Confinement of nonneutral plasmas on magnetic surfaces

The confinement of a nonneutral plasma in a magnetic-surface, or stellarator, configuration is explored. The fluid equilibrium equations are derived and are found to be fundamentally different from previous results. Diocotron modes are predicted to be stable. The collisional confinement time can be very long. Possible applications include positron trapping and confinement of positron-electron plasmas. The basic physics can be addressed experimentally in the simple tabletop stellarator planned for construction at Columbia University.     

Gas-Phase Generation and Photoelectron Spectra of Reactive Unsubstituted Cycloalkenethiones

The flash vacuum thermolysis of cycloalkenyl allyl sulfides, potential precursors of unsubstituted cycloalkenethiones, has been investigated by photoelectron spectroscopy. This technique allowed us to characterize in the gas phase very reactive species of this series, the conjugated and nonconjugated cyclopentene and cyclohexenethiones, and to compare the reactivity of these compounds. The assignment of the PE spectra is supported by electronic structure calculations, particularly by the HF method at the MP2 level and the density functional theory (DFT) using the B3LYP and BP86 functionals with the 6-311G(d, p) basis set. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.     

共聚物混溶性热力学-分子内排斥作用与附加共聚焓

基于聚合物分子间物理相互作用和统计平均场理论,引入附加共聚焓定义,使聚合物分子间的作用得到量化,同时推导出二元共混体系相互作用参数和三元共混体系混合焓关系式.利用所导出的公式解释一些常见聚合物共混体系和增溶体系.导出的关系式很好地解释了聚合物的热力学混溶性,但不能解释聚合物共混增溶作用.     

Light with a twist in its tail

Polarized light is a phenomenon familiar to anyone with a pair of polaroid sunglasses. Optical components that change the nature of the polarization from linear to circular are common in any undergraduate laboratory. Probably only physicists know that circularly polarized light carries with it an angular momentum that results from the spin of individual photons. Few physicists realize, however, that a light beam can also carry orbital angular momentum associated not with photon spin but with helical wavefronts. Beams of this type have been studied only over the last decade. In many instances orbital angular momentum behaves in a similar way to spin. But this is not always so: orbital angular momentum has its own distinctive properties and its own distinctive optical components. This article outlines the general behaviour of such beams; how they can be used to rotate microscopic particles; how they interact with nonlinear materials; the role they play in atom-light interactions and how the rotation of such beams results in a measurable frequency shift.     

Same-sign W pair production as a probe of double-parton scattering at the LHC

We study the production of same-sign W boson pairs at the LHC in double parton interactions. Compared with simple factorised double parton distributions (dPDFs), we show that the recently developed dPDFs, GS09, lead to non-trivial kinematic correlations between the W bosons. A numerical study of the prospects for observing this process using same-sign dilepton signatures, including W ^± W ^± jj, diboson and heavy flavour backgrounds, at 14 TeV centre-of-mass energy is then performed. It is shown that a small excess of same-sign dilepton events from double parton scattering over a background dominated by single scattering W ^± Z(γ ^*) production could be observed at the LHC.     

Formation of PAHs and soot platelets: multiconfiguration theoretical study of the key step in the ring closure–radical breeding polyyne‐based mechanism

Polyynes of general formula H? (C?C? )_nH are known to play a significant role in combustion and pyrolysis, possibly being intermediates in the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and soot. They have also been detected in astrophysical investigations. The key step in the polyyne‐based radical breeding mechanism for PAH growth is a cyclization, put forward by Krestinin, which implies disruption of electron couples, plausibly expected to be energy demanding. We explore the electronic features and energy requirements of such a process by quantum mechanical multiconfiguration methods (CASSCF and CASPT2). The features of the wavefunction are analyzed, and the free energy barriers are estimated over a wide range of temperatures, for three molecular models. The initial radical adduct A, generated by H ^. , HC?C ^. (ethynyl), or HC?C? C ^. H₂ ( propargyl ) addition to butadiyne (BD, HC?C? C?CH), undergoes a cyclization with the generation of two new radical centers. However, in most of the cases, one of these new singly occupied sp² orbitals has some overlap with the unpaired electron lobe already existent in A: some sort of bonding builds up and consequently the triradical character cannot be large. Only one model suggests a possible role of the radical breeding mechanism during combustion. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two-electron entanglement in elliptically deformed quantum dots

Entropic entanglement measures of a two-dimensional system of two Coulombically interacting particles confined in an anisotropic harmonic potential are discussed in dependence on the anisotropy and the interaction strength. The harmonic approximation appears exact in the strong interaction limit, allowing determination of the asymptotic expression for the linear entropy. Entanglement properties are dramatically influenced by the anisotropy of the confining potential in the strong-correlation regime.     

First-order interaction energies and the basis set truncation effects

The basis set superposition error is investigated in terms of the first-order symmetry adapted perturbation theory (SAPT). The analysis of the first-order SAPT contribution to the interaction energy reveals the origin of the basis set truncation effects at both the one-electron and many-electron levels of approximation. This helps to formulate the necessary conditions which ensure that the calculated interaction energy is free of the basis set superposition contributions. At the level of the one-electron approximation used for both the interacting system and its subsystems a part of the basis set truncation errors can be eliminated by using what is called the dimer-centred basis set. In order to remove all contributions which arise from the symmetrization of the product of wave functions of the subsystems one needs to redefine their reference states. This means that for the interacting system represented by a single HF determinant, the subsystems must be considered at the level of full CI in the orbital space spanned by all occupied orbitals used to describe the dimer. Then, the interaction energy becomes completely free of the basis set superposition contributions. These general considerations are exemplified by calculations of the first-order SAPT interaction energy in helium and H₂ dimers at different levels of approximation for monomers. Also the convergence of the calculated energies to the complete basis set limit is investigated.