Does iron inhibit cryptoendolithic microbial communities?

Photosynthetic activity of three cryptoendolithic microbial communities was studied under controlled conditions in the laboratory. In two of these communities, the dominant organisms were lichens, collected from Linnaeus Terrace and from Battleship Promontory. The third community, dominated by cyanobacteria, was collected from Battleship Promontory. Both sites are in the ice-free valleys of southern Victoria Land. Previous efforts have shown how physical conditions can influence metabolic activity in endolithic communities (Kappen and Friedmann 1983; Kappen, Friedmann, and Garty 1981; Vestal, Federle, and Friedmann 1984). Biological activity can also be strongly influenced by the chemical environment. Inorganic nutrients such as nitrate, ammonia, and phosphate are often limiting factors, so their effects on photosynthetic carbon-14 bicarbonate incorporation were investigated. Iron and manganese are two metals present in Linnaeus Terrace and Battleship Promontory sandstones, and their effects on photosynthesis were also studied. The results may add to our understanding of biogeochemical interactions within this unique microbial community.     

Progressing waves on spherical spacetimes

A family of spherically symmetrical spacetimes that are transparent to minimally coupled scalar multipole waves is investigated. The concept of transparency is reformulated in terms of the established concept of progressing waves. The set of spherically symmetric spacetimes and the family of wave equations for which the transparency condition can be shown to hold is generalized.     

Relative index theorems and supersymmetric scattering theory

We discuss supersymmetric scattering theory and employ Krein's theory of spectral shift functions to investigate supersymmetric scattering systems. This is the basis for the derivation of relative index theorems on some classes of open manifolds. As an example we discuss the de Rham complex for obstacles in ^N and asymptotically flat manifolds. It is shown that the absolute or relative Euler characteristic of an obstacle in ^N may be obtained from scattering data for the Laplace operator on forms with absolute or relative boundary conditions respectively. In the case of asymptotically flat manifolds we obtain the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet theorem for theL ²-Euler characteristic.On leave of absence from Institute of Physics, Leningrad State University, Leningrad     

Effect of pressure on the behavior of nontransition metallic superconductors

An explicit expression has been derived for the volume dependence of electron-phonon coupling strength () by using a recently proposed quadratic form of the screened pseudopotential and by considering the variation of Fermi momentum with volume. Variation of Coulomb pseudopotential ( ^*) has also been explicitly considered by varying the Fermi momentum. Dependence of transition temperatureT _c and the logarithm of the effective interaction strength (N ₀ V) on the volume has been studied for eight nontransition metallic superconductors. A linear drop inT _c for small values of (–/ ₀) as well as the calculated values of= InN ₀ V/ In, exhibits better matching with the experimental data, as compared to the earlier theoretical results.     

Spectroscopic factors of9Be,10B and13C from (d,t) reactions

The differential cross sections of tritons from the (d, t) reaction on⁹Be,¹⁰B and¹³C targets have been measured in the angular range of 5° _LAB110° with relatively small errors, 5%. The experimental data were analysed in terms of the standard DWBA using both zero-range and exact finite-range approaches.     

Precipitation structure in an Al-2·0 at. % Zn-1·0 at. % Mg alloy within and close to the grain boundaries and its effects on mechanical properties

During ageing the Al-2·0 at. %Zn-1·0 at. % Mg alloy at elevated temperatures the width of the precipitation free zone (PFZ) at both sides of the grain boundaries (GB) is identical with that free of quenched-in dislocation loops (DL). After sufficiently long ageing a band of precipitates is growing inside the former PFZ and the DLs in the midgrain regions act as sites for the heterogeneous nucleation of the-phase. Two precipitation processes significantly affect the mechanical properties. TEM correlates grain boundary precipitate density and morphology with grain boundary misorientation.     

Wave propagation in quasi-one-dimensional quantum plasma in a magnetic field

A cold electron gas fills the lowest Landau level for high enough magnetic fields and for low enough densities. Such a situation is expected to occur for the Malmberg-O'Neil experiment and also for pulsar crusts and atmospheres. Such plasmas behave as a quasi-one-dimensional system and exhibit some peculiarities in their wave structure. We study the dispersion and damping of the low frequencies, i.e., the whistler mode, and the extraordinary mode for zero temperature. The behavior of the whistler mode depends critically on the filling number _Fc=_F/ , where _F is the Fermi energy and is the cyclotron frequency. The one-dimensional character of the system affects the pair excitation spectrum and thus the decay of modes. We find that, in contrast to the three-dimensional situation, the plasma mode and the extraordinary mode remain undamped, while the whistler mode is undamped for all but very highk values.     

One-dimensional harmonic lattice caricature of hydrodynamics: Second approximation

The long-time behavior of an infinite chain of coupled harmonic oscillators is studied. In addition to a limiting hydrodynamic (Euler-type) equation, the next approximation is investigated. The corresponding equation is derived.     

Free energy of the solvable chiral Potts model

Very recently, it has been shown that there are chiralN-state Potts models in statistical mechanics that satisfy the star-triangle relation. Here it is shown that the relation implies that the free energy (and its derivatives) satisfies certain functional relations. These can be used to obtain the free energy: in particular, we expand about the critical case and find that the exponent is 1–2/N.