A low-temperature high-pressure apparatus with a temperature control system

Abstract

A low-temperature high-pressure apparatus was designed using commercial cryogenic equipment. Pressures up to 1 GPa and temperatures down to 40 K can be obtained in a volume of up to 30 cm³. The apparatus is of the piston-cylinder type with a piston diameter of 45 mm, and the pressure can be varied at all temperatures, An adaptive temperature control system keeps the temperature inside the pressure cylinder constant to within ±0.1 K.     

The electron affinity of tungsten

The electron affinity of tungsten has been measured using laser photodetachment threshold spectroscopy in a collinear geometry. The electron affinity was determined to 6583.6(6) cm^-1 by observing the onset of the process when W^- ions in the 5d⁵6s²5d^56s^2 ⁶S_5/2 ground state are photodetached producing neutral W atoms in the 5d⁴6s²5d^46s^2 ⁵D₀ ground state. The measured value is in agreement with previous measurements and improves the accuracy by almost two orders of magnitude. Further, a photodetachment signal below the ground state photodetachment threshold was found, which indicates the existence of a bound excited state in W^-.     

Resonances in Three-Body Systems Studied by a Full Angular-Momentum, Smooth-Exterior Complex-Scaling Finite-Element Method

 The development of a tool for calculating resonances and bound states in three-body systems described by a single-potential energy surface is reported. The method has been applied to the antiprotonic helium, doubly excited states in helium, the ¹¹Li nuclear halo, the NeICl van der Waals molecule, and the recently found FHD reaction complex. Received November 26, 2001; accepted for publication November 28, 2001     

Microtraps and Atom Chips: Toolboxes for Cold Atom Physics

Magnetic microtraps and Atom Chips are safe, small-scale, reliable and flexible tools to prepare ultra-cold and degenerate atom clouds as sources for various atom-optical experiments. We present an overview of the possibilities of the devices and indicate how a microtrap can be used to prepare and launch a Bose-Einstein condensate for use in an atom clock or an interferometer.     

Early visual evoked potentials are modulated by eye position in humans induced by whole body rotations

Background  

To reach and grasp an object in space on the basis of its image cast on the retina requires different coordinate transformations that take into account gaze and limb positioning. Eye position in the orbit influences the image's conversion from retinotopic (eye-centered) coordinates to an egocentric frame necessary for guiding action. Neuroimaging studies have revealed eye position-dependent activity in extrastriate visual, parietal and frontal areas that is along the visuo-motor pathway. At the earliest vision stage, the role of the primary visual area (V1) in this process remains unclear. We used an experimental design based on pattern-onset visual evoked potentials (VEP) recordings to study the effect of eye position on V1 activity in humans.     

Quiescent Cosmological Singularities

The most detailed existing proposal for the structure of spacetime singularities originates in the work of Belinskii, Khalatnikov and Lifshitz. We show rigorously the correctness of this proposal in the case of analytic solutions of the Einstein equations coupled to a scalar field or stiff fluid. More specifically, we prove the existence of a family of spacetimes depending on the same number of free functions as the general solution which have the asymptotics suggested by the Belinskii–Khalatnikov–Lifshitz proposal near their singularities. In these spacetimes a neighbourhood of the singularity can be covered by a Gaussian coordinate system in which the singularity is simultaneous and the evolution at different spatial points decouples. Received: 17 January 2000 / Accepted: 27 November 2000     

On the effects of gating in diffusion imaging of the brain using single shot EPI.

To reduce image artifacts in diffusion tensor imaging using single shot EPI, cardiac gating may be performed to prevent brain motion induced signal void in the DWI data. In this work the necessity of performing cardiac gating with single shot echo planar imaging has been explored using F statistics of the variance in DWI data. Peripheral measurement of the cardiac cycle has been employed because of its greater convenience, and hence use, compared to ECG gating. Four volunteers have been studied. Six different trigger delays have been evaluated in the range 18-500 ms relative the peripheral pulse wave. Brain motion was found significant in and inferior to the corpus callosum area. A trigger delay of 500 ms was found to be optimal. However, a long delay allows only for one slice per R-R interval. Therefore, a minimum trigger delay may be the best choice in terms of SNR per unit of experiment time.     

Dissociative recombination cross section and branching ratios of protonated dimethyl disulfide and N-methylacetamide

Dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) and N-methylacetamide are two first choice model systems that represent the disulfide bridge bonding and the peptide bonding in proteins. These molecules are therefore suitable for investigation of the mechanisms involved when proteins fragment under electron capture dissociation (ECD). The dissociative recombination cross sections for both protonated DMDS and protonated N-methylacetamide were determined at electron energies ranging from 0.001 to 0.3 eV. Also, the branching ratios at 0 eV center-of-mass collision energy were determined. The present results give support for the indirect mechanism of ECD, where free hydrogen atoms produced in the initial fragmentation step induce further decomposition. We suggest that both indirect and direct dissociations play a role in ECD.     

Structural and functional model of methane hydroxylase of membrane-bound methane monooxygenase from Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath)

Computer analysis of a wide range of primary sequences showed that -, -, and -peptides of membrane-bound methane hydroxylase contained 2, 7, and 6 transmembrane helices respectively. Conservative amino acid residues participating in complex formation were revealed. The - and -peptides are suggested to contain mononuclear copper ions with the ligand environment mainly consisting of His residues. The Cu sites are located in the hydrophilic region and are responsible for ESR signals. The active site of -peptide in which the activation of O₂ and oxidation of CH₄ occur is localized in the hydrophobic region close to the membrane surface. This site is formed by the amino acid residues of four transmembrane helices and one loop between them and is suggested to be a binuclear Cu—Fe or Fe—Fe center. The Cu site of -peptide transfers electrons to the active site of -peptide, and the Cu site of -peptide is either involved in this process or only stabilizes the protein structure.