Dissociation of liquid silica at high pressures and temperatures

Liquid silica at high pressure and temperature is shown to undergo significant structural modifications and profound changes in its electronic properties. Temperature measurements on shock waves in silica at 70-1,000 GPa indicate that the specific heat of liquid rises SiO(2) well above the Dulong-Petit limit, exhibiting a broad peak with temperature that is attributable to the growing structural disorder caused by bond breaking in the melt. The simultaneous sharp rise in optical reflectivity of liquid SiO(2) indicates that such dissociation causes the electrical and therefore thermal conductivities of silica to attain metalliclike values of 1-5 x 10(5) S/m and 24-600 W/m x K, respectively.     

Experimental investigation of partially premixed,highly-diluted dimethyl ether flames at low temperatures

Atmospheric-pressure highly-diluted laminar dimethyl ether (DME)–oxygen flames with temperatures below 1500 K were stabilized for the first time on a specially designed burner which allows preheating of the gas streams of fuel and oxidizer. With regard to the partially premixed structure of these flames which contain up to 90% argon in the unburnt gases, molecular-beam mass spectrometry (MBMS) with electron ionization (EI) was used to investigate chemical species profiles of reactants, intermediates, and products at a series of lateral positions and as function of distance from the burner. The flame structure reveals a near one-dimensional behavior at the flame front and beyond, towards the burnt gas. In a systematic approach, combustion parameters including stoichiometry, dilution, and gas preheating temperature were varied. The partial premixing effects upon the flame were revealed by comparing the distribution of flame species in a full two-dimensional concentration field above the burner, which is a starting point to model such flames in further studies. Formaldehyde and the methyl radical as two prominent species in the combustion process of DME were used to discuss characteristics of both high- and low-temperature kinetics.     

A kinetics and dynamics study on the auto-ignition of dimethyl ether at low temperatures and low pressures

Though the combustion chemistry of dimethyl ether (DME) has been widely investigated over the past decades, there remains a dearth of ignition data that examines the low-temperature, low-pressure chemistry of DME. In this study, DME/‘air’ mixtures at various equivalence ratios from lean (0.5) to extremely rich (5.0) were ignited behind reflected shock waves at a fixed pressure (3.0 atm) over the temperature range 625–1200 K. The ignition behavior is different from that at high-pressures, with a repeatable ignition delay time fall-off feature observed experimentally in the temperature transition zone from the negative temperature coefficient (NTC) regime to the high-temperature regime. This could not be reproduced using available kinetic mechanisms as conventionally homogeneous ignition simulations. The fall-off behavior shows strong equivalence ratio dependence and disappears completely at an equivalence ratio of 5.0. A local ignition kernel postulate was implemented numerically to quantifiably examine the inhomogeneous premature ignition. At low temperature, no pre-ignition occurs in the mixture. A conspicuous discrepancy was observed between the measurements and constrained UV simulations at temperatures beyond the NTC regime. A third O₂ addition reaction sub-set was incorporated into AramcoMech 3.0, together with related species thermochemistry calculated using the G3/G4/CBS-APNO compound method, to explore the low-temperature deviation. The new reaction class does not influence the model predictions in IDTs, but the updated thermochemistry does. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the decomposition of hydroperoxy-methylformate plays a critical role in improving the low-temperature oxidation mechanism of DME but unfortunately, the thermal rate coefficient has never been previously investigated. Further experimental and theoretical endeavors are required to attain holistic quantitative chemical kinetics based on our understanding of the low-temperature chemistry of DME.     

Subthreshold sputtering at high temperatures

The sputtering of tungsten from a target at a temperature of 1470 K during irradiation by 5-eV deuterium ions in a steady-state dense plasma is discovered. The literature values of the threshold for the sputtering of tungsten by deuterium ions are 160–200 eV. The tungsten sputtering coefficient measured by the loss of weight is found to be 1.5×10^?4 atom/ion at a deuterium ion energy of 5 eV. Previously, such a sputtering coefficient was usually observed at energies of 250 eV. The sputtering is accompanied by a change in the target surface relief, i.e., by the etching of the grain boundaries and the formation of a wavy structure on the tungsten surface. The subthreshold sputtering at a high temperature is explained by the possible sputtering of adsorbed tungsten atoms that are released from the traps around the interstitial atoms and come to the target surface from the space between the grains. The wavy structure on the surface results from the merging of adsorbed atoms into ordered clusters.     

3d-Magnets at high temperatures

Recent achievements in solving the problem of the microscopic nature of the ferromagnetic-to paramagnetic-phase transition of ferromagnetic metals by employing the method of spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with synchrotron radiation (from the storage ring BESSY in Berlin) are briefly summarized. Emphasize is also given to the theoretical interpretation of the data, from which a short-range order in Fe near the Curie pointT _c of at least 4 Å has been derived. This excludes the validity of the disordered local moment picture for Fe at high temperatures.     

MAS-NMR at very high temperatures

We report MAS-NMR experiments at temperatures of approx. 1200 K using a CO(2) laser as the heating device. An internal NMR thermometer based on the (7)Li T1 data of Li(0.24)La(0.54)TiO(3) is used for temperature calibration. Using this setup, temperatures as high as 1191 K could be reached under MAS conditions as confirmed by the melting of Li(2)B(4)O(7) at 1191 K which could be followed by (7)Li-MAS-NMR.     

Heavy quarkonia properties at high temperatures

The spectra and e ⁺ e ⁻ decay widths of the heavy quarkonia as a function of the temperature of medium generated in the ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions are discussed. The fluctuations of the vacuum gluon fields are estimated within the instanton liquid model approach. It is noticed that the parameters that are considered can be used to indicate the gluon warming.     

Phonon linewidths of NaF at high temperatures

The linewidths of transverse acoustic modes in NaF are calculated for temperatures up to the melting point. We show that the widths decrease in a certain long wavelength region with increasing temperatures. The results are compared with recent neutron experiments up to 700 K.     

Density of indium antimonide at high temperatures

The density of solid and liquid indium antimonide was studied by irradiating the samples with a narrow beam of monochromatic gamma-radiation in the temperature range of 293–1950 K, including the range of melting — crystallization. The measurement errors for the density and thermal expansion coefficients were ±(0.25–0.40) % and ± 4 %, correspondingly. The approximating equations and tables of reference data were obtained for the temperature dependence of thermal properties. Measurement results were compared with the known published data. The work was financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant No. 06-08-00040).     

Ill-defined block-spin transformations at arbitrarily high temperatures

Examples are presented of block-spin transformations which map the Gibbs measures of the Ising model in two or more dimensions at temperature intervals extending to arbitrarily high temperatures onto non-Gibbsian measures. In this way we provide the first example of this kind of pathology for very high temperatures, and as a corollary also the first example of such a pathology happening at a critical point.     

Measurements of burning velocities of dimethyl ether and air premixed flames at elevated pressures

Laminar burning velocities of dimethyl ether (DME) and air premixed flames at elevated pressures up to 10 atm were measured by using a newly developed pressure-release type spherical bomb. The measurement system was validated using laminar burning velocities of methane–air flames. A comparison with the previous experimental data shows an excellent agreement and demonstrates the accuracy and reliability of the present experimental system. The measured flame speeds of DME–air flames were compared with the previous experimental data and the predictions using the full and reduced mechanisms. At atmospheric pressure, the measured laminar burning velocities of DME–air flames are in reasonable agreement with the previous data from spherical bomb method, but are much lower than both predictions and the experimental data of the PIV based counterflow flame measurements. The laminar burning velocities of DME–air flames at 2, 6, and 10 atm were also measured. It was found that flame speed decreases considerably with the increase of pressure. Moreover, the measured flame speeds are also lower than the predictions at high pressures. In addition, experiments showed that at high pressures the rich DME–air flames are strongly affected by the hydrodynamic and thermal-diffusive instabilities. Markstein lengths and the overall reaction order at different equivalence ratios were extracted from the flame speed data at elevated pressures. Sensitivity analysis showed that reactions involving methyl and formyl radicals play an important role in DME–air flame propagation and suggested that systematic modification of the reactions rates associated with methyl and formyl formations are necessary to reduce the discrepancies between predictions and measurements.     

A nonideal Bose gas at high temperatures

Thermodynamic Green's functions are used to examine the properties of a Bose gas whose particles repel one another, not necessarily weakly, for finite temperatures T > T₀, in which T₀ is the phase-transition point and T/n^2/3 1. The excitation spectrum is deduced, together with the temperature dependence of the renormalized chemical potential and mass of the excitations.     

Observation of composite nuclei at very high temperatures

Analysis of data collected with a 19.5 MeV/A⁴⁰Ar beam on a target of²⁷Al shows strong evidences for the formation of very excited composite nuclei. Incomplete linear momentum transfer remains small and the excitation energies per nucleon can be estimated to be close to 5 MeV.     

Electrical resistivity of Co-Ga alloys at high temperatures

The rotating magnetic field method was used to investigate the temperature dependences of the electrical resistivity of Co-Ga alloys in the temperature range 800–1750C. The experimental data obtained for the liquid phase are compared with the results of a calculation made in the framework of the Faber — Ziman method as generalized by Evans to alloys of transition metals.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 12, pp. 61–67, December, 1978.