Unusual behaviour of conductivity and superconductivity in solid Sn−Xe mixtures

We have measured the normal statedc conductivity , the superconducting transition temperatureT _c and the critical superconducting currentI _c0 of frozen Sn–Xe mixtures in dependence of the Sn atomic fractionc. A new, high-T _c phase is observed forc between 0.58±0.02 and 0.74±0.02. This phase has aT _c-value of about 5.7 K, it shows a strong decrease in and inI _c0 and transforms into disordered Sn during annealing between 15 K and 50 K.It is a pleasure for us to dedicate this paper to Prof. Dr. S. Methfessel on the occasion of his 60^th birthday.This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft     

Demixing and nematic behaviour of oblate hard spherocylinders and hard spheres mixtures: Monte Carlo simulation and Parsons–Lee theory

Parsons–Lee approach is formulated for the isotropic–nematic transition in a binary mixture of oblate hard spherocylinders and hard spheres. Results for the phase coexistence and for the equation of state in both phases for fluids with different relative size and composition ranges are presented. The predicted behaviour is in agreement with Monte Carlo simulations in a qualitative fashion. The study serves to provide a rational view of how to control key aspects of the behaviour of these binary nematogenic colloidal systems. This behaviour can be tuned with an appropriate choice of the relative size and molar fractions of the depleting particles. In general, the mixture of discotic and spherical particles is stable against demixing up to very high packing fractions. We explore in detail the narrow geometrical range where demixing is predicted to be possible in the isotropic phase. The influence of molecular crowding effects on the stability of the mixture when spherical molecules are added to a system of discotic colloids is also studied.     

Heat of explosion and acceleration ability of explosive–inorganic oxidizer mixtures

Experimental results have shown that the use of inorganic oxidizers (ammonium nitrate, ammonium perchlorate, and ammonium dinitramide) as additives does not lead to a considerable increase in the heat of explosion and acceleration ability of HMX. Ammonium perchlorate does not have an effect on the acceleration ability; however, it leads to an increase in the heat of explosion of triaminotrinitrobenzene. Calculations have shown that the acceleration ability of explosives with a low oxygen ratio can be increased through the formation of nanostructured composites with inorganic oxidizers. Calculations suggest that the addition of the studied oxidizers to CL-20 leads to a decrease in the acceleration ability of this promising explosive.     

Precipitation and fracture behaviour of Fe–Mn–Ni–Al alloys

The effects of Al addition on the precipitation and fracture behaviour of Fe–Mn–Ni alloys were investigated. With the increasing of Al concentration, the matrix and grain boundary precipitates changed from L1₀ θ-MnNi to B2 Ni₂MnAl phase, which is coherent and in cube-to-cube orientation relationship with the α′-matrix. Due to the suppression of the θ-MnNi precipitates at prior austenite grain boundaries (PAGBs), the fracture mode changed from intergranular to transgranular cleavage fracture. Further addition of Al resulted in the discontinuous growth of Ni₂MnAl precipitates in the alloy containing 4.2?wt.% Al and fracture occurred by void growth and coalescence, i.e. by ductile dimple rupture. The transition of the fracture behaviour of the Fe–Mn–Ni–Al alloys is discussed in relation to the conversion of the precipitates and their discontinuous precipitation behaviour at PAGBs.     

Transport and relaxation properties of isotopomeric hydrogen–helium binary mixtures. I. H2–He mixtures

An extensive comparison has been carried out between calculated and measured bulk properties of H₂–helium mixtures. Detailed comparisons are presented for the interaction second virial coefficient, binary diffusion, mixture shear viscosity and thermal conductivity, rotational relaxation, thermal diffusion field-effects, collision broadening of the depolarized Rayleigh light scattering spectrum, and flow birefringence. Scattering calculations have been carried out for the ab initio potential energy surfaces obtained by Tao (1994, J. chem. Phys., 100, 4947) and Schaefer and Köhler (1985, Physica A, 129, 469). The values for the various bulk gas properties calculated from these two potential surfaces are generally found to lie within or near the experimental uncertainties.     

Smectic polymorphism of 4-decyloxybenzylidene- 4′-alkyloxyanilines and their mixtures with polar standards of mesophases

This article describes liquid crystalline properties of the homologous series of 4-decyloxybenzylidene-4′-alkyloxyanilines. Based on the polarization microscopy (POM and TOA methods) and the calorimetric (DSC) measurements a rich polymorphism has been detected. Investigated compounds exhibit nematic, smectic A, smectic C, smectic B, smectic I and G (smectic G) mesophases with their characteristic configurations. The presence of these mesophases was confirmed by the miscibility method, using 4-heptyloxybenxylidene-4′-pentylaniline as a mesophase reference. Nine other smectic standards with different polarity have been applied in order to investigate their influence on the mesophase stability.     

Phonon–roton-like elementary excitations and low-temperature behaviour of non-crystalline solids

The low-temperature behaviour of the specific heat of a glassy sample is explained in analogy to what is done in the physics of superfluid helium. The low-temperature excitation spectra of the system is assumed as being formed by two ideal gases of quasiparticles. One of them is a phonon gas, leading to the Debye contribution, and the other one is an ideal gas of another bosonic quasiparticle, whose dispersion relation is similar to the one proposed for liquid helium.     

Kinetic theory of long-range interacting systems with angle–action variables and collective effects

We develop a kinetic theory of systems with long-range interactions taking collective effects and spatial inhomogeneity into account. Starting from the Klimontovich equation and using a quasilinear approximation, we derive a Lenard–Balescu-type kinetic equation written in angle–action variables. We confirm the result obtained by Heyvaerts [Heyvaerts, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 407, 355 (2010)] who started from the Liouville equation and used the BBGKY hierarchy truncated at the level of the two-body distribution function (i.e., neglecting three-body correlations). When collective effects are ignored, we recover the Landau-type kinetic equation obtained in our previous papers [P.H. Chavanis, Physica A 377, 469 (2007); J. Stat. Mech., P05019 (2010)]. We also consider the relaxation of a test particle in a bath of field particles. Its stochastic motion is described by a Fokker–Planck equation written in angle–action variables. We determine the diffusion tensor and the friction force by explicitly calculating the first and second order moments of the increment of action of the test particle from its equations of motion, taking collective effects into account. This generalizes the expressions obtained in our previous works. We discuss the scaling with N$N$ of the relaxation time for the system as a whole and for a test particle in a bath.     

Nonaxial shapes of even–even lantanide and actinide nuclei in excited collective states

Quadrupole-type excited states of even–even nuclei are studied on the basis of arbitrary-triaxiality model. It is shown that the inclusion of high-order terms in the expansion of the rotational-energy operator in the variable γ improves substantially agreement between our theoretical results and respective experimental data. The proposed model makes it possible to explain the intricate character of the spectrum of excited states of even–even lanthanide and actinide nuclei.     

Transport properties of H–N2 mixtures

Transport coefficients (shear viscosity, volume viscosity, thermal conductivity, and mass and thermal diffusion coefficients) of H–N₂ mixtures in the dilute-gas limit have been calculated from the intermolecular potential in the temperature range 300–2000K using the classical trajectory method. The intermediate results pertaining to H–N₂ binary interactions are reported, mainly in terms of cross-section ratios. Cross-sections evaluated with the Mason–Monchick approximation yield very good results for this system, the largest deviations, about 2.5%, being observed for the thermal diffusion coefficient. The accuracy here of this approximation can primarily be attributed to a light H atom and a weakly non-spherical potential resulting in a high rotational collision number. Furthermore, we investigate to which H–N₂ cross-sections and their ratios the values of the mixture transport coefficients are most sensitive. Our results indicate that, for some cross-section ratios, reliance on universal correlations at high temperatures, often used in flame codes, can induce sizeable errors in the thermal conductivity coefficient and especially in the thermal diffusion coefficients. We also observed that the volume viscosity is particularly sensitive to the value of the cross-section for internal energy relaxation in H–N₂ collisions.     

Shock wave dispersion of gas–particle mixtures

The decay of a discontinuity in a two-component homogeneous gas mixture and the dispersion of a gas–particle mixture with a two-component carrier medium are numerically simulated. The mathematical model of the dynamics of heterogeneous media takes into account the interphase force interaction and interphase heat exchange. Experimental results known from the literature are compared with numerical results describing the dispersion of a gas–particle mixture in a shock tube.     

Au–Cu nanoparticles produced by laser ablation of mixtures of Au and Cu microparticles

In this study we investigate the possibility of producing alloy nanoparticles (NP) from mixtures of elemental microparticle (MP) powders using the laser ablation of microparticle (LAM) process. Mixtures of Au and Cu particles with a diameter of 1.5–2.0 m were fed in aerosol form into a laser ablation cell and ablated using a pulsed laser. The resulting NP were collected electrostatically and characterized using TEM. The NP were spherical and crystalline with a size that depended on the collection location but ranged from 2 to 15 nm. Using TEM/SAD, it was determined that the NP had a face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure and, with EDS, it was found that individual NP consisted of both Au and Cu. These experimental results confirm previous numerical models that suggested that it might be possible to form alloy NP from mixtures of elemental MP using the LAM process.     

Electronic absorption spectra of ascorbic acid in water and water–dialkylsulfoxide mixtures

Gaussian analysis (LinkFit program) was used to deconvolute overlapping absorption bands due to neutral and anionic forms of ascorbic acid (AA). It has been shown that the neutral form of AA predominates in aqueous solutions of AA containing dialkylsulfoxides (DASO) because a hydrogen-bonded complex forms between DASO and AA molecules.     

The Influence of Dimesions and Phase State of Structural Elements on Mechanical Properties of Binary Alloys of the Ti–Nb and Zr–Nb Systems

Russian Physics Journal - The results of investigation of the influence of the structural element size and phase state of the Ti – 45 wt.% Nb and Zr – 1 wt.% Nb binary alloys on their...     

Antibacterial evaluation and molecular docking studies of pyrazole–thiosemicarbazones and their pyrazole–thiazolidinone conjugates

Molecular Diversity - A library of pyrazole–thiazolidinone conjugates was synthesized using a molecular hybridization approach through a Vilsmeier–Haack reaction. The compounds were...     

String behaviour of magnetic field lines and their rotation in neutron star’s interior

It is found from Maxwell’s equations that the magnetic field lines are good analogues of relativistic strings. The Lorentz force per unit length of magnetic tube is interpretable as Magnus force acting on each individual magnetic tube. It is shown that the superconducting current in pulsar’s interior causes local rotation of magnetic flux tubes carrying quantized flux. Such local rotation remains operative as long as the induced magnetic field of normal electron fluid is above the lower critical field but below the upper. The conservation of magnetic flux leads to a geometrical condition in the form of the Weingarten identity which ensures the existence of family of “magnetic world sheetrdquo;. Each “magnetic world sheet” is a magnetic flux conserving surface. In the process of collapse, a compact spacelike cross-section of a magnetic tube terminates into a trapped surface if the magnetic energy grows faster along the fluid flow lines than that along the magnetic field lines.     

Viscosities and their correlations with structures of Cu–Ag melts

The viscosities of a series of Cu–Ag melts in a temperature range from 1473 K to nearly liquid temperatures are measured by using an oscillating viscometer. At the same temperature, the value of viscosity increases first with silver content increasing, and reaches a maximum value at the eutectic component Cu40Ag60, then decreases. All the temperature dependences of the viscosities of Cu–Ag melts conform with the Arrhenius equation. The parameters of correlation length D of the studied Cu–Ag melts are calculated according to the experimental results of x-ray diffraction. The temperature dependence of correlation length D shows an exponential decay function, which is similar to the Arrhenius equation. Based on the values of viscosities and correlation length D, a direct correlation between viscosity and liquid structure is found for the investigated Cu–Ag melts through comparative analysis.     

Decompositions of the Kadomtsev–Petviashvili equation and their symmetry reductions

Starting with a decomposition conjecture, we carefully explain the basic decompositions for the Kadomtsev–Petviashvili(KP) equation as well as the necessary calculation procedures, and it is shown that the KP equation allows the Burgers–STO(BSTO) decomposition, two types of reducible coupled BSTO decompositions and the BSTO–KdV decomposition. Furthermore, we concentrate ourselves on pointing out the main idea and result of B?cklund transformation of the KP equation based on a special superpositi...