Topological and Steric Constraints to Stabilize Heteroleptic Copper(I) Complexes Combining Phenanthroline Ligands and Phosphines

Heteroleptic copper(I) complexes combining phenanthroline derivatives (NN) and chelating bisphosphine ligands (PP) are an important class of luminescent materials for various applications. Although thermodynamically stable, [Cu(NN)(PP)]⁺ derivatives are also kinetically unstable. As a result, a dynamic ligand-exchange reaction is often observed in solution, leading to a dynamic mixture of heteroleptic and homoleptic complexes. To prevent the formation of the homoleptic species, macrocyclic phenanthroline ligands have been used for the preparation of [Cu(NN)(PP)]⁺ pseudorotaxanes. The topological constraint resulting from the macrocyclic structure of the NN ligand drives the thermodynamic equilibrium towards the exclusive formation of the heteroleptic complex as long as the macrocycle is large and flexible enough to allow for the threading of the PP ligand. Conversely, when the threading is prevented by steric constraints, unprecedented copper(I) complexes with a trigonal coordination geometry are obtained. These results are summarized in the present concept article.     

Gallai’s path decomposition conjecture for triangle-free planar graphs

A path decomposition of a graph $G$ is a collection of edge-disjoint paths of $G$ that covers the edge set of $G$. Gallai (1968) conjectured that every connected graph on $n$ vertices admits a path decomposition of cardinality at most $?(n+1)∕2?$. Gallai’s Conjecture has been verified for many classes of graphs. In particular, Lovász (1968) verified this conjecture for graphs with at most one vertex with even degree, and Pyber (1996) verified it for graphs in which every cycle contains a vertex with odd degree. Recently, Bonamy and Perrett (2016) verified Gallai’s Conjecture for graphs with maximum degree at most 5, and Botler et al. (2017) verified it for graphs with treewidth at most 3. In this paper, we verify Gallai’s Conjecture for triangle-free planar graphs.     

Fluoroalkyl Radical Generation by Homolytic Bond Dissociation in Pentacarbonylmanganese Derivatives

Thermal decarbonylation of the acyl compounds [Mn(CO)₅(COR_F)] (R_F=CF₃, CHF₂, CH₂CF₃, CF₂CH₃) yielded the corresponding alkyl derivatives [Mn(CO)₅(R_F)], some of which have not been previously reported. The compounds were fully characterized by analytical and spectroscopic methods and by several single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. The solution-phase IR characterization in the CO stretching region, with the assistance of DFT calculations, has allowed the assignment of several weak bands to vibrations of the [Mn(¹²CO)₄(eq-¹³CO)(R_F)] and [Mn(¹²CO)₄(ax-¹³CO)(R_F)] isotopomers and a ranking of the R_F donor power in the order CF₃<CHF₂<CH₂CF₃≈CF₂CH₃. The homolytic Mn−R_F bond cleavage in [Mn(CO)₅(R_F)] at various temperatures under saturation conditions with trapping of the generated R_F radicals by excess tris(trimethylsilyl)silane yielded activation parameters ΔH^≠ and ΔS^≠ that are believed to represent close estimates of the homolytic bond dissociation thermodynamic parameters. These values are in close agreement with those calculated in a recent DFT study (J. Organomet. Chem. 2018 , 864, 12–18). The ability of these complexes to undergo homolytic Mn−R_F bond cleavage was further demonstrated by the observation that [Mn(CO)₅(CF₃)] (the compound with the strongest Mn−R_F bond) initiated the radical polymerization of vinylidene fluoride (CH₂=CF₂) to produce poly(vinylidene fluoride) in good yields by either thermal (100 °C) or photochemical (UV or visible light) activation.     

Hamiltonian models of interacting fermion fields in quantum field theory

We consider Hamiltonian models representing an arbitrary number of spin 1 / 2 fermion quantum fields interacting through arbitrary processes of creation or annihilation of particles. The fields may be massive or massless. The interaction form factors are supposed to satisfy some regularity conditions in both position and momentum space. Without any restriction on the strength of the interaction, we prove that the Hamiltonian identifies to a self-adjoint operator on a tensor product of antisymmetric Fock spaces and we establish the existence of a ground state. Our results rely on new interpolated \(N_\tau \) estimates. They apply to models arising from the Fermi theory of weak interactions, with ultraviolet and spatial cutoffs.

     

Change of evaporation rate of single monocomponent droplet with temperature using time-resolved phase rainbow refractometry

Droplet evaporation characterization, although of great significance, is still challenging. The recently developed phase rainbow refractometry (PRR) is proposed as an approach to measuring the droplet temperature, size as well as evaporation rate simultaneously, and is applied to a single flowing n-heptane droplet produced by a droplet-on-demand generator. The changes of droplet temperature and evaporation rate after a transient spark heating are reflected in the time-resolved PRR image. Results show that droplet evaporation rate increases with temperature, from ?1.28$\times {10}^{?8}$ m²/s at atmospheric 293 K to a range of (?1.5, ?8)$\times {10}^{?8}$ m²/s when heated to (294, 315) K, agreeing well with the Maxwell and Stefan–Fuchs model predictions. Uncertainty analysis suggests that the main source is the indeterminate gradient inside droplet, resulting in an underestimation of droplet temperature and evaporation rate. With the demonstration on simultaneous measurements of droplet refractive index as well as droplet transient and local evaporation rate in this work, PRR is a promising tool to investigate single droplet evaporation in real engine conditions.     

Local linear convergence analysis of Primal–Dual splitting methods

In this paper, we study the local linear convergence properties of a versatile class of Primal–Dual splitting methods for minimizing composite non-smooth convex optimization problems. Under the assumption that the non-smooth components of the problem are partly smooth relative to smooth manifolds, we present a unified local convergence analysis framework for these methods. More precisely, in our framework, we first show that (i) the sequences generated by Primal–Dual splitting methods identify a pair of primal and dual smooth manifolds in a finite number of iterations, and then (ii) enter a local linear convergence regime, which is characterized based on the structure of the underlying active smooth manifolds. We also show how our results for Primal–Dual splitting can be specialized to cover existing ones on Forward–Backward splitting and Douglas–Rachford splitting/ADMM (alternating direction methods of multipliers). Moreover, based on these obtained local convergence analysis result, several practical acceleration techniques are discussed. To exemplify the usefulness of the obtained result, we consider several concrete numerical experiments arising from fields including signal/image processing, inverse problems and machine learning. The demonstration not only verifies the local linear convergence behaviour of Primal–Dual splitting methods, but also the insights on how to accelerate them in practice.     

Inference for a change-point problem under a generalised Ornstein–Uhlenbeck setting

Determining accurately when regime and structural changes occur in various time-series data is critical in many social and natural sciences. We develop and show further the equivalence of two consistent estimation techniques in locating the change point under the framework of a generalised version of the one-dimensional Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process. Our methods are based on the least sum of squared error and the maximum log-likelihood approaches. The case where both the existence and the location of the change point are unknown is investigated and an informational methodology is employed to address these issues. Numerical illustrations are presented to assess the methods’ performance.     

Metric Subregularity in Generalized Equations

In this article, we study the metric subregularity of generalized equations using a new tool of nonsmooth analysis. We obtain a sufficient condition for a generalized equation to be metrically subregular, which is not a necessary condition for metric regularity, using a subtle adjustment of the Mordukhovich coderivative. We apply these results to the study of the metric subregularity in a Cournot duopoly game.