Extraordinary ray refraction in a large pitch helical medium

The phenomenon of extraordinary ray refraction in a helical liquid crystal with large (compared to the light wavelength) pitch has been studied by theoretical and experimental methods. At a sufficiently large angle of incidence relative to the pitch axis, the extraordinary ray exhibits reflection (reversal) from a certain layer of the medium. The ordinary ray, for which the system is optically isotropic, exhibits no such reflection. The experimental dependences of the transmitted and reflected (reversed) rays are described using the geometrical optics approximation taking into account the optical losses for scattering inside the liquid crystal.     

The effect of the character of electron reflection on the electromagnetic properties of an inhomogeneous spherical particle

The magnetic absorption cross section of a small spherical particle with a dielectric core and a metallic shell is calculated. The general case is considered when the ratio of the radius of the dielectric core to the total radius of the particle may take arbitrary values. The condition of specular-diffuse reflection of conduction electrons from the surfaces of the metal layer of the particle is chosen as the boundary conditions of the problem. The limit cases are considered, and the results are discussed.     

Transition in a Luttinger liquid with two-level impurities to the fermi-liquid state

The mechanisms leading to instability of the non-Fermi-liquid state of a Luttinger liquid with two-level impurities are proposed. Since exchange scattering in 1D systems is two-channel scattering in a certain range of parameters, several types of non-Fermi-liquid excitations with different quantum numbers exist in the vicinity of the Fermi level. These excitations include, first, charge density fluctuations in the Luttinger liquid and, second, many-particle excitations due to two-channel exchange interaction, which are associated with band-type as well as impurity fermion states. It is shown that mutual scattering of many-particle excitations of various types leads to the emergence of an additional Fermi-liquid singularity in the vicinity of the Fermi level. The conditions under which the Fermi-liquid state with a new energy scale (which is much smaller than the Kondo temperature) is the ground state of the system are formulated.     

Reactor as a source of antineutrinos: Thermal fission energy

Deeper insight into the features of a reactor as a source of antineutrinos is required for making further advances in studying the fundamental properties of the neutrino. The relationship between the thermal power of a reactor and the rate of the chain fission reaction in its core is analyzed.     

Model for describing the production of Centauro events and strangelets in heavy-ion collisions

A phenomenological model for describing the production of Centauro events in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is discussed. The model provides quantitative predictions for kinematical variables, for the baryon number, and for the masses of a Centauro fireball and of its decay products. A Centauro fireball decays predominantly into nucleons, strange hyperons, and possibly strangelets. Centauro events in Pb + Pb collisions at the LHC energy are simulated for the CASTOR detector. The signatures of these events are discussed in detail.     

Thermal effects and flat direction baryogenesis

We provide a detailed numerical study of the influence of thermal effects on the original picture of the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis. These effects are found to modify the results greatly in some cases. We estimate the baryon/entropy ratio and provide numerical results on the typical behavior of the charge as a function of the strength of the potential and other parameters.     

Investigation of clustering in light nuclei by means of relativistic-multifragmentation processes

New results concerning the topology of the fragmentation of relativistic nuclei ⁷Li and ¹⁰B are presented. A program is proposed for studying the cluster structure of stable and radioactive nuclei. The use of emulsions in the investigation of nuclear clustering in the fragmentation of light nuclei at energies are in excess of 1 GeV per nucleon is discussed.     

TSL and EPR studies of SrBPO5 doped with CeO2and co-doped with CeO2 and Sm2O3

Thermally stimulated luminescence (TSL) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) investigations were carried out on gamma irradiated SrBPO₅ samples doped with CeO₂ and co-doped with CeO₂ and Sm₂O₃. On gamma-irradiation at room temperature, BO₃ ^2–, O₂ ^– and O^– radicals were produced. It was seen that the O^– radical ion disappeared in the sample annealed at 500 K. It is proposed that the recombination between trapped electrons and O^– radical ions results in transfer of recombination energy to the impurity centre Ce³⁺ resulting in TSL glow peak at 485 K. In the case of co-doped samples energy transfer occurs between Ce³⁺ to Sm³⁺ resulting in increase in the intensity of glow peak at 485 K.The authors are grateful to Dr. V. K. Manchanda, Head, Radiochemistry Division, BARC for his keen interest and encouragement during the course of this work.