High resolution spectroscopy of (lambda)(12)B by electroproduction

An experiment measuring electroproduction of hypernuclei has been performed in hall A at Jefferson Lab on a 12C target. In order to increase counting rates and provide unambiguous kaon identification two superconducting septum magnets and a ring imaging Cherenkov detector were added to the hall A standard equipment. An unprecedented energy resolution of less than 700 keV FWHM has been achieved. Thus, the observed (Lambda)(12)B spectrum shows for the first time identifiable strength in the core-excited region between the ground-state s-wave Lambda peak and the 11 MeV p-wave Lambda peak.     

Organocatalysis: quantum chemical modeling of nucleophilic addition to α,β‐unsaturated carbonyl compounds

One of the successful transformations within the field of organocatalysis, the organocatalytic asymmetric addition of nitromethane to α,β‐unsaturated aldehydes and ketones, has been studied by quantum chemical modeling. The level of accuracy of the hybrid density functional theory method B3LYP/6‐31G(d) was compared to a high level ab initio benchmark for this reaction. It is concluded that B3LYP/6‐31G(d) performs very well for this reaction type, giving good estimates of critical energies. The reaction between acrolein and nitromethane was studied in detail. The reaction mechanism revealed an intermediate oxazolidin structure, which is currently unknown. Alkyl substitution in various positions on the amine catalyst or α,β‐unsaturated carbonyl compound influences the reactivity in a predictive fashion. The iminium ion, prop‐2‐en‐iminium, is less activated towards nucleophilic attack compared to protonated acrolein. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards a programmable magnetic bead microarray in a microfluidic channel

A new hybrid magnetic bead separator that combines an external magnetic field with 175 μm thick current lines buried in the back side of a silicon wafer is presented. A microfluidic channel was etched into the front side of the wafer. The large cross-section of the current lines makes it possible to use larger currents and obtain forces of longer range than from thin current lines at a given power limit. Guiding of magnetic beads in the hybrid magnetic separator and the construction of a programmable microarray of magnetic beads in the microfluidic channel by hydrodynamic focusing is presented.     

Friction tensor for a pair of Brownian particles: Spurious finite-size effects and molecular dynamics estimates

In this work, we show thatin any finite system, the binary friction tensor for two Brownian particlescannot be directly estimated from an evaluation of the microscopic Green-Kubo formula, involving the time integral of force-force autocorrelation functions. This pitfall is associated with a subtle inversion of the thermodynamic and long-time limits and leads to spurious results for the estimates of the friction matrix based on molecular dynamics simulations. Starting from a careful analysis of the coupled Langevin equations for two interacting Brownian particles, we derive a method to circumvent these effects and extract the binary friction tensor from the correlation function matrix of the instantaneous forces exerted by the bath particles on the fixed Brownian particles, and from the relaxation of the total momentum of the bath in afinite system. The general methodology is applied to the case of two hard or soft Brownian spheres in a bath of light particles. Numerical estimates of the relevant correlation functions and of the resulting self and mutual components of the matrix of friction tensors are obtained by molecular dynamics simulations for various spacings between the Brownian particles. This paper is dedicated to B. Jancovici on the occassion of his 65th birthday.     

First Measurement of the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn Sum Rule for 1H from 0.7 to 1.8 GeV at ELSA

To verify the fundamental Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule for the first time experimentally, we measured the helicity dependent total photoabsorption cross section with circularly polarized real photons and longitudinally polarized nucleons in the photon energy range 0.68-1.82 GeV with the tagged photon facility at ELSA. The experiment was carried out with a 4pi detection system, a circularly polarized tagged photon beam, and a frozen spin polarized proton target. The contribution to the GDH sum rule in this photon energy range is [49.9+/-2.4(stat)+/-2.2(syst)] microb.     

A moving zone of quiet for narrowband noise in a one-dimensional duct using virtual sensing

A frequent problem in active noise control is that the zone of quiet created at the error sensor tends to be very small. This means that the error sensor generally needs to be located close to an observer's ear, which might not always be a convenient or feasible solution. Virtual sensing is a method that can move the zone of quiet away from the error sensor to a desired location that is spatially fixed. This method has been investigated previously, and has shown potential to improve the performance of an active noise control system. However, it is very likely that the desired location of the zone of quiet is not spatially fixed. An active noise control system incorporating a virtual sensing method thus has to be able to create a moving zone of quiet that tracks the observer's ears. This paper presents a method for creating a moving zone of quiet based on the LMS virtual microphone technique. To illustrate the proposed method, it is implemented in an acoustic duct and narrowband control results are presented. These results show that a moving zone of quiet was effectively created inside the duct for narrowband noise.     

Pseudorapidity distributions of charged particles from Au + Au collisions at the maximum RHIC energy,square root[s(NN)] = 200 GeV

We present charged-particle multiplicities as a function of pseudorapidity and collision centrality for the 197Au+197Au reaction at square root[s(NN)] = 200 GeV. For the 5% most central events we obtain dN(ch)/deta/(eta = 0) = 625+/-55 and N(ch)/(-4.7< or =eta < or =4.7) = 4630 +/- 370, i.e., 14% and 21% increases, respectively, relative to square root[s(NN)] = 130 GeV collisions. Charged-particle production per pair of participant nucleons is found to increase from peripheral to central collisions around midrapidity. These results constrain current models of particle production at the highest RHIC energy.     

Magnetic Properties of Nanoparticles of Antiferromagnetic Materials

Hyperfine Interactions - The magnetic properties of antiferromagnetic nanoparticles have been studied by Mössbauer spectroscopy and neutron scattering. Temperature series of Mössbauer...     

Energy dependence of the decay pathways of optically excited small gold clusters

The pathway competition between neutral monomer and neutral dimer evaporation from optically excited odd-size gold cluster ions Au⁺ _n, n=7–15, has been investigated as a function of cluster size and excitation energy. Gold cluster ions of these sizes are the only ones to show observable pathway competition while all other sizes exclusively evaporate either neutral monomers or neutral dimers. The investigation has been performed by photoexcitation of stored size-selected gold cluster ions with a single 10-ns laser pulse. Subsequent time-resolved observation of the delayed dissociation allows us to quantitatively determine the relative fragment yields of the respective decay channels as a function of excitation energy. Contrary to theoretical expectations, the dimer-to-monomer branching ratio of evaporated particles is found to decrease monotonously with increasing excitation energy for all cluster sizes under investigation. Possible explanations for this behaviour are discussed. Received: 9 July 2001 / Revised version: 24 September 2001 / Published online: 15 October 2001