Systematic studies of positron production in heavy-ion collisions near the Coulomb barrier

We present the results obtained from systematic studies of positron creation for a series of heavy-collision systems, with united chargeZ _u =Z ₁ +Z ₂ ranging fromZ _u =164 (Pb + Pb) toZ _u =184 (U+U) at bombarding energies close to the Coulomb barrier, using the Orangeβ-spectrometer at GSI. For each collision system studied, the dominating continuous distributions due to quasiatomic and nuclear positron emission are determined accurately. This is essential in obtaining the characteristics of the still unexplained monoenergetic positron lines which appear in the energy range between 200 keV and 400 keV. Our results are compared with coupled-channels calculations for quasi-atomic positron creation. The latter describe quite well the global features of the measured spectra, but overestimate systematically their absolute values. From the comparison, a common normalization factor of about 0.75 can be established for the calculated spectra. In particular, the dependence onZ _u of the measured emission probabilities was found to follow a power law (∝Z _u ^195±1), in fair agreement with the theoretical prediction.     

Theoretical and experimental investigation of the linear optical response of YBa2Cu4O8 The relevance of LDA calculations

We report results of ellipsometric measurements of the dielectric tensor of YBa₂Cu₄O₈ as well as calculations employing density functional theory in the local density approximation (LDA). For the computation of the one-electron eigenvalues and states the linear-muffin-tin-orbital method (LMTO) was used. Measured and calculated results show good agreement. In particular, the calculation predicts different band structures for YBa₂Cu₃O₇ and YBa₂Cu₄O₈ in the vicinity of the Fermi energy which lead to significant differences in the optical spectra. One such difference is a region of small ε₂ in the near infrared which is a fingerprint of the high (relative to the top of the highest fully occupied band) Fermi energy as compared to the situation in YBa₂Cu₃O₇. Our experimental results confirm the theoretical findings.     

Unoccupied electronic states of epitaxial iron layers on Cu(100)

Inverse photoemission spectra were taken for thin epitaxial iron films on Cu(100). For a film thickness of eight monolayers the observed electronic states are characteristic for a fcc(100) surface. Thed-bands of iron show a ferromagnetic exchange splitting of 1.1 eV, considerably smaller than the bulk value of 1.8 eV, which we observe for film thicknesses above 18 monolayers.     

Metric marginal problems for set-valued or non-measurable variables

Summary In a separable metric space, if two Borel probability measures (laws) are nearby in a suitable metric, then there exist random variables with those laws which are nearby in probability. Specifically, by a well-known theorem of Strassen, the Prohorov distance between two laws is the infimum of Ky Fan distances of random variables with those laws. The present paper considers possible extensions of Strassen's theorem to two random elements one of which may be (compact) set-valued and/or non-measurable. There are positive results in finite-dimensional spaces, but with factors depending on the dimension. Examples show that such factors cannot entirely be avoided, so that the extension of Strassen's theorem to the present situation fails in infinite dimensions.This research was partially supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, by National Science Foundation grant DMS 8505550 at MSRI-Berkeley, and other NSF grants     

An experiment to measure collisionless radial transport ofenergetic electrons confined by a dipole magnetic field

A new laboratory terrella has been constructed in order to study collisionless radial diffusion of particles trapped within a dipole magnetic field. Columbia's collisionless terrella experiment (CTX) aims to reproduce the process of wave-induced radial transport and does not try to simulate magnetospheric structure. The first experiment planned for CTX is the direct measurement of stochastic radial diffusion induced from wave-particle drift resonances. The motivation for the CTX experiment is described, and the procedures to be used to measure the intensity and spectrum of fluctuations generating chaos, the rate of radial transport, and the evolution of the density and pressure profiles are illustrated. Because of the success of similar experiments conducted earlier in a long thin magnetic mirror, these dipole experiments can be performed with a high degree of confidence. An example from these earlier experiments is presented     

The kinetics of the (5 × 20) → (1 × 1) structural transition for Au(100)

The kinetics of the anion-induced (5 × 20) → (1 × 1) surface structural transition of reconstructed Au(100) electrodes was studied in sulfate-containing solutions by current transients. It is shown that lifting of the reconstruction follows a nucleation-and-growth type behavior which can be described by the Avrami equation. Moreover, for high positive potentials, i.e., high anion coverages, the current-transient analysis reveals instantaneous nucleation, whereas for low transition overpotentials and long transition times a mechanism with constant transition rate prevails. Apparent activation energies, which depend strongly on the electrode potential, are derived from the temperature dependence of the Avrami plots.     

Fluorescence line narrowed spectra of Zn and metal-free cytochrome c

Fluorescence line narrowing (FLN) spectroscopy was used to study the role of the polypeptide chain in influencing the spectrum of Zn-substituted cytochrome c (Zn cyt c) and metal-free cyt c (porphyrin cyt c). For both derivatives the spectra show characteristics of relaxed fluorescence from an inhomogeneously broadened sample. Zero phonon lines and phonon wings can be clearly distinguished, and vibrational frequencies of the ground and excited states were identified. The inhomogeneous distribution width for porphyrin cyt c is slightly wider than that of Zn cyt c and a second population of molecules was apparent in the porphyrin cyt c. The phonon coupling was greater for Zn cyt c than for porphyrin cyt c, which may be due to the extra coupling to the polypeptide chain by metal ligation.This work has been done in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree.