Effect of neon mixing on vibrational temperature of molecular nitrogen plasma generated at 13.56 MHz

Optical emission spectroscopy is used to investigate the effect of neon mixing on the electron temperature and vibrational temperature of second positive and first negative system of nitrogen plasma generated by 13.56 MHZ RF generator. The electron temperature is determined from NeI lines intensities, using Boltzman's plot. The relative changes in vibrational population of N₂(C³Πu) and states with neon mixing are monitored by measuring the emission intensities of second positive and first negative system of nitrogen molecules. Vibrational temperature is calculated for the sequences Δν=0,1,−2, that follows the Boltzman's distribution. It is found that electron temperature as well as vibrational temperature of second positive and first negative system can be raised significantly by mixing neon in nitrogen plasma. Vibrational temperature at 250 watt RF power, of second positive system is raised up to 0.67 eV at 90% neon where as for first negative system it is raised up to 0.78 eV. It is found that vibrational temperature increases with the gas pressure.     

Comment on: “Efficient high-capacity quantum secret sharing with two-photon entanglement” [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 1957]

In a recent Letter [F.G. Deng, X.H. Li, H.Y. Zhou, Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 1957], an efficient high-capacity quantum secret sharing scheme was proposed. However, in this comment, it is shown that the protocol does not complete the task of secret sharing well when the message sender uses the nonorthogonal entangled states as the quantum information carriers. Finally a feasible improvement of this quantum secret sharing protocol is proposed.     

Comment on “Modified Baptista type chaotic cryptosystem via matrix secret key” [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 5427]

In this comment, we analyze a recently proposed Baptista-like cryptosystem and show that it is not invertible. Others weaknesses are also reported. A modified version of this cryptosystem is proposed to show how to overcome the non-invertibility.     

Reply to: “Comment on: ‘Efficient high-capacity quantum secret sharing with two-photon entanglement’ [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 1957]” [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 396]

A corresponding Comment, raised by Yang and Wen, claimed that (i) our scheme cannot complete the task of secret sharing well even if the agents obtain the information about their measuring bases; (ii) they give a feasible improvement of our protocol. In this Reply, we show that their first judgment is wrong and their improvement is insecure.     

Reply to: “Comment on: ‘Epidemic spreading on heterogeneous networks with identical infectivity’ [Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 189]” [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 1722]

In a recent Letter [R. Yang, B.H. Wang, J. Ren, W.J. Bai, Z.W. Shi, W.X. Wang, T. Zhou, Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 189], we proposed a modified susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model, in which each node is assigned with an identical capability of active contact, A, at each time step. We found a threshold value λc=1/A in uncorrelated and unlocalized networks. A corresponding Comment, raised by Alberto d'Onofrio, claimed that (i) our model is not biologically relevant; (ii) our model does not have a threshold behavior for recovered population; (iii) the analytical result λc=1/A is incorrect being considered as a threshold for epidemic outbreak, because of an improper approximation of the initial configuration. In this Reply, I show that, by debating from point to point, our analysis and conclusion are solid and reasonable.     

Erratum and Addendum to “A note on Burgers' equation with time delay: Instability via finite-time blow-up” [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 6363]

I point out and examine an error in my derivation of the instability result presented in [P.M. Jordan, Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 6363]. Based on this analysis, I then show that the Cole-Hopf transformation can, in fact, be used to obtain an exact, time-harmonic plane wave-type solution to a form of Burgers' equation with time delay, provided the frequency assumes a particular value.     

Reply to: “Comment on: ‘Effects of including the counterrotating term and virtual photons on the eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of a scalar photon collective emission theory’ [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 2514]” [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 5732]

We compute the emission amplitude for the collective emission from a sphere of identical atoms in the scalar photon theory for both the cases of the complex kernel (i.e. including virtual photons) and real kernel. We explicitly show that the single mode theory based on the real kernel neglects the effects of the different decay rates and frequency shifts associated with the eigenfunctions belonging to the same angular index but with different radial indices. We show that these effects modify, for k₀R?1, both the time dependence of the emission amplitude and its angular distribution, in clear contradiction to the assertions made by the Comment's authors.     

Erratum to “Entanglement in eight-qubit graph states” [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 2219]

Some errors are corrected.     

Erratum to: “Comment on: ‘Electromagnetic wave propagation in single-wall carbon nanotubes’ [Phys. Lett. A 333 (2004) 303]” [Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 515]

Here we plot the correct form of Fig. 2 in [H. Khosravi, A. Moradi, Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 515].     

Reply to “Comment on ‘Piezonuclear decay of thorium’ [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 1956]” [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 3795]

In a paper appearing in this issue of Physics Letters A, Ericsson et al. raise some critical comments on the experiment [F. Cardone, R. Mignani, A. Petrucci, Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 1956] we carried out by cavitating a solution of thorium-228, which evidenced its anomalous decay behaviour, thus confirming the results previously obtained by Urutskoev et al. by explosion of titanium foils in solutions. In this Letter, we reply to these comments. In our opinion, the main shortcomings of the criticism by the Swedish authors are due to their omitting of inserting our experiment in the wider research stream of piezonuclear reactions, and to the statistical analysis they used, which does not comply with the rules generally accepted for samples with small numbers. However, apart from any possible theoretical speculation, there is the basic fact that two different experiments (ours and that by Urutskoev et al.), carried out independently and by different means, highlight an analogous anomaly in the decay of thorium subjected to pressure waves. Such a convergence of results shows that it is worth to further carry on experimental investigations, in order to get either a confirmation or a disproof of the induced-pressure anomalous behaviour of radioactive nuclides even different from thorium.