Rotational discontinuity in magnetohydrodynamics

Novosibirsk. Translated fromSibirskiî Matematicheskiî Zhurnal, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 3–18, May–June, 1993.     

Mixed block elimination for linear systems with wider borders

The paper is about the stable solution of possibly ill-conditionedbordered linear systems. Given stable solvers for matrix A andfor A^T, we prove that the Govaerts Mixed Block Elimination (BEM)method constitutes a stable solver for the matrix consistingof A or A^T with a border of width 1, and hence by recursionfor a border of any width. We express the algorithm in an efficient,iterative, form. We analyse its operation count, and verifythe theory by extensive numerical experiments. ^*Senior Research Associate of the Belgian National Fund of ScientificResearch NFWO.     

Bases of free metabelian and transmetabelian groups

A definition of the basis of a group written in additive form is given based on P. Hall's collecting process. The bases of free rank 2 groups of the following three types are found: metabelian, transmetabelian of the first type (with an Abelian third term in the lower central series), and transmetabelian of the second type (the nilpotency class of whose derived group is equal to two).Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov Leningradskogo Otdeleniya Matematicheskogo Instituta im. V. A. Steklova Akademiya Nauk SSSR, Vol. 191, pp. 126–139, 1991.     

Parity-locking effect in a strongly-correlated ring

Orbital magnetism in an integrable model of a multichannel ring with long-ranged electron-electron interactions is investigated. In a noninteracting multichannel system, the response to an external magnetic flux is the sum of many diamagnetic and paramagnetic contributions, but we find that for sufficiently strong correlations, the contributions of all channels add constructively, leading to a parity (diamagnetic or paramagnetic) which depends only on the total number of electrons. Numerical results confirm that this parity-locking effect is robust with respect to subband mixing due to disorder.     

Critical behavior of the wave functions of icosahedral quasicrystals

The character of the localization of the wave functions of an icosahedral quasicrystal is investigated in the tight-binding approximation. It is found that the wave functions exhibit “critical behavior”: they are neither localized, as in the case of Anderson localization, nor delocalized, as in the case of Bloch states. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 64, No. 8, 559–563 (25 October 1996)     

Moisture sorption, transport, and hydrolytic degradation in polylactide

Management of moisture penetration and hydrolytic degradation of polylactide (PLA) is extremely important during the manufacturing, shipping, storage, and end-use of PLA products. Moisture transport, crystallization, and degradation, in PLA have been measured through a variety of experimental techniques including size-exclusion chromatography, differential scanning calorimetry, and X-ray diffraction. Quartz crystal microbalance and dynamic vapor sorption experiments have also been used to measure moisture sorption isotherms in PLA films with varying crystallinity. A surprising result is that, within the accuracy of the experiments, crystalline and amorphous PLA films exhibit identical sorption isotherms.     

Formation of ultrashort microwave pulses in coaxial cavities

We describe shaper cavities for the production of ultrashort microwave pulses with a minimum duration of one period of the high-frequency field and a power of several tens of megawatts. Experimental results are presented.Scientific and Research Insititute for Nuclear Physics at S. M. Kirov Polytechnical Institute, Tomsk. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 38, No. 12, pp. 1250–1256, December, 1995.