Sulphur and oxygen isotopic characters of dissolved sulphate in groundwater from the Pleistocene aquifer in the southern Jordan Valley (Jericho area,Palestine)

Sulphate and chloride concentrations in the shallow Pleistocene aquifer systems in the lower Jordan valley area indicate a general trend of increasing salinity eastward and southward. This study was conducted in one of the important sub-basins feeding the Pleo–Pleistocene aquifer in the Jericho area in the southern part of the valley using S and O isotopes of dissolved sulphate. The results show that sulphate has mainly two contributions to the groundwater. One is the surface seepage, which is present as a salty leachate form with the positive δ³⁴S_sulphate values of primary gypsum in Lisan and Samara formations, and the second is the upwelling saline water which was in contact with a deep secondary gypsum, aragonites and salty rocks and rose up under heavy abstraction with depleted ³⁴S in sulphate and relatively high sulphate and chloride content. The latest was clearly shown in the Arab Project wells to the east that is undergoing a continuous heavy abstraction. The isotopic signatures of S and O in these wells to the east show that this depleted ³⁴S and highly concentrated sulphate might also indicate a dissolved sulphate originating from pyrite oxidation that results from the interaction with a pyrite-rich aquifer, which can well up with salty water under heavy abstraction and is oxidised in the upper aerobic shallow aquifer.     

Diffuse scattering of modulated structures and quasicrystals

The method of Fourier transforms is applied to the calculation of sharp (coherent) and diffuse (incoherent) scattering of modulated structures and quasicrystals. It is shown that the fundamental difference between both may best be described by introducing different distribution functions of atoms, before applying modulations of the structure.     

The 1:1 resonance in Hamiltonian systems

Two-degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian systems with an elliptic equilibrium at the origin are characterised by the frequencies of the linearisation. Considering the frequencies as parameters, the system undergoes a bifurcation when the frequencies pass through a resonance. These bifurcations are well understood for most resonances $k:l$, but not the semisimple cases $1:1$ and $1:?1$. A two-degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian system can be approximated to any order by an integrable normal form. The reason is that the normal form of a Hamiltonian system has an additional integral due to the normal form symmetry. The latter is intimately related to the ratio of the frequencies. For a rational frequency ratio this leads to $S^1$-symmetric systems. The question we wish to address is about the co-dimension of such a system in $1:1$ resonance with respect to left-right-equivalence, where the right action is $S^1$-equivariant. The result is a co-dimension five unfolding of the central singularity. Two of the unfolding parameters are moduli and the remaining non-modal parameters are the ones found in the linear unfolding of this system.     

Quasi-periodic stability of normally resonant tori

We study quasi-periodic tori under a normal-internal resonance, possibly with multiple eigenvalues. Two non-degeneracy conditions play a role. The first of these generalizes invertibility of the Floquet matrix and prevents drift of the lower dimensional torus. The second condition involves a Kolmogorov-like variation of the internal frequencies and simultaneously versality of the Floquet matrix unfolding. We focus on the reversible setting, but our results carry over to the Hamiltonian and dissipative contexts.     

Opto-electronic properties of conjugated polymers

There is growing evidence, both theoretical and experimental, that the primary optical excitations in conjugated polymers are of excitonic nature. They are formed instantaneously upon photoexcitation and migrate incoherently among chain segments differing in length and, concomitantly, in excitation energy. Migration is associated with spectral relaxation manifest in the occurrence of a dynamic Stokes shift. Time-resolved photoluminescence as well as energy transfer studies support this conceptual framework. In systems of the polyphenylenevinylene family the exciton binding energy is estimated to be about 0.4 eV, comparable to that in polydiacetylenes. However, transfer of a charge from an excited chain segment to neighboring chain segments costs less energy. Taking into account that all energy levels are disorder broadened this ensures that a fraction of excitations will find it energetically more favorable to decompose into an electron-hole pair on adjacent chains (off-chain or indirect exciton) that acts as precursor for photoconduction. Exciton breaking can be stimulated by a strong electric field as documented by cw and time resolved spectroscopy. Recent fluorescence as well as pump and probe measurements on a ladder type polymer (LPPP) with 150 fs time resolution will be reported which support the above conceptual framework and document the occurrence of stimulated emission.