Secondary anti-stokes emission from the bulk of gallium phosphide at 4.2 K

Secondary radiation (photoluminescence and Raman scattering) emitted by gallium phosphide single crystals at helium temperatures is investigated. It is established for the first time that, in the case when the secondary emission spectra are excited by a cw low-power He-Ne laser, whose linewidth lies in the transparency region of GaP, anti-Stokes photoluminescence from the bulk of the sample occurs due to interband and impurity recombination. The results obtained make it possible to carry out a qualitative and quantitative analysis of impurities which are present in the bulk of a semiconductor by recording the bulk anti-Stokes photoluminescence spectra at low temperatures.     

Linear Volterra Integral Equations

The Kurzweil-Henstock integral formalism is applied to establish the existence of solutions to the linear integral equations of Volterra-typewhere the functions are Banach-space valued. Special theorems on existence of solutions concerning the Lebesgu3 integral setting are obtained. These sharpen earlier results.     

Quark masses from regularized integrals of vector current spectral functions

We give estimates of quark masses from a comparison of two methods of regularizing the coefficient of the Schwinger term. The masses of the first radial excited states of ?, ω, and ? would have to be slightly higher than indicated by the new Orsay data for this method to yield real solutions for the masses of theu, d, ands quarks.     

Modeling synchronization and suppression of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions using Van der Pol oscillators: effects of aspirin administration

Many of the aspects of the interaction of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions with external tones (suppression and synchronization) can be qualitatively simulated by the behavior of a single driven Van der Pol oscillator. Analytical and numerical investigations of a model of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions based on such an oscillator (with appropriate parametric changes in the nonlinear and negative damping components) lead to predictions of the nature of the changes in suppression and synchronization (frequency-locking) tuning curves when the levels of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions are modified. Observations of the suppression and synchronization of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions by external tones of different frequencies and levels were obtained while the levels of spontaneous emissions were altered by aspirin administration. Modeling an emission as a single Van der Pol oscillator qualitatively accounts for: (1) the reduction of the level of an external tone required to suppress the emission by a decibel amount equivalent to the level reduction induced by aspirin administration; (2) the broadening of the frequency-locking tuning curve of an emission whose level is reduced; and (3) the pulling of the emission frequency by an external tone. It does not account for: (1) the observed asymmetry in the slopes of the external-tone suppression curves (more gradual for frequencies of the suppressor tone higher, rather than lower, than that of the emission); and (2) the frequency pushing of the emission by an external tone.     

The Efimov effect in a four-body system

It is shown, using a Born-Oppenheimer model, that the four-body Efimov effect may occur in a system consisting of three identical heavy particles and one light particle, if the light-heavy interaction leads to a zeroenergy two-heavy-one-light bound state.     

Stability criteria for controlled queueing systems

We give an almost complete classification of ergodicity and transience conditions for a general multi-queue system with the following features: arrivals form Poisson streams and there are various routing schemes for allocating arrivals to queues; the servers can be configured in a variety of ways; completed jobs can feed back into the system; the exponential service times and feedback probabilities depend upon the configuration of the servers (this model includes some types of multi-class queueing system); switching between service regimes is instantaneous. Several different levels of control of the service regimes are considered. Our results for the N-queue system require randomisation of service configurations but we have studied the two queue system in situations where there is less control. We use the semi-martingale methods described in Fayolle, Malyshev and Menshikov [3] and our results generalise Kurkova [8] and complement Foley and McDonald [4] and [5]. AMS 2000 subject classification: Primary: 90B22; Secondary: 60J10 90B15     

Fluorinated,crosslinkable terpolymers based on vinylidene fluoride and bearing sulfonic acid side groups for fuel‐cell membranes

The radical terpolymerization of 8‐bromo‐1H,1H,2H‐perfluorooct‐1‐ene with vinylidene fluoride (VDF) and perfluoro(4‐methyl‐3,6‐dioxaoct‐7‐ene) sulfonyl fluoride is presented. Changing the feed compositions of these three fluorinated comonomers enabled us to obtain different random‐type poly[vinylidene fluoride‐ter‐perfluoro(4‐methyl‐3,6‐dioxaoct‐7‐ene) sulfonyl fluoride‐ter‐8‐bromo‐1H,1H,2H‐perfluorooct‐1‐ene] terpolymers containing various sulfonyl fluoride and brominated side groups. Yields higher than 70% were reached in all cases. The hydrolysis of the sulfonyl fluoride group into the ? SO₃Li function in the presence of lithium carbonate was quantitatively achieved without the content of VDF being affected, and so dehydrofluorination of the VDF base unit was avoided. These original terpolymers were then crosslinked via dangling bromine atoms in the presence of a peroxide/triallyl isocyanurate system, which produced films insoluble in organic solvents such as acetone and dimethylformamide (which totally dissolved uncured terpolymers). The acidification of ? SO₃Li into the ? SO₃H function enabled protonic membranes to be obtained. The thermal stabilities of the crosslinked materials were higher than those of the uncured terpolymers, and their electrochemical performances were investigated. According to the contents of the sulfonic acid side functions, the ion‐exchange capacities ranged from 0.6 to 1.5 mequiv of H⁺/g, whereas the water uptake and conductivities ranged from 5–26% (±11%) and from 0.5 to 6.0 mS/cm, respectively. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 4566–4578, 2006     

Electromagnetic field distribution on a rough gold thin film: An experimental study as a function of the gold thickness

The electromagnetic field distribution on an illuminated rough gold surface has been investigated by apertureless scanning near-field optical microscopy. The sample consists of an alumina substrate with a variable gold coverage ranging from 0 to 30 monolayers (ML). For such small thicknesses, the metal layer is not continuous but exhibits a certain roughness. We have studied the influence of this thickness on the electromagnetic field localization on the surface. For a gold coverage smaller than 10 equivalent monolayers, the electromagnetic field is almost uniform on the surface. For 10 and 14 ML, the field becomes inhomogeneous and isolated, localized peaks start to be visible. The width of the peaks is smaller than 50 nm. Above 14 ML, strong variations are apparent everywhere on the sample. Their amplitude tends to saturate beyond 24 ML. A complete statistical study of the sample (standard deviation, Fourier analysis) is performed.