Operational characteristics and power scaling of a transverse flow transversely excited CW CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> laser

Transverse flow transversely excited (TFTE) CO₂ lasers are easily scalable to multikilowatt level. The laser power can be scaled up by increasing the volumetric gas flow and discharge volume. It was observed in a TFTE CW CO₂ laser having single row of pins as an anode and tubular cathode that the laser power was not increasing when the discharge volume and the gas volumetric flow were increased by increasing the electrode separation keeping the gas flow velocity constant. The discharge voltage too remained almost constant with the change of electrode separation at the same gas flow velocity. This necessitated revision of the scaling laws for designing this type of high power CO₂ laser. Experimental results of laser performance for different electrode separations are discussed and the modifications in the scaling laws are presented.     

Valuations dominating regular local rings and proximity relations

We study zero-dimensional valuations dominating a regular local ring of dimension n≥2. For this we introduce the proximity matrix and the multiplicity sequence (extending classical definitions of the case n=2) that are associated with the sequence of the successive quadratic transforms of the ring along the valuation. We describe the precise relations between these invariants and study their properties.     

Mixing characteristics of motionless mixers

Motionless mixers have found a large range of applications, including blending, reaction, dispersion, heat transfer and mass transfer. Understanding the mixing processes that occur in these diverse systems is essential for predicting many aspects of practical importance. The objective of this study is to perform the experimental investigations of mixing characteristics for three different motionless mixers. The red color dye tracer was mixed in the main stream of green hair styling gel, and then the mixing efficiency was quantified by calculating the percentage area concentration of red color at the outlet cross section using a digital image processing technique. In the Sulzer SMX and YHC mixer, a single element mixes the fluid nearly in two dimensions, and three-dimensional mixing is accomplished by the next elements aligned at 90o to their former one. In the Sulzer SMX mixer, the flow appears to be globally well mixed after 5 elements, while in the YHC and YNU mixers, it is necessary to globally well mix more than 1 and 2 elements.     

First measurement of the ϱ spectral function in nuclear collisions

The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS has studied low-mass muon pairs in 158 A GeV In–In collisions. A strong excess of pairs is observed above the yield expected from neutral meson decays. The unprecedented sample size close to 400000 events and the good mass resolution of about 2% made it possible to isolate the excess by subtraction of the decay sources. The shape of the resulting mass spectrum shows some non-trivial centrality dependence, but is largely consistent with a dominant contribution from π⁺π^-→ϱ→μ⁺μ^- annihilation. The associated ϱ spectral function exhibits considerable broadening, but essentially no shift in mass. The p_T-differential mass spectra show the excess to be much stronger at low p_T than at high p_T. The results are compared to theoretical model predictions; they tend to rule out models linking hadron masses directly to the chiral condensate. PACS 25.75.-q; 12.38.Mh; 13.85.Qk     

Multi-parton cross sections at hadron colliders

We present an alternative method to calculate cross sections for multi-parton scattering processes in the standard model at leading order. The helicity amplitudes are computed using recursion relations in the number of particles, based on the Dyson–Schwinger equations, whereas the summation over colour and helicity configurations is performed by Monte Carlo methods. The computational cost of our algorithm grows asymptotically as 3ⁿ, where n is the number of particles involved in the process, as opposed to the n!-growth of the Feynman diagram approach. Typical results for the total cross section, the differential distributions of the invariant masses and the transverse momenta of the partons are presented and cross checked by explicit summation over colours.     

Study of interactions of various ionic species with solvents toward the design of receptors

In earlier studies, the interactions of isolated ionic species with various solvents were investigated using ab initio calculations. The ionic species investigated included cations (proton, hydronium, ammonium, and metal cations) and anions (single electron, hydroxide, and halide anions). However in the present study, we investigate the interactions of these ionic species with the solvent in the presence of other competing ionic species. We also elaborate on how the information obtained from these extensive studies have been employed in designing and synthesizing various kinds of novel ionophores and receptors.     

The impact of nonequilibrium gain in a spectral laser diode model

We describe the inclusion of nonequilibrium gain into a self-consistent 2.5D CW spectral laser diode model and report on the use of this model to investigate the origin of gain compression in a 975 nm high-brightness tapered QW laser diode. Nonequilibrium gain is calculated using a dynamic gain model, which simulates the dynamic relaxation of the quantum well carrier energy distributions under the influence of steady-state electrical and optical excitation. Calculated gain and spontaneous emission spectra are included in the laser model via parameterised look up tables. Both simulated and experimentally measured intracavity spontaneous emission spectra show an increased carrier density and a blue-shift of the gain maximum with increasing bias caused by carrier heating and spectral hole burning. The accurate incorporation of nonequilibrium gain compression is therefore vital for the accurate prediction of the operating characteristics of these devices and for the experimental determination of the active region temperature.     

Direct measurement of the magnetocaloric effect in La0.67Ca0.33MnO3

Polycrystalline perovskite La_0.67Ca_0.33MnO₃ was synthesized by a sol–gel method. Its adiabatic temperature change ΔT_ad induced by a magnetic field change was measured directly. At 268 K, near its Curie temperature T_C, ΔT_ad of La_0.67Ca_0.33MnO₃ induced by a magnetic field change of 2.02 T reaches 2.4 K. The latent heat Q and magnetic entropy change −ΔS_M induced by a magnetic field change were calculated from the temperature dependence of ΔT_ad and zero-field heat capacity C_p. The maximum values of Q and −ΔS_M in La_0.67Ca_0.33MnO₃ induced by a magnetic field change of 2.02 T are 1.85 J g⁻¹ and 6.9 J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹, respectively. The former is larger than the phase transition latent heat of heating or cooling, which is about 1.70 J g⁻¹.     

Vowel Intelligibility in Classical Singing

Vowel intelligibility during singing is an important aspect of communication during performance. The intelligibility of isolated vowels sung by Western classically trained singers has been found to be relatively low, in fact, decreasing as pitch rises, and it is lower for women than for men. The lack of contextual cues significantly deteriorates vowel intelligibility. It was postulated in this study that the reduced intelligibility of isolated sung vowels may be partly from the vowels used by the singers in their daily vocalises. More specifically, if classically trained singers sang only a few American English vowels during their vocalises, their intelligibility for American English vowels would be less than for those classically trained singers who usually vocalize on most American English vowels. In this study, there were 21 subjects (15 women, 6 men), all Western classically trained performers as well as teachers of classical singing. They sang 11 words containing 11 different American English vowels, singing on two pitches a musical fifth apart. Subjects were divided into two groups, those who normally vocalize on 4, 5, or 6 vowels, and those who sing all 11 vowels during their daily vocalises. The sung words were cropped to isolate the vowels, and listening tapes were created. Two listening groups, four singing teachers and five speech-language pathologists, were asked to identify the vowels intended by the singers. Results suggest that singing fewer vowels during daily vocalises does not decrease intelligibility compared with singing the 11 American English vowels. Also, in general, vowel intelligibility was lower with the higher pitch, and vowels sung by the women were less intelligible than those sung by the men. Identification accuracy was about the same for the singing teacher listeners and the speech-language pathologist listeners except for the lower pitch, where the singing teachers were more accurate.