Laser systems specialized for laser spectroscopy at storage rings

Laser spectroscopy at storage rings often suffers from a limited resolution due to Doppler-broadened resonances. Broadening is caused by the velocity spread of the ions stored in the beam. In the following, the present status of our work on laser systems specialized on the specific needs of laser spectroscopy at storage rings is reported. Two pulsed laser systems were developed. One is a dye laser whose spectral bandwidth can be switched by inserting different Littrow-prisms into the resonator. An increase in bandwidth up to a factor of 45 was achieved. This laser was used for fast qualitative scans and high resolution measurements. The other laser system is a Nd : YAG laser pumped optical parametric oscillator. It is a tunable laser system covering the spectral range from 410 to 4000 nm. Furthermore, a continuous wave laser with a frequency shifted feedback cavity is described. It shows broadband emission with an adjustable bandwidth of up to 4.5 GHz. This laser can be advantageous for laser cooling of ion beams. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Characterisation of the Products of Reduction of Chinkombe Ilmenite

The characterisation of iron-containing species in Chinkombe ilmenite and its reduction products was undertaken using Mössbauer Spectroscopic techniques. The ore was reduced by graphite in an inert atmosphere. The effects of such variables as quantity of reductant, temperature and preoxidation were investigated. The ore was completely reduced to alpha-iron and titanium dioxide with 20% carbon for a period of one hour at 1373 K. Chemical mechanisms are proposed for the reduction and oxidation of Chinkombe ilmenite. In the processing of ilmenite to obtain synthetic rutile, the ultimate desire is to separate the Fe phase from the TiO₂. Mössbauer Spectroscopy has unambiguously confirmed the desired transformation of the iron phase according to thermodynamic predictions. The information gained would be used to choose the conditions of the reduction process. The alpha-iron could be separated physically or chemically from the completely reduced product mass to obtain synthetic titanium dioxide suitable for the paint industry.     

Novel pattern formation in the collapse process of floating monolayer at the air-water interface

We have observed a remarkable two-armed spiral in the collapse process of a floating monolayer at the air-water interface by phase contrast microscopy. This demonstrates that the floating monolayer as a form of soft condensed matter reorganizes itself due to a certain kind of macroscopic or collective behavior of molecules as it collapses. This pattern formation is caused by the breakdown of a critical dynamical balance between the deformation of solid domain and the applied surface pressure. The fragility as well as the flexibility of the floating monolayer can be associated with the observed pattern growth. There are also observed interesting, periodically arranged collections of molecules in numerous collapsed regions. Received: 8 July 1997 / Accepted: 4 November 1997     

Field optimized initial state based control of photodissociation

A new scheme for controlling photodissociation through preparation of a variationally optimized linear superposition of field free vibrational eigenstates is applied for selective control of IBr and HI dissociation. The dependence of photodissociation on various field parameters and initial conditions is examined to investigate the mechanistic basis of selective control. The parametric equations of motion approach for determining vibrational dynamics as a function of field parameters without having to solve the time dependent Schrödinger equation explicitly for each field parameter separately is outlined and its use to identify field characteristics which will provide the requisite population mix represented by the optimal linear superposition of vibrational states is advocated.     

Shell model interaction between proton holes and between proton holes and neutron particles around 208Pb

An effective residual interaction between particles and holes for shell model calculations around ²⁰⁸Pb, derived from the interaction between free nucleons, is compared with the measured properties of proton-hole neutron states in ²⁰⁸Tl and the interaction between proton holes is adjusted to newly measured level energies in ²⁰⁶Hg. These interaction elements are particularly relevant for neutron-rich nuclei. The adjustment of two mixing elements reproduces the known γ-decay data in ²⁰⁸Tl. Received: 2 April 2002 / Accepted: 2 May 2002     

Higher-order <Emphasis Type="Bold">?</Emphasis> corrections in the semiclassical quantization of chaotic billiards

In the periodic orbit quantization of physical systems, usually only the leading-order ? contribution to the density of states is considered. Therefore, by construction, the eigenvalues following from semiclassical trace formulae generally agree with the exact quantum ones only to lowest order of ?. In different theoretical work the trace formulae have been extended to higher orders of ?. The problem remains, however, how to actually calculate eigenvalues from the extended trace formulae since, even with ? corrections included, the periodic orbit sums still do not converge in the physical domain. For lowest-order semiclassical trace formulae the convergence problem can be elegantly, and universally, circumvented by application of the technique of harmonic inversion. In this paper we show how, for general scaling chaotic systems, also higher-order ? corrections to the Gutzwiller formula can be included in the harmonic inversion scheme, and demonstrate that corrected semiclassical eigenvalues can be calculated despite the convergence problem. The method is applied to the open three-disk scattering system, as a prototype of a chaotic system. Received 10 September 2001 and Received in final form 3 January 2002     

Development of high-speed video cameras for Dynamic PIV

The most promising next generation Image Velocimtry (IV) is the high-speed Dynamic PIV. It requires the development of innovative high-speed video camera sensors. We started by specifying the required performance of these new sensors, for measurements in air and water flows. These criteria founded on the most recent developments in PIV algorithms and incorporate results from a large questionnaire survey of users of high-speed video cameras in Japan. The results suggest that the followings are required: (1) frame rate of 1,000,000 fps, (2) pixel count of 1,000,000 pixels, (3) frame storage capacity of 100–200 frames for tracing a single event and 10,000 frames for turbulent measurements, (4) gray levels of 4–8 bits for PTV; 12 bits for observation. Finally, we reviewed the state of the art of high-speed video-image sensors. Currently the standard parallel-readout sensors can operate at 1 Kfps with a pixel count of approximately 1 Kpixels. The In-situ Storage Image Sensor (ISIS) developed by the authors has recently achieved frame rates of 1 Mfps.     

Aspects of alpha-particle scattering and structure of the nuclear surface

The interaction of α particles above 5 MeV with a 2s-1d target is dominated by resonances. It cannot be described only in terms of a mean-field one-body potential. An analysis of the elastic α-particle scattering by ²⁸Si encourages the comprehension of the resonance states to be mainly fragments of a mixed-parity band. In the present article, the angular distributions of particles scattered by ³²S are analyzed in terms of such bands. The analysis of new data from an experiment made at Florida State University reveals the existence of states that do not belong to the above bands. This follows from a coupled-channel analysis of the elastic and inelastic (2⁺) cross sections. An α-particle structure at the nuclear surface is suggested.     

The Efficiency Distribution Approach in Data Envelopment Analysis: An Application

A method is developed here for characterizing the empirical distribution of the efficient units in data envelopment analysis. Two empirical applications illustrate the various uses of the distribution approach. One involves the cost frontier which exhibits increasing returns to scale and the other involves a dynamic production frontier, where technological change causes a shift of the production frontier over time.