Casimir force in dense confined electrolytes

ABSTRACT

Understanding the force between charged surfaces immersed in an electrolyte solution is a classic problem in soft matter and liquid-state theory. Recent experiments showed that the force decays exponentially but the characteristic decay length in a concentrated electrolyte is significantly larger than what liquid-state theories predict based on analysing correlation functions in the bulk electrolyte. Inspired by the classical Casimir effect, we consider an additional mechanism for force generation, namely the confinement of density fluctuations in the electrolyte by the walls. We show analytically within the random phase approximation, which assumes the ions to be point charges, that this fluctuation-induced force is attractive and also decays exponentially, albeit with a decay length that is half of the bulk correlation length. These predictions change dramatically when excluded volume effects are accounted for within the mean spherical approximation. At high ion concentrations the Casimir force is found to be exponentially damped oscillatory as a function of the distance between the confining surfaces. Our analysis does not resolve the riddle of the anomalously long screening length observed in experiments, but suggests that the Casimir force due to mode restriction in density fluctuations could be an hitherto under-appreciated source of surface–surface interaction.     

Modular invariance for interacting bosonic strings at finite temperature

We study the finite temperature string path integral introduced by Polchinski [1]. It is shown that on an arbitrary genus world sheet all windings of the fields around the compact time direction can be rotated into a single cycle. The modular invariance of this result is demonstrated.     

A power-law distribution for tenure lengths of sports managers

We show that the tenure lengths for managers of sport teams follow a power law distribution with an exponent between 2 and 3. We develop a simple theoretical model which replicates this result. The model demonstrates that the empirical phenomenon can be understood as the macroscopic outcome of pairwise interactions among managers in a league, threshold effects in managerial performance evaluation, competitive market forces, and luck at the microscopic level.     

Antibody immobilization on gold nanoparticles coated layer-by-layer with polyelectrolytes

Nanoscale materials are used in the biomedical field for magnetic resonance imaging, protein detection and drug/gene delivery. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are particularly investigated in cancer treatment and imaging. In this study, we described a simple and reliable liquid method to coat AuNPs (diameter: 21 nm) layer-by-layer with alternative cationic polyallylamine and anionic polystyrenesulfonate. The C-terminal amino acid of the antibody directed against anti-bovine serum albumin was activated by EDC/NHS, and then condensed with the amino functions of the external polyallylamine layer. An ELISA test confirmed that the antigen recognition of the bioconjugate antibody was conserved. This AuNP coating and the covalently coupling could be used as a generic process for binding other specific antibodies, particularly those overexpressed in cancer cells and angiogenesis.     

Early transition metal dopants in cuprous oxide: To spin or not to spin

We present a trend study of a large variety of dopants at the cation site in Cu₂O (i.e. substituting Cu), focussing largely on the early 3d-, 4d-, and 5d-transition metals (TMs) in which many of them are known to be non-magnetic. We also include s-, sp- and d¹⁰-metals for comparison. We find that doping with sp-elements results in zero spin moment while dopants with a partially filled d-band show a stronger tendency to magnetize and 3d-TM dopants exhibit a larger magnetic moment than most of the 4d- and 5d-TM dopants. From this trend study, we also find a correlation between their substitution enthalpy and associated interatomic relaxations. In particular, Ti-doped Cu₂O appears to be an interesting system, given its “peculiar” ability to exhibit a spin moment when doped with a non-magnetic substituent like Ti. We also find that the interaction between two doped Ti atoms in Ti₂:Cu₂O is predominantly antiferromagnetic, and interestingly (and unexpectedly), this interaction rapidly declines as a function of inter-dopant distance, as in the case for the magnetic late-TM dopants like Co₂:Cu₂O.     

相对论性核碰撞中φ介子增强

用强子和弦级联模型LUCIAE系统地研究了相对论性p+p和Pb+Pb碰撞中φ介子产生.在模型框架内实验测得的158AGeV/cPb+Pb碰撞中φ介子产额相对于同能量p+p碰撞的增强现象,依赖于弦发射胶子的集体效应和奇异夸克压低约化两机制,在一定程度内能得到解释.     

高能核碰撞中带电多重数快度与能量和中心度的关系

用强子–弦级联模型JPCIAE及相应的Monte Carlo事例产生器研究相对论性核–核碰撞中带电粒子多重数的赝快度密度对能量和中心度的依赖关系.无需另调任何模型参数的条件下,此模型可以同时较好地描述相对论性pp实验数据及PHOBOS和PHENIX实验组的Au+Au实验数据.本文指出:因〈N_part〉并非严格定义的物理量,致使实验上和理论上确定〈N_part〉有一定任意性,从而使得每参加者核子对的带电粒子赝快度密度随着〈N_part〉的增加可能逐渐增大,也可能逐渐减小,因此用它来区分粒子产生机制是欠妥的.     

以LCD为目标的自动定焦判据选择

在光学综合自动测量中 ,使用液晶显示屏作为分划板可以大大简化结构 ,提高效率 ,真正地实现自动测量。由于液晶显示具有对比度低、噪声大等特点 ,所以根据液晶的这些特点以及图像处理和CCD信号接收的特点选择两种适用的判据进行了分析和试验比较 ,并给出了结果。结果表明 ,这两种判别函数都适用于以液晶显示屏为目标和用图像处理方法进行光学参数测量的系统 ,其中锐度判别函数更优于信息熵判别函数 ,前者具有更好的抗干扰性和稳定性 ,而且其判定结果更接近目视清晰度判别     

Modal decomposition method for modeling the interaction of Lamb waves with cracks

The interaction of the low-order antisymmetric (a0) and symmetric (s0) Lamb waves with vertical cracks in aluminum plates is studied. Two types of slots are considered: (a) internal crack symmetrical with respect to the middle plane of the plate and (b) opening crack. The modal decomposition method is used to predict the reflection and transmission coefficients and also the through-thickness displacement fields on both sides of slots of various heights. The model assumes strip plates and cracks, thus considering two-dimensional plane strain conditions. However, mode conversion (a0 into s0 and vice versa) that occurs for single opening cracks is considered. The energy balance is always calculated from the reflection and transmission coefficients, in order to check the validity of the results. These coefficients together with the through-thickness displacement fields are also compared to those predicted using a finite element code widely used in the past for modeling Lamb mode diffraction problems. Experiments are also made for measuring the reflection and transmission coefficients for incident a0 or s0 lamb modes on opening cracks, and compared to the numerical predictions.