Shedding light on the structure of a photoinduced transient excimer by time-resolved diffraction

Time-resolved single-crystal diffraction performed with synchrotron radiation shows that the 53(1) micros phosphorescent state, generated in the crystalline phase of trimeric {[3,5-(CF3)(2)Pyrazolate]Cu}(3) molecules by exposure to 355 nm of light at 17 K, is due to the formation of an excimer rather than the shortening of the intramolecular Cu...Cu distances within the trimeric units, or the formation of a continuous chain of interacting molecules. One of the intermolecular Cu...Cu distances contracts by 0.56 Angstroms from 4.018(1) to 3.46(1) Angstroms;, whereas the interplanar spacing of the trimers is reduced by 0.65 Angstroms; from 3.952(1) to 3.33(1) Angstroms. Density-functional theory calculations support the formation of a Cu...Cu bond through the intermetallic transfer of a Cu 3d electron to a molecular orbital with a large 4p contribution on the reacting Cu atoms.     

Duality theorems for perturbed convex optimization

We show that if F, X are two locally convex spaces and $\text{h: F →}\text{R}\text{?}\text{, ?: F × X → R}$ are two convex functionals satisfying h(y) = ?(y, x₀) (y?F) for some x₀?X, then, under suitable assumptions, the computation of inf h(F) can be reduced to the computation of inf ?(H) on certain hyperplanes H of F × X. We give some applications.     

Pulsed Nd:YAG laser welding of AISI 304 to AISI 420 stainless steels

The technique to weld AISI 304 stainless steel to AISI 420 stainless steel with a pulsed Nd:YAG laser has been investigated. The main objective of this study was to determine the influence of the laser beam position, with respect to the joint, on weld characteristics. Specimens were welded with the laser beam incident on the joint and moved 0.1 and 0.2 mm on either side of the joint. The joints were examined in an optical microscope for cracks, pores and to determine the weld geometry. The microstructure of the weld and the heat affected zones were observed in a scanning electron microscope. An energy dispersive spectrometer, coupled to the scanning electron microscope, was used to determine variations in (weight %) the main chemical elements across the fillet weld. Vickers microhardness testing and tensile testing were carried out to determine the mechanical properties of the weld. The results of the various tests and examinations enabled definition of the best position for the incident laser beam with respect to the joint, for welding together the two stainless steels.     

Nonlinear optoacoustic transformation in the system of dielectric substrate/submicron metal coating/liquid

The optoacoustic method has been shown to be an accurate technique for the measurement of the properties of submicron metal coatings deposited on a dielectric substrate, i.e., mirrors. The method has been previously theoretically described in terms of a linear model of optoacoustic transformation in a system substrate/coating/liquid. The goal of the present work was to determine the limits at which the linear model is still applicable. The modification of the laser induced acoustic signal profiles and transfer functions of optoacoustic transformation versus the laser fluence was studied for two liquids: ethanol and water.     

Two-zone elastic-plastic single shock waves in solids

By decoupling time and length scales in moving window molecular dynamics shock-wave simulations, a new regime of shock-wave propagation is uncovered characterized by a two-zone elastic-plastic shock-wave structure consisting of a leading elastic front followed by a plastic front, both moving with the same average speed and having a fixed net thickness that can extend to microns. The material in the elastic zone is in a metastable state that supports a pressure that can substantially exceed the critical pressure characteristic of the onset of the well-known split-elastic-plastic, two-wave propagation. The two-zone elastic-plastic wave is a general phenomenon observed in simulations of a broad class of crystalline materials and is within the reach of current experimental techniques.     

Zero Modes’ Fusion Ring and Braid Group Representations for the Extended Chiral <Emphasis Type="Italic">su</Emphasis>(2) WZNW Model

A zero modes’ Fock space is constructed for the extended chiral WZNW model. It gives room to a realization of the fusion ring of representations of the restricted quantum universal enveloping algebra at an even root of unity, and of its infinite dimensional extension by the Lusztig operators We provide a streamlined derivation of the characteristic equation for the Casimir invariant from the defining relations of A central result is the characterization of the Grothendieck ring of both and in Theorem 3.1. The properties of the fusion ring in are related to the braiding properties of correlation functions of primary fields of the conformal current algebra model.      

Self-consistent modelling of argon microwave discharge sustained by electromagnetic wave in dipole mode

Microwave discharges produced by travelling/standing electromagnetic waves have drawn considerable attention in recent years due to their wide application in microelectronic industry. Here are presented the axial distributions of the electrons and ions as well as those of excited atoms in an argon microwave discharge at a low gas pressure (400 mTorr) sustained by a 2.45 GHz travelling dipolar electromagnetic wave. The numerical calculations are based on a self-consistent kinetic-electrodynamic model and the results obtained are in a good agreement with the experimental data. The model yields also the magnitude of the wave power sustaining the discharge and the axial profiles of all electromagnetic-wave characteristics and the axial distribution of the neutral gas temperature.     

Focused array transducer for two-dimensional optoacoustic tomography

Optoacoustic (OA) imaging utilizes short laser pulses to create acoustic sources in tissue and time resolved detection of generated pressure profiles for image reconstruction. The ultrasonic transients provide information on the distribution of optical absorption coefficient that can be useful for early cancer diagnostics. In this work a new design of wide-band array transducer is developed and tested. The array consists of 32 focused piezo-elements made of PVDF slabs imposed on a cylindrical surface. A single array element response to an OA signal coming from arbitrarily located point source is investigated theoretically and experimentally. The measured signals correspond well to numerically calculated ones. Focal zone maps of the elements with aperture angles 30 degrees and 60 degrees are presented and discussed; the resolution in direction perpendicular to the imaging plane is determined. Point spread function of the whole array is calculated using experimentally obtained signals from the sources located at different distances from the array. Backprojection algorithm is employed for reconstruction of the optoacoustic images. It is shown that the spatial resolution of the images yielded by the proposed array increases significantly compared to previous transducer designs.     

A Reduction Theorem for Highest Weight Modules over Toroidal Lie Algebras

Let be a toroidal Lie algebra corresponding to a semisimple Lie algebra We describe all Borel subalgebras of which contain the Cartan subalgebra where is a fixed Cartan subalgebra of We show that each such Borel subalgebra determines a parabolic decomposition where is a proper toroidal subalgebra of and Our first main result is that, for any weight which does not vanish on , an arbitrary subquotient of the Verma module is induced from its submodule of invariant vectors. This reduces the study of subquotients of to the study of subquotients of Verma modules over . We then introduce categories and and their respective blocks and corresponding to a central charge which is nonzero on . Our second main result is that the functors of induction and invariants are mutually inverse equivalences of the category and the full subcategory of whose objects are generated by their invariants.