Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy at a water/gas interface: A study of bath gas-dependent molecular species

Single-pulse laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy has been performed on the surface of a bulk water sample in an air, argon, and nitrogen gas environment to investigate emissions from hydrogen-containing molecules. A microplasma was formed at the gas/liquid interface by focusing a Nd:YAG laser beam operating at 1064 nm onto the surface of an ultra-pure water sample. A broadband Echelle spectrometer with a time-gated intensified charge-coupled device was used to analyze the plasma at various delay times (1.0–40.0 μs) and for incident laser pulse energies ranging from 20–200 mJ. In this configuration, the dominant atomic spectral features at short delay times are the hydrogen H-alpha and H-beta emission lines at 656 and 486 nm, respectively, as well as emissions from atomic oxygen liberated from the water and air and nitrogen emission lines from the air bath gas. For delay times exceeding approximately 8 μs the emission from molecular species (particularly OH and NH) created after the ablation process dominates the spectrum. Molecular emissions are found to be much less sensitive to variations in pulse energy and exhibit a temporal decay an order of magnitude slower than the atomic emission. The dependence of both atomic hydrogen and OH emission on the bath gas above the surface of the water was studied by performing the experiment at standard pressure in an atmospheric purge box. Electron densities calculated from the Stark broadening of the H-beta and H-gamma lines and plasma excitation temperatures calculated from the ratio of H-beta to H-gamma emission were measured for ablation in the three bath gases.     

Quadrupole hyperfine structure of the rotational spectrum of aminoacetonitrile

From high-resolution studies of the microwave spectrum of aminoacetonitrile we have established the quadrupole coupling constants of both nitrogen atoms in the molecule. They are χ_aa = ?2.77 (0.04) MHz, χ_bb = 1.20 (0.09) MHz for the amino nitrogen, χ_aa = ?3.48 (0.03) MHz, χ_bb = 1.50 (0.06) MHz for the nitrile nitrogen. Improved values for rotational constants and centrifugal distortion constants also emerge from the present spectral analysis.     

Measuring theWW γ vertex in the processep→γϑX

We present a detailed analysis of the processep→γ?X as a means of studying the gauge structure of theWWγ vertex. We find that the differential cross section of highp _T photons offers a sensitive measure of anomalousWWγ couplings. At HERA \((\sqrt s = 314GeV)\) , after several years of running, theWWγ vertex can be measured to δκ_γ ? _?2.0 ^+2.9 and δλ_γ ? _?2.5 ^+3.0 (95% C.L.). Which offers an improvement over existing constraints from direct measurements using associatedWγ production in \(\bar pp\) collisions but is less sensitive than the competing process at HERA,ep→eWX. For a higher energyep collider, LEP-LHC \((\sqrt s = 1.3TeV)\) , theWWγ vertex can be measured to δδκ_γ ? ± 0.4 and δλκ_γ ? ± 0.1 at 95%C.L. which is more sensitive to λ_γ than the processe ⁺ e ^?→W ⁺ W ^? at the LEP200e ⁺ e ^? collider and is comparable to the LEP200 sensitivity to κ_γ. These values are also roughly comparable to the competing processep→eWX at LEP-LHC and to what is expected from associated γW production at the LHC and SSC for κ_γ but they are about half as sensitive to λ_γ as the LHC and SSC.