Influence of pressure on the relative population of the two lowest vibrational levels of the C <Superscript>3</Superscript> Π<Subscript>u</Subscript> state of nitrogen for electron beam excitation

Continuous and pulsed 12 keV electron beams were used to excite nitrogen within a gas cell at pressures ranging from 10 to 1400 hPa. The pressure dependence of the ratio of photon fluxes for emission from vibrational levels v'=0 and 1 of the C ³Π _u state has been studied. The results confirm the presence of a collisional excitation mechanism populating v'=0, 1 in addition to electron impact excitation. Rate constants of (1.27 ±0.04)×10^-11 cm³s^-1 [ v'=0] and (2.68 ±0.08)×10^-11 cm³s^-1 [ v'=1] were measured for C ³Π _u quenching by ground state nitrogen. For electron beam conditions relative excitation efficiencies of 1:0.59:0.22 for vibrational levels 0, 1 and 2 were calculated. The recorded flux ratios are compared with the predictions given by a vibrational relaxation model.     

Quantum entanglement in the mode-mode competition system

Considering a two-level atom interacting with the competing two-mode field, this paper investigates the entanglement between the two-level atom and the two-mode field by using the quantum reduced entropy, and that between the two-mode field by using the quantum relative entropy of entanglement. It shows that the two kinds of entanglement are dependent on the relative coupling strength of atom-field and the atomic distribution, and exhibit the periodical evolution. The maximal atom-field entanglement state can be prepared via the appropriate selection of system parameters and interaction time.     

A study of time over threshold (TOT) technique for plastic scintillator counter

A new charge measurement method, time over threshold (TOT), has been used in some gas detectors lately. Here TOT is studied for TOF system, made of plastic scintillator counter, which can simplify the electronics of the system. The signal characteristics are measured and analyzed with a high quality oscilloscope, including noise, pedestal, signal amplitude, total charge, rise time and the correlation between them. The TOT and charge are related and can be fitted by some empirical formula. The charge measurement resolution by TOT is given and this will help the design of TOF electronics.     

Spectral Properties of Hamiltonians of Charged Systems in a Homogeneous Magnetic Field: I. General Characteristic of the Spectrum

We study the spectrum of Hamiltonians of charged multiparticle systems in a homogeneous magnetic field with a fixed sum P of the pseudomomentum components and without it. We prove that if P is fixed, then the spectrum of Hamiltonians is independent of the value of P , while the spectrum without fixation of P coincides with the spectrum with fixation and differs from the latter only by some additional infinite degeneration (this is a principal difference between problems with a homogeneous magnetic field and problems without any field in which the absence of any fixation of the total angular momentum results in covering the spectrum of the relative motion by a continuous spectrum). We find the continuous spectrum of the Hamiltonians and characterize the spectrum of Hamiltonians of two-cluster mutually noninteracting systems obtained by decomposing the original system in the state with a fixed value of P . The last result is necessary for the study of the purely point spectrum.     

Stability and Attraction to Normality for Lévy Processes at Zero and at Infinity

We prove some limiting results for a Lévy process X _t as t0 or t, with a view to their ultimate application in boundary crossing problems for continuous time processes. In the present paper we are mostly concerned with ideas related to relative stability and attraction to the normal distribution on the one hand and divergence to large values of the Lévy process on the other. The aim is to find analytical conditions for these kinds of behaviour which are in terms of the characteristics of the process, rather than its distribution. Some surprising results occur, especially for the case t0; for example, we may have X _t /t ^P + (t0) (weak divergence to +), whereas X _t /t a.s. (t0) is impossible (both are possible when t), and the former can occur when the negative Lévy spectral component dominates the positive, in a certain sense. Almost sure stability of X _t , i.e., X _t tending to a nonzero constant a.s. as t or as t0, after normalisation by a non-stochastic measurable function, reduces to the same type of convergence but with normalisation by t, thus is equivalent to strong law behaviour. Boundary crossing problems which are amenable to the methods we develop arise in areas such as sequential analysis and option pricing problems in finance.     

Cyclic Designs with Block Size 4 and Related Optimal Optical Orthogonal Codes

We prove the existence of a cyclic (4p, 4, 1)-BIBD—and hence, equivalently, that of a cyclic (4, 1)-GDD of type 4 ^p —for any prime such that (p–1)/6 has a prime factor q not greater than 19. This was known only for q=2, i.e., for . In this case an explicit construction was given for . Here, such an explicit construction is also realized for .We also give a strong indication about the existence of a cyclic (4p 4, 1)-BIBD for any prime , p>7. The existence is guaranteed for p>(2q ³–3q ²+1)²+3q ² where q is the least prime factor of (p–1)/6.Finally, we prove, giving explicit constructions, the existence of a cyclic (4, 1)-GDD of type 6 ^p for any prime p>5 and the existence of a cyclic (4, 1)-GDD of type 8 ^p for any prime . The result on GDD's with group size 6 was already known but our proof is new and very easy.All the above results may be translated in terms of optimal optical orthogonal codes of weight four with =1.     

Photoelectric Properties of the In/CuIn3Se5 and In/CuGa3Se5 Structures

Using the method of oriented crystallization of a melt (a vertical variant), we grew homogeneous single crystals of the ternary compounds CuIn₃Se₅ and CuGa₃Se₅. Photosensitive structures based on them were created for the first time, the spectral dependences of the relative quantum efficiency of the phototransformation of structures were investigated, and the energy gap width of the ternary compounds was determined. It is established that the CuIn₃Se₅ and CuGa₃Se₅ compounds are materials with direct interband transitions. We show that the structures created can be used as wideband photoconverters of natural radiation.     

Stability and other limit laws for exit times of random walks from a strip or a halfplane

We show that the passage time, T^*(r), of a random walk S_n above a horizontal boundary at r (r≥0) is stable (in probability) in the sense that as r→∞ for a deterministic function C(r)>0, if and only if the random walk is relatively stable in the sense that as n→∞ for a deterministic sequence B_n>0. The stability of a passage time is an important ingredient in some proofs in sequential analysis, where it arises during applications of Anscombe's Theorem. We also prove a counterpart for the almost sure stability of T^*(r), which we show is equivalent to E|X|<∞, EX>0. Similarly, counterparts for the exit of the random walk from the strip {|y|≤r} are proved. The conditions arefurther related to the relative stability of the maximal sum and the maximum modulus of the sums. Another result shows that the exit position of the random walk outside the boundaries at ±r drifts to ∞ as r→∞ if and only if the random walk drifts to ∞.     

The nonquadratic imaginary cyclic fields of -power degrees with class numbers equal to their genus class numbers

It is known that there are only finitely many imaginary abelian number fields with class numbers equal to their genus class numbers. Here, we determine all the imaginary cyclic fields of -power degrees with class numbers equal to their genus class numbers.

     

Application of B-splines finite basis sets to relativistic two-photon decay rates of level in hydrogenic ions

A theoretical study of the one- and two-photon spontaneous emission rates from the 2 s1/2 state of one-electron ions is presented. High-precision values of the relativistic emission rates for ions with nuclear charge Z up to 100 are obtained through the use of finite basis sets for the Dirac equation constructed from B-splines. Furthermore, we analyze the influence of the inclusion of quantum electrodynamics corrections in the initial and final state energies. Received: 6 January 1998 / Accepted: 31 March 1998