     
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  6. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT The key challenge in the observation of the redshifted 21-cm signal from cosmic reionization is its separation from the much brighter foreground emission. Such separation relies on the different spectral properties of the two components, although, in real life, the foreground intrinsic spectrum is often corrupted by the instrumental response, inducing systematic effects that can further jeopardize the measurement of the 21-cm signal. In this paper, we use Gaussian Process Regression to model both foreground emission and instrumental systematics in ∼2 h of data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array. We find that a simple co-variance model with three components matches the data well, giving a residual power spectrum with white noise properties. These consist of an ‘intrinsic’ and instrumentally corrupted component with a coherence scale of 20 and 2.4 MHz, respectively (dominating the line-of-sight power spectrum over scales k∥ ≤ 0.2 h cMpc−1) and a baseline-dependent periodic signal with a period of ∼1 MHz (dominating over k∥ ∼ 0.4–0.8 h cMpc−1), which should be distinguishable from the 21-cm Epoch of Reionization signal whose typical coherence scale is ∼0.8 MHz. 
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  7. Abstract JUNO is a multi-purpose neutrino observatory under construction in the south of China. This publication presents new sensitivity estimates for the measurement of the , , , and oscillation parameters using reactor antineutrinos, which is one of the primary physics goals of the experiment. The sensitivities are obtained using the best knowledge available to date on the location and overburden of the experimental site, the nuclear reactors in the surrounding area and beyond, the detector response uncertainties, and the reactor antineutrino spectral shape constraints expected from the TAO satellite detector. It is found that the and oscillation parameters will be determined to 0.5% precision or better in six years of data collection. In the same period, the parameter will be determined to about % precision for each mass ordering hypothesis. The new precision represents approximately an order of magnitude improvement over existing constraints for these three parameters. 
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  8. Abstract Main goal of the JUNO experiment is to determine the neutrino mass ordering using a 20 kt liquid-scintillator detector. Its key feature is an excellent energy resolution of at least 3% at 1 MeV, for which its instruments need to meet a certain quality and thus have to be fully characterized. More than 20,000 20-inch PMTs have been received and assessed by JUNO after a detailed testing program which began in 2017 and elapsed for about four years. Based on this mass characterization and a set of specific requirements, a good quality of all accepted PMTs could be ascertained. This paper presents the performed testing procedure with the designed testing systems as well as the statistical characteristics of all 20-inch PMTs intended to be used in the JUNO experiment, covering more than fifteen performance parameters including the photocathode uniformity. This constitutes the largest sample of 20-inch PMTs ever produced and studied in detail to date, i.e. 15,000 of the newly developed 20-inch MCP-PMTs from Northern Night Vision Technology Co. (NNVT) and 5000 of dynode PMTs from Hamamatsu Photonics K. K.(HPK). 
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  9. Abstract We present the detection potential for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB) at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), using the inverse-beta-decay (IBD) detection channel on free protons. We employ the latest information on the DSNB flux predictions, and investigate in detail the background and its reduction for the DSNB search at JUNO. The atmospheric neutrino induced neutral current (NC) background turns out to be the most critical background, whose uncertainty is carefully evaluated from both the spread of model predictions and an envisaged in situ measurement. We also make a careful study on the background suppression with the pulse shape discrimination (PSD) and triple coincidence (TC) cuts. With latest DSNB signal predictions, more realistic background evaluation and PSD efficiency optimization, and additional TC cut, JUNO can reach the significance of 3σ for 3 years of data taking, and achieve better than 5σ after 10 years for a reference DSNB model. In the pessimistic scenario of non-observation, JUNO would strongly improve the limits and exclude a significant region of the model parameter space. 
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  10. A bstract We study damping signatures at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a medium-baseline reactor neutrino oscillation experiment. These damping signatures are motivated by various new physics models, including quantum decoherence, ν 3 decay, neutrino absorption, and wave packet decoherence. The phenomenological effects of these models can be characterized by exponential damping factors at the probability level. We assess how well JUNO can constrain these damping parameters and how to disentangle these different damping signatures at JUNO. Compared to current experimental limits, JUNO can significantly improve the limits on τ 3 / m 3 in the ν 3 decay model, the width of the neutrino wave packet σ x , and the intrinsic relative dispersion of neutrino momentum σ rel . 
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