13C chemical shift tensors in MOF α-Mg3(HCOO)6: Which component is more sensitive to host-guest interaction?

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of important porous materials with many current and potential applications. Their applications almost always involve the interaction between host framework and guest species. Therefore, understanding of host–guest interaction in MOF systems is fundamentally important. Solid-state NMR spectroscopy is an excellent technique for investigating host–guest interaction as it provides information complementary to that obtained from X-ray diffraction. In this work, using MOF α-Mg₃(HCOO)₆ as an example, we demonstrated that ¹³C chemical shift tensor of organic linker can be utilized to probe the host–guest interaction in MOFs. Obtaining ¹³C chemical shift tensor components (δ₁₁, δ₂₂, and δ₃₃, where δ₁₁ ≥ δ₂₂ ≥ δ₃₃) in this MOF is particularly challenging as there are six coordinatively equivalent but crystallographically non-equivalent carbons in the unit cell with very similar local coordination environment. Two-dimensional magic-angle-turning experiments were employed to measure the ¹³C chemical shift tensors of each individual crystallographically non-equivalent carbon in three microporous α-Mg₃(HCOO)₆ samples with different guest species. The results indicate that the δ₂₂ component (with its direction approximately being co-planar with the formate anion and perpendicular to the C−H bond) is more sensitive to the adsorbate molecules inside the MOF channel due to the weak C−H···O hydrogen bonding or the ring current effect of benzene. The ¹³C isotropic chemical shift, on the other hand, seems much less sensitive to the subtle changes in the local environment around formate linker induced by adsorption. The approach described in this study may be used in future studies on host–guest interaction within MOFs.     

Canonical Lorentzian spin structure and twistor spinors on the Fefferman space of a contact Riemannian manifold

The Fefferman space of a contact Riemannian manifold carries a Lorentzian spin structure canonically. On the Lorentzian spin manifold, we investigate the Dirac operator and the twistor operator closely. In particular, we show that, if the contact Riemannian manifold is integrable, then there exist non-zero global solutions of the twistor equation.     

Uniqueness of isometric immersions with the same mean curvature

Motivated by the quasi-local mass problem in general relativity, we study the rigidity of isometric immersions with the same mean curvature into a warped product space. As a corollary of our main result, two star-shaped hypersurfaces in a spatial Schwarzschild or AdS-Schwarzschild manifold with nonzero mass differ only by a rotation if they are isometric and have the same mean curvature. We also prove similar results if the mean curvature condition is replaced by an ${\sigma }_2$-curvature condition.     

A note on transverse divergence and taut Riemannian foliations

In this note we give a characterization of taut Riemannian foliations using the transverse divergence. This result turns out to be a convenient tool in the case of some standard examples. Furthermore, we show that a classical tautness result of Haefliger can be obtained in our particular setting as a straightforward consequence. In the final part of the paper we obtain a tautness characterization for transversally oriented foliations with dense leaves.     

An Isosteric Triaza Analogue of a Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Monkey Saddle

Since a few years, the interest in negatively-curved fused polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has significantly increased. Recently, the first chiral negatively-curved PAH with the topology of a monkey saddle was introduced. Herein the synthesis of its triaza congener is reported. The influence of this CH↔N exchange on photophysical and electrochemical properties is studied as well as the isomerization process of the enantiomers. The aza analogue has a significantly higher inversion barrier, which makes it easier to handle at room temperature. All experimental results are underpinned by theoretical DFT calculations.     

The prescribed Ricci curvature problem on three‐dimensional unimodular Lie groups

Let G be a three‐dimensional unimodular Lie group, and let T be a left‐invariant symmetric (0,2)‐tensor field on G. We provide the necessary and sufficient conditions on T for the existence of a pair consisting of a left‐invariant Riemannian metric g and a positive constant c such that , where is the Ricci curvature of g. We also discuss the uniqueness of such pairs and show that, in most cases, there exists at most one positive constant c such that is solvable for some left‐invariant Riemannian metric g.