Abstract: The deep ocean is the largest and least known ecosystem on Earth. It hosts numerous pelagic organisms, most of which are able to emit light. Here we present a unique data set consisting of a 2.5-year long record of light emission by deep-sea pelagic organisms, measured from December 2007 to June 2010 at the ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope in the deep NW Mediterranean Sea, jointly with synchronous hydrological records. This is the longest continuous time-series of deep-sea bioluminescence ever recorded. Our record reveals several weeks long, seasonal bioluminescence blooms with light intensity up to two orders of magnitude higher than background values, which correlate to changes in the properties of deep waters. Such changes are triggered by the winter cooling and evaporation experienced by the upper ocean layer in the Gulf of Lion that leads to the formation and subsequent sinking of dense water through a process known as “open-sea convection”. It episodically renews the deep water of the study area and conveys fresh organic matter that fuels the deep ecosystems. Luminous bacteria most likely are the main contributors to the observed deep-sea bioluminescence blooms. Our observations demonstrate a consistent and rapid connection between deep open-sea convection and bathypelagic biological activity, as expressed by bioluminescence. In a setting where dense water formation events are likely to decline under global warming scenarios enhancing ocean stratification, in situ observatories become essential as environmental sentinels for the monitoring and understanding of deep-sea ecosystem shifts.

Abstract: We show that linear perturbations around the simplest black hole solution of massive bi-gravity theories, the bi-Schwarzschild solution, exhibit an unstable mode featuring the Gregory-Laflamme instability of higher dimensional black strings. The result is obtained for the massive gravity theory which is free from the Boulware-Deser ghost, as well as for its extension with two dynamical metrics. These results may indicate that static black holes in massive gravity do not exist. For the graviton mass of the order of the Hubble scale, however, the instability timescale is of order of the Hubble time.

Abstract: We propose a realistic A(4) extension of the Standard Model involving a particular quark-lepton mass relation, namely that the ratio of the third family mass to the geometric mean of the first and second family masses are equal for down-type quarks and charged leptons. This relation, which is approximately renormalization group invariant, is usually regarded as arising from the Georgi-Jarlskog relations, but in the present model there is no unification group or supersymmetry. In the neutrino sector we propose a simple modification of the so-called Zee-Wolfenstein mass matrix pattern which allows an acceptable reactor angle along with a deviation of the atmospheric and solar angles from their bi-maximal values. Quark masses, mixing angles and CP violation are well described by a numerical fit.