Matter formed at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

We suggest that the "new form of matter" found just above T(c) by the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is made up of tightly bound quark-antiquark pairs, essentially 32 chirally restored (more precisely, nearly massless) mesons of the quantum numbers of pi, sigma, rho, and a1. Taking the results of lattice gauge simulations (LGS) for the color Coulomb potential from the work of the Bielefeld group and feeding this into a relativistic two-body code, after modifying the heavy-quark lattice results so as to include the velocity-velocity interaction, all ground-state eigenvalues of the 32 mesons go to zero at T(c) just as they do from below T(c) as predicted by the vector manifestation of hidden local symmetry. This could explain the rapid rise in entropy up to T(c) found in LGS calculations. We argue that how the dynamics work can be understood from the behavior of the hard and soft glue.     

Schlieren visualization of micro gas turbine exhaust plume with different shapes of nozzle

Journal of Visualization - Schlieren visualization of the plume ejected from the microgas turbine nozzle was conducted to understand infrared signal characteristics of various shapes of the exhaust...     

A Facile Synthesis of an Advanced Glycosylation Endproduct 2-(2′-furoyl)-4(5)-(2′-furanyl)-1H-imidazole

Abstract: A three step synthesis of the advanced glycosylation endproduct 2-(2′-furoyl)-4(5)-(2′-furanyl)-1H-imidazole (4, FFI) has been achieved from 2-acetylfuran. The key step in the synthesis was the rearrangement of the hydrazinium bromide 3 in refluxing methanol.     

Ferroelectricity driven by Y d0-ness with rehybridization in YMnO3

We investigated electronic structure of hexagonal multiferroic YMnO3 using the polarization dependent x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) at O K and Mn L(2,3) edges. The spectra exhibit strong polarization dependence at both edges, reflecting anisotropic Mn 3d orbital occupation. Moreover, the O K edge spectra show that Y 4d states are strongly hybridized with O 2p ones, resulting in large anomalies in Born effective charges on off-centering Y and O ions. These results manifest that the Y d(0)-ness with rehybridization is the driving force for the ferroelectricity, and suggest a new approach to understand the multiferroicity in the hexagonal manganites.     

Highly sensitive electrochemical detection of proteins using aptamer-coated gold nanoparticles and surface enzyme reactions

A novel electrochemical detection methodology is described for the femtomolar detection of proteins which utilizes both DNA aptamer-functionalized nanoparticles and a surface enzymatic reaction. Immunoglobulin E (IgE) was used as a model protein biomarker, which possesses two distinct epitopes for antibody (anti-IgE) and DNA aptamer binding. A surface sandwich assay format was utilized involving the specific adsorption of IgE onto a gold electrode surface that was pre-modified with a monolayer of aptamer-nanoparticle conjugates followed by the specific interaction of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) conjugated anti-IgE. To clearly demonstrate the signal enhancement associated with nanoparticle use, anodic current measurements of the ALP catalyzed oxidation of the enzyme substrate 4-aminophenylphosphate (APP) were also compared with electrode surfaces upon which the aptamer was directly attached. The detection of an unlabelled protein at concentrations as low as 5 fM is a significant improvement compared to conventional electrochemical-based immunoassay approaches and provides a foundation for the practical use and incorporation of nanoparticle-enhanced detection into electrochemical biosensing technologies.     

Hydrogenic systems,frequency standards and fundamental constants

Hydrogenic (two-body) systems are the only atomic systems for which uncertainties in calculations of the energy levels approach the current state of the art in frequency measurement. This article discusses progress in the theory and measurement of transition frequencies in hydrogenic systems. These studies have relevance to the determination of fundamental constants and the testing of physical theories, especially quantum electrodynamics. A set of high accuracy calculable frequency standards could also be realized by using hydrogenic systems.