Sonoluminescence, sonochemistry (H2O2 yield) and bubble dynamics: frequency and power effects

In the present work, comprehensive experimental and numerical investigations on the effects of ultrasound frequency and acoustic power on sonoluminescence (SL) and H(2)O(2) yields have been carried out. The multibubble SL and H(2)O(2) yields have been examined for four frequencies (213, 355, 647 and 1056 kHz) and over a wide range of acoustic powers. The observed experimental results have been discussed with respect to single bubble dynamics and the number of active cavitation bubbles.     

Generation of low-timing-jitter femtosecond pulse trains with 2 GHz repetition rate via external repetition rate multiplication

Generation of low-timing-jitter 150 fs pulse trains at 1560 nm with 2 GHz repetition rate is demonstrated by locking a 200 MHz fundamental polarization additive-pulse mode-locked erbium fiber laser to high-finesse external Fabry-Perot cavities. The timing jitter and relative intensity noise of the repetition-rate multiplied pulse train are investigated.     

Generation of 287 W, 5.5 ps pulses at 78 MHz repetition rate from a cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG amplifier seeded by a fiber chirped-pulse amplification system

We generate linearly polarized, 287 W average-power, 5.5 ps pulses using a cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG amplifier at a repetition rate of 78 MHz. An optical-to-optical efficiency of 41% is obtained at 700 W pump power. A 6 W, 0.4 nm bandwidth picosecond seed source at 1029 nm wavelength is constructed using a chirped-pulse fiber amplification chain based on chirped volume Bragg gratings. The combination of a fiber amplifier system and a cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG amplifier results in good spatial beam quality at large average power. Low nonlinear phase accumulation as small as 5.1 x 10(-3) rad in the bulk Yb:YAG amplifier supports power scalability to a > 10 kW level without being affected by self-phase modulation. This amplification system is well suited for pumping high-power high-repetition-rate optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifiers.     

Electrons in disordered systems. Scaling near the mobility edge

Renormalization group arguments are applied to an ensemble of disordered electronic systems (without electron-electron interaction). The renormalization group procedure consists of a sequence of transformations of the length and the energy scales, and of orthogonal transformations of the electronic states. Homogeneity and power laws are obtained for various one and two-particle correlations and for the low-temperature conductivity in the vicinity of the mobility edge. Two types of fixed point ensembles are proposed, a homogeneous ensemble which is roughly approximated by a cell model, and an inhomogeneous ensemble.     

Transport properties of LaCu2Si2 and CeCu2Si2 between 1.5K and 300K

We report measurements of the electrical resistivity, the thermal conductivityk and the thermoelectric powerS between 1.5K and 300K on the anomalous CeCu₂Si₂ compound and on LaCu₂Si₂ as reference compound. For LaCu₂Si₂ the temperature dependences of andS are in accord with those found in otherd band metals. For CeCu₂Si₂ the observed resistivity (220 µ cm at 200K) leads to a very short electronic mean free path which is of the order of the Ce-Ce spacing. Correspondingly,k is almost identical with the phonon contributionk _p . Below 20K, resistivity and thermoelectric power strongly suggest Fermi liquid behavior with a degeneracy temperature between 20K and 40K. Above 200K, both andS decrease proportionally to –ln(T/1 K).Work performed within the research program of the Sonderforschungsbereich 125 Aachen/Jülich/KölnPart of this work will be presented at the Int. Conf. on Rare Earths in the Metallic State, St. Pierre de Chartreuse, Sept. 1978     

Quenched asymptotics of the ground state energy of random Schrödinger operators with scaled Gibbsian potentials

 This article describes the almost sure infinite volume asymptotics of the ground state energy of random Schr?dinger operators with scaled Gibbsian potentials. The random potential is obtained by distributing soft obstacles according to an infinite volume grand canonical tempered Gibbs measure with a superstable pair interaction. There is no restriction on the strength of the pair interaction: it may be taken, e.g., at a critical point. The potential is scaled with the box size in a critical way, i.e. the scale is determined by the typical size of large deviations in the Gibbsian cloud. The almost sure infinite volume asymptotics of the ground state energy is described in terms of two equivalent deterministic variational principles involving only thermodynamic quantities. The qualitative behaviour of the ground state energy asymptotics is analysed: Depending on the dimension and on the H?lder exponents of the free energy density, it is identified which cases lead to a phase transition of the asymptotic behaviour of the ground state energy. Received: 24 June 2002 / Revised version: 17 February 2003 Published online: 12 May 2003 Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): Primary 82B44; Secondary 60K35 Key words or phrases: Gibbs measure – H?lder exponents – Random Schr?dinger operator – Ground state – Large deviations     

Upper limit for thermal direct photon production in heavy-ion collisions at 60 and 200A·GeV

The production of direct photons has been investigated in reactions ofp and¹⁶O projectiles at 60 and 200A·GeV with C and Au nuclei. Photon and ⁰ spectra have been measured in the pseudorapidity range 1.52.1 for the transverse momentum region 0.4 GeV/cp _T 2.8 GeV/c employing the lead-glass spectrometer SAPHIR. An upper limit of 15% at the 90% confidence level for the direct photon signal relative to the neutral pion production is obtained from the comparison of measured photon spectra with Monte Carlo simulations of the hadronic background based on the reconstructed yield of ⁰ and mesons. Consequences for a possible phase transition to a quark-gluon plasma are discussed.     

Regulation of nestin expression by thrombin and cell density in cultures of bone mesenchymal stem cells and radial glial cells

Background  

Bone marrow stromal cells and radial glia are two stem cell types with neural phenotypic plasticity. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can differentiate into osteocytes, chondrocytes and adipocytes, but can also differentiate into non-mesenchymal cell, i.e. neural cells in appropriate in vivo and in vitro experimental conditions. Likewise, radial glial cells are the progenitors of many neurons in the developing cortex, but can also generate astrocytes. Both cell types express nestin, an intermediate filament protein which is the hallmark of neural precursors.     

Quasi-single-helicity reversed-field-pinch plasmas

The reversed field pinch (RFP) is a configuration for plasma magnetic confinement. It has been traditionally viewed as dominated by a bath of MHD instabilities producing magnetic chaos and high energy transport. We report experimental results which go beyond this view. They show a decrease of magnetic chaos and the formation of a coherent helical structure in the plasma, whose imaging and temperature profile are provided for the first time. These quasi-single-helicity states are observed both transiently and in stationary conditions. The last case is consistent with a theoretically predicted bifurcation. Our results set a new frame for improving confinement in high current nonchaotic RFP's.