Investigating the inner structure of irregular $ \beta$ -lactoglobulin spherulites

When -lactoglobulin in low p H aqueous solutions is exposed to high temperature for extended time, spherulites composed of amyloid fibrils of the -lactoglobulin protein form. Many of these spherulites have fibrils that radiate out from a centre and, under crossed polarisers, exhibit a symmetric Maltese Cross structure. However, a significant fraction (50 of the 101 observed spherulites) of -lactoglobulin spherulites formed under these conditions demonstrate various forms of irregularity in apparent structure. The irregularities of spherulites structures were qualitatively investigated by comparing optical microscopy images observed under crossed polarisers to computationally produced images of various internal structures. In this way, inner spherulite structures are inferred from microscopy images. Modelled structures that were found to produce computed images similar to some of the experimentally viewed images include fibrils curving as they radiate from a single nucleation point; multiple spherulites nucleating in close proximity to one another; and fibrils curving in opposite directions above and below a single nucleation point.     

Measurement of charged pions in 12C + 12C collisions at 1 A GeV and 2 A GeV with HADES

We present the results of a study of charged-pion production in ¹²C + ¹²C collisions at incident beam energies of 1A GeV and 2A GeV using the HADES spectrometer at GSI. The main emphasis of the HADES program is on the dielectron signal from the early phase of the collision. Here, however, we discuss the data with respect to the emission of charged hadrons, specifically the production of mesons, which are related to neutral pions representing a dominant contribution to the dielectron yield. We have performed the first large-angular-range measurement of the distribution of mesons for the ¹²C + ¹²C collision system covering a fairly large rapidity interval. The pion yields, transverse-mass and angular distributions are compared with calculations done within a transport model, as well as with existing data from other experiments. The anisotropy of pion production is systematically analyzed.     

Miscibility in poly(L-lactide)- b -poly( $ \upvarepsilon$ -caprolactone) double crystalline diblock copolymers

Thermally stimulated depolarization currents, TSDC, wide-angle X-ray scattering, WAXS, differential scanning calorimetry, DSC, and polarized light optical microscopy, PLOM, have been used to examine poly(L-lactide)-b -poly( -caprolactone) diblock copolymers in a wide composition range. Both components are crystallizable and the miscibility in the amorphous phase has been determined from the behavior of the primary relaxations which are the dielectric manifestation of the glass transition, and also from the superstructural morphology revealed by PLOM and the compositional dependence of the melting points as determined by DSC. Distinct segmental mobilities in the amorphous phase which can be well resolved by TSDC are present; the mode of the slower component shifts to lower temperatures as the PCL content increases while the glass transition of neat PCL is present for all compositions. A relaxation times bimodal distribution is apparent for PCL-rich copolymers. The composition dependence of the multiple glass transitions detected in these weakly segregated copolymers are predicted by the self-concentration model for a miscible blend made of components with a large T_g contrast.     

Photoproduction of $ \eta$ -mesons off neutrons from a deuteron target

A formalism is developed for the partial-wave analysis of data on meson photoproduction off deuterons and applied to photoproduction of and mesons. Different interpretations of a dip-bump structure of the photoproduction cross-section in the 1670MeV region are presented and discussed. Helicity amplitudes for two low-mass S₁₁ states are determined.     

Dilepton-tagged $Q\overline{Q}+\mathrm{jet}$ events at the LHC

We propose a new method for identifying and isolating events through semileptonic decays of the pair. Employing these decay dileptons to tag the jet in a specific kinematic region provides a clean signature of jets associated with heavy-quark production. The measurement, in both pp and heavy-ion collisions, is essential for addressing heavy-quark fragmentation in vacuum and in a dense medium. We present next-to-leading order calculations of production (leading order in production) in TeV pp collisions at the LHC and discuss the feasibility of the measurement in heavy-ion collisions at TeV.     

K-forbidden allowed $ \beta$ transitions in heavy nuclei

The role of the band quantum number K in influencing the character of allowed transitions in heavy deformed nuclei is examined. The conditions for the occurrence of K -forbidden decays in this region are explored. Specific cases of “allowed” decays proceeding via K = 2 to K = 6 channels are presented to illustrate the phenomenon. The listed K = 2 transitions, which by themselves contribute over 10% of all the presently known allowed transitions for A 228 nuclei, are seen to have an average , which is clearly outside the normal range for allowed transitions. It is concluded that, wherever the -connected states can be confidently labelled using the quantum numbers, the K -forbiddenness is in general as significant as that involving the other two (spin and parity) quantum numbers.     

Thermal conductivity of doped $\mathsf{La_2CuO_4}$ as an example for heat transport by optical phonons in complex materials

We investigate the phonon thermal conductivity of doped based on out-of-plane thermal conductivity measurements. When room temperature is approached the temperature dependence of strongly deviates from the T^-1-decrease which is usually expected for heat transport by acoustic phonons. Instead, decreases much weaker or even increases with rising temperature. Simple arguments suggest that such unusual temperature dependencies of are caused by heat transport via dispersive optical phonons.Received: 20 October 2003, Published online: 20 April 2004PACS: 66.70. + f Nonelectronic thermal conduction and heat-pulse propagation in solids; thermal waves - 74.72.Dn La-based cuprates - 44.10. + i Heat conduction     

$ \Phi$ -variable calculated for the mixture of thermal sources

The -variable, a measure of statistical correlation of particle momenta, introduced by Mrówczyński and Gaździcki, has been calculated for the events simulated with a simple thermal toy model. It is shown that mixing two thermal sources of unequal temperature can result in negative values of .     

Transmission of information through mesoscopic scattering systems

The storage and transmission of information is well defined using the notions of entropy, mutual information and channel capacity as formalized by Shannon. These quantities are calculated for a quantum mesoscopic system in terms of scattering parameters. For a one-dimensional system, the mutual information is related to the thermal conductance. This relation allows to show that for an incident signal of power P, the channel capacity C has a universal upper bound given by C independent of quantum statistics. A general framework is proposed which makes use of a natural underlying symplectic structure, to relate the entropy of a quantum mesoscopic system to the scattering matrix.     

Non-hermitian quantum mechanics in non-commutative space

A recent investigation of the possibility of having a -symmetric periodic potential in an optical lattice stimulated the urge to generalize non-hermitian quantum mechanics beyond the case of commutative space. We thus study non-hermitian quantum systems in non-commutative space as well as a -symmetric deformation of this space. Specifically, a -symmetric harmonic oscillator together with an iC(x ₁+x ₂) interaction are discussed in this space, and solutions are obtained. We show that in the deformed non-commutative space the Hamiltonian may or may not possess real eigenvalues, depending on the choice of the non-commutative parameters. However, it is shown that in standard non-commutative space, the iC(x ₁+x ₂) interaction generates only real eigenvalues despite the fact that the Hamiltonian is not -symmetric. A complex interacting anisotropic oscillator system also is discussed.     

Radiative corrections to pion-nucleus bremsstrahlung

We calculate the one-photon loop radiative corrections to virtual pion Compton scattering → , that subprocess which determines in the one-photon exchange approximation the pion-nucleus bremsstrahlung reaction Z → Z . Ultraviolet and infrared divergencies of the loop integrals are both treated by dimensional regularization. Analytical expressions for the O() corrections to the virtual Compton scattering amplitudes, A(s, u, Q) and B(s, u, Q) , are derived with their full dependence on the (small) photon virtuality Q from 9 classes of contributing one-loop diagrams. Infrared finiteness of these virtual radiative corrections is achieved (in the standard way) by including soft photon radiation below an energy cut-off . In the region of low center-of-mass energies, where the pion-nucleus bremsstrahlung process is used to extract the pion electric and magnetic polarizabilities, we find radiative corrections up to about -3% for = 5 MeV. Furthermore, we extend our calculation of the radiative corrections to virtual pion Compton scattering → by including the leading pion-structure effect in the form of the polarizability difference - . Our analytical results are particularly relevant for analyzing the data of the COMPASS experiment at CERN which aims at measuring the pion electric and magnetic polarizabilities with high statistics using the Primakoff effect.     

Equation of state and symmetry energy within the stability valley

We apply the direct variational method to derive the equation of state for finite nuclei within the stability valley. The extended Thomas-Fermi approximation for the energy functional with Skyrme forces is used. Applying the leptodermous expansion for the profile nucleon densities, we have studied the neutron coat and the isospin symmetry energy for neutron-rich nuclei. Using the equation of state for the pressure, we derive the region of spinodal instability of finite nuclei and its dependence on the mass number, the asymmetry parameter and the Skyrme force parameters. We suggest the procedure of derivation of the isospin symmetry energy from the analysis of the isospin shift of the chemical potential = - beyond the beta-stability line. We show that both the structure of the neutron coat and the position of the drip line depend significantly on the Skyrme force parameters.     

The folding deuteron optical model potentials

In this paper we construct a kind of deuteron optical potential with the folding model. For the nucleon optical potential, we choose two kinds of forms: the phenomenological global nucleon optical potential and the microscopic nucleon optical potential based on the nuclear-matter approach. We use our folding and global deuteron optical potential to calculate the reaction cross-sections, elastic scattering angular distributions, and the values for 64 target nuclei.     

Ultra-sensitive in-beam \gamma -ray spectroscopy for nuclear astrophysics at LUNA

Ultra-sensitive in-beam -ray spectroscopy studies for nuclear astrophysics are performed at the LUNA (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics) 400 kV accelerator, deep underground in Italy’s Gran Sasso laboratory. By virtue of a specially constructed passive shield, the laboratory -ray background for < 3 MeV at LUNA has been reduced to levels comparable to those experienced in dedicated offline underground -counting setups. The -ray background induced by an incident -beam has been studied. The data are used to evaluate the feasibility of sensitive in-beam experiments at LUNA and, by extension, at similar proposed facilities.     

Intermediate energy elastic scattering of protons on 24Mg in the $ \alpha$ -cluster model with dispersion

The -cluster model with dispersion has been developed for the case of the ²⁴Mg nucleus. The ²⁴Mg nucleus is considered as composed of the core ( ¹⁶O nucleus) and two -clusters that form a dumbbell configuration and are arranged with the most probability inside the core. In the calculations the -cluster structure of the core has been taken into account. On the basis of the multiple diffraction scattering theory the differential cross-section and the polarization observables for the elastic p - ²⁴Mg scattering at 800 and 250MeV have been calculated. The results obtained are in agreement with the existing experimental data.     

Thermal unparticles: a new form of energy density in the universe

An unparticle with scaling dimension has peculiar thermal properties due to its unique phase space structure. We find that the equation of state parameter , the ratio of pressure to energy density, is given by providing a new form of energy in our universe. In an expanding universe, the unparticle energy density evolves dramatically differently from that for photons. For , even if at a high decoupling temperature T _D is very small, it is possible to have a large relic density at present photon temperature T _γ ⁰, large enough to play the role of dark matter. We calculate T _D and using photon–unparticle interactions for illustration.     

Neutral pion photoproduction at high energies

A Regge model with absorptive corrections is employed in a global analysis of the world data on the reactions p p and n n for photon energies from 3 to 18GeV. In this region resonance contributions are expected to be negligible so that the available experimental information on differential cross-sections and single and double polarization observables at - t 2 GeV²allows us to determine the reaction amplitude reliably. The model amplitude is then used to predict observables for photon energies below 3GeV. A detailed comparison with recent data from the CLAS and CB-ELSA Collaborations in that energy region is presented. Furthermore, the prospects for determining the radiative decay width via the Primakoff effect from the reaction p p are explored.     

Large scale magnetic field influence on trap recharging waves in InP:Fe and GaAs:Cr

An impressive linear influence of a magnetic field on optically generated trap-recharging waves (TRW) has been observed in InP:Fe and GaAs:Cr. The phenomenon appears for the particular orientation of parallel to the samples’ surface and orthogonal to the direction of the electric field and wave vector of the TRW . The results are qualitatively explained taking into account the Lorentz force and a pronounced inhomogeneity of the charge transport and of the TRW parameters.     

Study of Z pair production and anomalous couplingsin e + e- collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ between 190 GeV and 209 GeV

A study of Z-boson pair production in e ⁺ e^- annihilation at center-of-mass energies between 190 GeV and 209 GeV is reported. Final states containing only leptons, ( and ), quark and lepton pairs, ( , ) and only hadrons ( ) are considered. In all states with at least one Z boson decaying hadronically, lifetime, lepton and event-shape tags are used to separate pairs from final states. Limits on anomalous ZZ and ZZZ couplings are derived from the measured cross sections and from event kinematics using an optimal observable method. Limits on low scale gravity with large extra dimensions are derived from the cross sections and their dependence on polar angle.Received: 14 July 2003, Published online: 18 December 2003     

Molecular dynamics in nanophase-separated comb-like poly( $ \upalpha$- n-alkyl $ \upbeta$-L-aspartate)s

A series of poly( -n-alkyl -L-aspartates) which are nanophase self-assembled comb-like polymers has been studied by dielectric spectroscopy in a broad frequency range ( 10^-23×10⁶ Hz), with n-alkyls side chains of various lengths, 10n18. In every member of the series the same relaxations were identified after the decomposition of the experimental isothermal trace in up to three peaks with relaxation times distributions. The strength, width and average relaxation time for all the relaxation modes were determined for each material. Besides the local low temperature, Arrhenius modes, two relaxation modes, and , present a cooperative character whose dynamics are not affected by the side chains melting. The relaxation is a polyethylene-like glass transition of the amorphous side chains and its dynamics is strongly dependent on the n value due to the increasing restrictions imposed by the self-assembled confinement. The strength of the relaxation mode increases as the lateral chains loose their 2D order. The restricted chopstick motion of the rigid rods is thought to be the origin of the mode; this motion is hindered at temperatures where the cage size decreases as a result of the increasing disorder with temperature.