Carbon-13 NMR evidence for cocrystallization of cellulose as a mechanism for hornification of bleached kraft pulp

Solid-state ¹³C NMR spectroscopy was used to characterize a bleached softwood kraft pulp in the never-dried state and after cycles of drying and remoistening. Changes in NMR signal strengths indicated that growth of crystalline domains involved cocrystallization rather than accretion of cellulose from noncrystalline domains. A cluster of C-4 signals at 89.4 ppm, assigned to the interiors of crystalline domains, grew at the expense of C-4 signals at 84.0 and 84.9 ppm, assigned to the well-ordered surfaces of crystalline domains. Irreversible changes were not detected until the moisture content dropped below 18%. They were enhanced by a second drying/remoistening cycle, but showed little further change on subsequent cycles. The necessary conditions resembled those reported for hornification, suggesting that cocrystallization might provide a mechanism for hornification.     

Groups of Exponent Eight are Different

The free groups of exponent eight are shown to differ from thoseof sufficiently large exponent in the nature of their finitesubgroups.     

Critical percolation exploration path and SLE 6: a proof of convergence

It was argued by Schramm and Smirnov that the critical site percolation exploration path on the triangular lattice converges in distribution to the trace of chordal SLE ₆. We provide here a detailed proof, which relies on Smirnov’s theorem that crossing probabilities have a conformally invariant scaling limit (given by Cardy’s formula). The version of convergence to SLE ₆ that we prove suffices for the Smirnov–Werner derivation of certain critical percolation crossing exponents and for our analysis of the critical percolation full scaling limit as a process of continuum nonsimple loops. Research of Charles M.Newman was partially supported by the US NSF under grants DMS-01-04278 and DMS-06-06696.     

Cardy's formula for some dependent percolation models

We prove Cardy's formula for rectangular crossing probabilities in dependent site percolation models that arise from a deterministic cellular automaton with a random initial state. The cellular automaton corresponds to the zero-temperature case of Domany's stochastic Ising ferromagnet on the hexagonal lattice  (with alternating updates of two sublattices) [7]; it may also be realized on the triangular lattice 𝕋 with flips when a site disagrees with six, five and sometimes four of its six neighbors. Received: 24 December 2001     

Ferroelectric polarization switching in nylon-11

Cold-drawn Nylon-11 films, which were prepared by stretching the melt-quenched films to a draw ratio of 2.8: 1 at room temperature, were found to exhibit an electric displacement versus electric field hysteresis loop. The results confirmed that the Nylon-11 film exhibited ferroelectric behavior at or below room temperature. The coercive fields were 65, 98, 125, 160, and 215 MV/m at 20, 0, ?20, ?40, and ?60°C and the remanent polarization at ?20°C (where there was considerably less dc conduction) was 56 mC/m². Switching of the polarization was almost completed within 20 ms.     

An intermediate phase with slow decay of correlations in one dimensional 1/|x−y|2 percolation,Ising and Potts models

We rigorously establish the existence of an intermediate ordered phase in one-dimensional 1/|x–y|² percolation, Ising and Potts models. The Ising model truncated two-point function has a power law decay exponent which ranges from its low (and high) temperature value of two down to zero as the inverse temperature and nearest neighbor coupling vary. Similar results are obtained for percolation and Potts models.Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Research supported in part by NSF Grants No. PHY-8706420 and PHY-8645122Research supported in part by NSF Grant No. DMS-8514834 and AFOSR Contract F49620-86-C0130 at the Arizona Center for Math. Sciences     

The global structure of simple space-times

According to a standard definition of Penrose, a space-time admitting well-defined future and past null infinitiesI ⁺ andI ^– is asymptotically simple if it has no closed timelike curves, and all its endless null geodesics originate fromI ^– and terminate atI ⁺. The global structure of such space-times has previously been successfully investigated only in the presence of additional constraints. The present paper deals with the general case. It is shown thatI ⁺ is diffeomorphic to the complement of a point in some contractible open 3-manifold, the strongly causal regionI ₀ ⁺ ofI ⁺ is diffeomorphic to , and every compact connected spacelike 2-surface inI ⁺ is contained inI ₀ ⁺ and is a strong deformation retract of bothI ₀ ⁺ andI ⁺. Moreover the space-time must be globally hyperbolic with Cauchy surfaces which, subject to the truth of the Poincaré conjecture, are diffeomorphic to ³.