Application of INAA to reveal the chemical evolution of selected volcanic eruptiva from Santorini, Greece

The pumiceous products of the large-scale explosive eruptions at Santorini show a high grade of similarity in their optical appearance as well as in their chemical composition. The demand for a clear classification of these eruption products was raised from archaeological research, where pumice can be interpreted as a “post-eruption” time marker. The aim of this work was to find elements that underwent significant changes because of geochemical processes and that could be indicative for a distinction of pumice produced by the five major explosive eruptions. INAA of 25 elements allows a clear classification and contributes new information to the chemical evolution of Santorini volcano. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Absorption and propagation of light in quaterthiophene crystals

We examine absorption of light in quaterthiophene crystals for different directions of the ray and wave-normal vector after refraction on the vacuum/crystal interface. Experimental non-normal incidence spectra are reported where different absorption bands show different behaviour as a function of the angle of incidence. This allows to identify those originating from the b_u Frenkel exciton state.     

Enhancement of measurement sensitivity in determination of changes in the shape of a wavefront by holographic lateral-shearing interferometry

A method for increasing measurement sensitivity in the visualization of dynamics of changes in wavefront shape with the use of holographic lateral-shearing interferometry is considered. At the first stage of this method, a photograph of a reference shear interferogram obtained with tuning to closely spaced fringes is recorded under linear conditions. After chemical treatment, the photograph of the reference shear interferogram is installed in exactly its initial position. At the second stage, a series of photographs of lateral-shear interferograms of the wavefront under study is recorded under nonlinear conditions using the photograph of the reference interferogram. The photographs of the lateral-shear interferograms are optically processed by two coherent beams with selection of the highest diffraction orders, which makes it possible to visualize the dynamic component of the wavefront deformation with an increase in the measurement sensitivity (the static component is excluded in this case). The effect of the degree of nonlinearity of photograph recording on the range in which the measurement sensitivity can be controlled during the optical processing of a pair of matched photographs or one double-exposure photograph of interferograms recorded at different values of a lateral shift is analyzed.     

Study of the dynamic structure factor of strong glasses

The dynamic structure factors (DSFs) of several strong glasses (SF6, SF10, BK7, SUPRASIL) measured by Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy are reported. Spectra have been collected, at and above room temperature, at two scattering angles, θ=90° and θ=180° corresponding to exchanged wavevector q values ranging from 0.0256 to 0.0448 nm⁻¹. In particular we find that the isotropic spectral lineshapes are in all cases well described by the simple hydrodynamic theory of an amorphous solid. The width of the Brillouin peaks are found to be consistent with the predicted q² dependence at both investigated temperatures. This damping is however found to account only partially for the strong asymmetry of the Brillouin line clearly visible on a logarithmic intensity scale. As a matter of fact there is an excess intensity in the very low frequency plateau underlying the central component. The height of this plateau and hence the entire lineshape is well reproduced if a relaxation process is taken into account in the hydrodynamic equations. Owing to the intense elastic scattering we are able to determine unambiguously only the ratio between amplitude and characteristic time of this process which quantifies the sound dispersion to be of the order of a few percent in all samples. The temperature dependence of the parameters indicates that this relaxation cannot be attributed to thermally activated relaxation phenomena. These general findings favorably compare with molecular dynamics simulation results on similar systems.     

On Non-Continuous Dirichlet Processes

We introduce here some Itô calculus for non-continuous Dirichlet processes. Such calculus extends what was known for continuous Dirichlet processes or for semimartingales. In particular we prove that non-continuous Dirichlet processes are stable under C ¹ transformation.     

Scattering of excited atoms due to ion bombardment of metals

The spectrum and the spatial distribution of the emission of scattered particles upon bombardment of Be, Ti, Ta, and W with H and He ions were studied. The quantum yield and the velocity and angular distributions of the scattered excited particles were measured. Computer simulation of the scattering of H ions and He ions from the metals under study was performed with the use of the program TRIM-95. Agreement is observed between the calculated and experimentally measured angular distributions of the scattered particles.     

Numerical Prediction of the Strain State of Thermoset Matrix/Mineral Filler Composite Plates

The numerical prediction of the fields of inelastic strains (the linear invariant of the tensor of inelastic strains) in thermoset polyester/marble filler composite plates is discussed. A uniformly distributed load is applied to the plates, which lie on a steel base. The strain fields are predicted by means of the boundary element method by using creep test data for the composites and the polyester matrix itself. Identical creep tests were performed for two ages of the materials (1 month and 13 years), which allowed evaluating the aging effect. The study is carried out in two stages. At the first stage, the application of the generalized Maxwell-Gurevich equation to the thermoset matrix/mineral filler composite is demonstrated. The model parameters determined from the experimental creep data is used for the second stage, where the state of inelastic strains in the plates is predicted by applying the boundary element method. The influence of composite formulation (filler content) and physical aging of the polyester matrix on the state of inelastic strains in the plates is shown.__________Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 145–156, March–April, 2005.     

Polarized Lidar Reflectance Measurements of Vegetation at Near-Infrared and Green Wavelengths

There is growing interest in the use of lidar for remote sensing of vegetation owing to the emergence of reliable and rugged lasers and highly sensitive detectors. Lidar remote sensing has a distinct advantage over conventional techniques in vegetation remote sensing due to its capability for three-dimensional characterization of vegetative targets. The Multiwavelength Airborne Polarimetric Lidar (MAPL) system was developed primarily for vegetation remote sensing applications from an airborne platform of up to 1,000 -m altitude. The lidar system has full waveform capture and polarimetric measurement capability at two wavelengths in the near-infrared (1064 nm) and the green (532 nm) spectral regions. This study presents preliminary ground-based lidar reflectance measurements on a variety of deciduous and coniferous trees under fully foliated conditions with a view towards tree species discrimination. Variations in the reflectance characteristics of selected deciduous trees under unfoliated and fully foliated conditions were also investigated. Our study reveals distinct differences in the reflectance characteristics of various trees.