Nuclear Forces from Chiral EFT: The Unresolved Issues

In recent years, there has been substantial progress in the derivation of nuclear forces from chiral effective field theory (EFT). Accurate two-nucleon forces have been constructed at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N³LO) and applied (together with three-nucleon forces at NNLO) to nuclear few- and many-body systems??with a good deal of success. This may suggest that the 80-year old nuclear force problem has finally been cracked. Not so! Some pretty basic issues are still unresolved. In this talk, I focus on the two most pressing ones, namely, subleading many-body forces and the proper renormalization of the two-nucleon potential.     

Interdigitated coplanar electrodes for enhanced sensitivity in a photorefractive polymer

Organic photorefractive polymer composites can be made to exhibit near 100% diffraction efficiency and fast writing times, though large external slants are needed to project the applied field onto the grating vector. We show here that the use of interdigitated electrodes on a single plane provides similar performance to these standard devices and geometries but without a external slant angle. This new device's structure also greatly improves the diffraction efficiency and sensitivity compared to less slanted standard devices necessary for some real applications, such as holographic displays, optical coherence imaging, and in-plane switching.     

Constraining neutrino superluminality from searches for sterile neutrino decays

Superluminal neutrinos are expected to lose energy due to bremsstrahlung. It is dominated by e⁺e⁻$e^{+}{e}^{-}$-pair production if kinematically allowed. The same signature was used in searches for 3-body decays of hypothetical heavy sterile neutrinos. From the published analyses of these searches performed by CERN PS191 and CHARM experiments we set upper limits on the neutrino velocity in the energy range from 0.2 GeV to 280 GeV. Our limits are well below the neutrino velocity favored by the recent OPERA results. For energy-independent neutrino velocity the limits obtained in this Letter are stronger than those coming from ICARUS experiment and observations of Supernova SN1987a.     

Spectrophotometer with enhanced sensitivity for uric acid detection

A spectrophotometer with an LED as the light source for uric acid detection is proposed in this work. The mechanism of uric acid detection is based on energy absorbed by sodium urate, which is a chemical product of uric acid and sodium hydroxide solution. For the performance validation, comparison between the spectrophotometer with an LED and halogen lamp is carried out. Measurement results suggest that the spectrophotometer system with LED light has better sensitivity than that with halogen light. At a 460 nm wavelength,the sensitivity for the spectrophotometer with an LED is 0.0046 dL/mg, which is 73% higher than that with halogen light that records 0.0012 dL/mg. This enhanced sensitivity is attributed to the higher luminous efficacy of the LED light beam. As a result, a larger amount of flux interacts with the sample, leading to the sensitivity enhancement. The spectrophotometer with an LED is also applied for the detection of uric acid in a real human urine sample. Based on the experimental data at a 460 nm wavelength, the method manages to achieve the sensitivity of 0.0016 dL/mg, accuracy of 96.01%, limit of detection of 4.79 mg/dL, and limit of quantification of 14.52 mg/dL. These findings show that the use of LED as the input light source is promising for the spectrophotometer.     

Constraining a New Type of Dark Energy Model from Present Observations

We propose a new type of dark energy (DE) model, in which the equation of state of DE ω de is a simple function of the fractional energy density de instead of the redshift z. We assume three DE models of this type, and fit them with present observations to get constraints of DE, which are also compared with the CPL model. It is shown that a suitable ω de (Ωde ) model can give smaller χ2 or smaller errors of ω de than that of the CPL model. This new type of DE model can help to study the essential properties and nature of DE.     

Vector fields and differential operators: Noncommutative case

A notion of Cartan pairs as an analogy of vector fields in the realm of noncommutative geometry has been proposed in Czech. J. Phys. 46 (1996), p. 1197. In this paper we give an outline of the construction of a noncommutative analogy of the algebra of differential operators as well as its (algebraic) Fock space realization. We shall also discuss co-universal vector fields and covariant derivatives.     

Optical cavity coupled surface plasmon resonance sensing for enhanced sensitivity

A surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing system based on the optical cavity enhanced detection tech-nique is experimentally demonstrated. A fiber-optic laser cavity is built with a SPR sensor inside. By measuring the laser output power when the cavity is biased near the threshold point, the sensitivity, defined as the dependence of the output optical intensity on the sample variations, can be increased by about one order of magnitude compared to that of the SPR sensor alone under the intensity interrogation scheme. This could facilitate ultra-high sensitivity SPR biosensing applications. Further system miniaturization is possible by using integrated optical components and waveguide SPR sensors.     

Grazing holographic projection of object-adapted fringes for shape measurements with enhanced sensitivity

A new method of fringe projection for shape measurement is presented. We use a combination of object-adapted fringes and holographic grazing projection to determine shape deviations of a turbine blade. If the shape of a test object is correct, a fringe grid with constant period is detected by the camera. The object-adapted fringes are projected coherently onto the master object, and a hologram is taken. If the hologram is reconstructed, grazing incidence of object-adapted fringes can be realized. Grazing holographic projection allows for higher triangulation angles and therefore increased sensitivity. Even small shape deviations can be detected and quantitatively evaluated with fast algorithms. The method can be extended to multiple exposed holograms to examine deep objects.     

Crystalline MgF2 whispering gallery mode resonators for enhanced bulk index sensitivity

We report on experiments on refractrometric sensing with crystalline Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) resonators made of magnesium fluoride, which has a refractive index that is only slightly larger than that of water (Δn ≈ 0.05). The resulting evanescent field of a WGM resonator placed in an aqueous environment penetrates therefore deep into the surrounding medium, which makes it a promising candidate for sensing applications. We measured a bulk index sensitivity of 1.09 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) in a resonator with a radius of R = 2.91 mm and intrinsic Q-factors of more than 10⁸ in aqueous environments. Furthermore, we describe the fabrication process of crystalline WGM resonators.     

Gold nanoparticles: enhanced optical trapping and sensitivity coupled with significant heating

Gold nanoparticles appear to be superior handles in optical trapping assays. We demonstrate that relatively large gold particles (R(b)=50 nm) indeed yield a sixfold enhancement in trapping efficiency and detection sensitivity as compared to similar-sized polystyrene particles. However, optical absorption by gold at the most common trapping wavelength (1064 nm) induces dramatic heating (266 degrees C/W). We determined this heating by comparing trap stiffness from three different methods in conjunction with detailed modeling. Due to this heating, gold nanoparticles are not useful for temperature-sensitive optical-trapping experiments, but may serve as local molecular heaters. Also, such particles, with their increased detection sensitivity, make excellent probes for certain zero-force biophysical assays.     

Gates for quantum computing induced from monodromy operators

The monodromy approach to quantum computing is based on a holomorphic vector bundle with a meromorphic connection. The gates for computation are obtained from the monodromy matrices of the connection. The text was submitted by the author in English.     

A structure for enhanced terahertz emission from a photoexcited semiconductor surface

A structure that can provide enhancement of terahertz emission from a semiconductor surface excited with femtosecond laser pulses is proposed. The structure consists of a semiconductor layer on a Si substrate with metal coating on the upper surface of the layer and a Si lens attached to the bottom of the substrate. The semiconductor is excited through a hole in the coating and emits terahertz radiation through the substrate lens. We demonstrate theoretically that the proposed structure can increase the terahertz yield by orders of magnitude as compared to the previously used schemes of terahertz emission from a semiconductor surface.     

Validated stability-indicating spectrofluorimetric method with enhanced sensitivity for determination of repaglinide in tablets

A simple and highly sensitive spectrofluorimetric method was developed and validated for determination of the antidiabetic agent repaglinide (RG) in tablets. The proposed method is based on measurement of the native fluorescence of RG in 0.1 M H(2)SO(4)/methanol medium at 360 nm after excitation at 243 nm. The method showed a linear dependence of the relative fluorescence intensity on drug concentration over the range of 0.02-0.50 μg mL(-1) with lower detection limit of 6.0 ng mL(-1) and lower quantification limit of 18 ng mL(-1). The method was successfully applied for determination of RG in different tablets and the obtained results were in good agreement with those obtained by the official method. The proposed method was extended to investigate the kinetics of oxidative degradation of the drug. A proposal for the degradation pathway was postulated.     

Advances in ultrasonic production units for enhanced oil recovery in China

With the development of oil recovery technology, ultrasonic technology has been involved in oil production and oilfield development. The mechanism of ultrasonic wave plugging in near well is different from the conventional oil recovery technology. Ultrasonic oil production technique is an effective method to enhance oil production with low cost, good applicability, and no environmental pollution. The core part of ultrasonic oil production equipment for Enhanced Oil Recovery is a high-power ultrasonic transducer. The continuous high-power ultrasound is used to treat the reservoir, which changes the pore structure, the physical property and the state of the fluid, thus improving the permeability and flows conditions of the reservoir, and increasing the oil yield and oil recovery. Ultrasonic oil recovery equipment includes the generation of high-power ultrasonic signals, long-distance transmission and the conversion of electrical energy to acoustic energy. In this paper, state-of-the-art on the development of ultrasonic oil production devices for Enhanced Oil Recovery in China is introduced. The purpose of this paper is to provide a reference for the development of high-power ultrasonic oil extraction equipment and its promotion in tertiary oil recovery technology.