Working group report: Flavor physics and model building

This is the report of flavor physics and model building working group at WHEPP-9. While activites in flavor physics have been mainly focused on B-physics, those in model building have been primarily devoted to neutrino physics. We present summary of working group discussions carried out during the workshop in the above fields, and also briefly review the progress made in some projects subsequently.     

Biological activity of aldose reductase and lipophilicity of pyrrolyl-acetic acid derivatives

Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship modeling is a powerful approach for correlating an organic compound to its lipophilicity. In this paper QSAR models are established for estimation of correlation of the lipophilicity of a series of pyrrolyl-acetic acid derivatives, inhibitors of the aldose reductase enzyme, in the n-octanol-water system with biological activity of aldose reductase. Lipophilicity, expressed by the logarithm of n-octnol-water partition coefficient log P and biological activity of aldose reductase inhibitory activity by log it. Result obtained by QSAR modeling of compound series reveal a definite trend in biological activity and a further improvement in quantitative relationships are established if, beside log P, Hammett electronic constant σ and connectivity index chi-3 (³ χ) term included in the regression equation.     

Effect of annealing on the structural, optical and electrical properties of ZnO thin films by spray pyrolysis

Zinc oxide thin films have been deposited on glass substrates at a substrate temperature of 673 K by spray pyrolysis. The samples are annealed in ambient atmosphere at various temperatures. The effect of annealing on structural, electrical, and optical properties of ZnO films has been investigated. X-ray diffraction patterns show that crystallinity of the ZnO films has been improved after annealing. The morphology of ZnO thin films is studied by atomic force microscopy. The tensile strain (compressive stress) is found to decrease with increase in annealing temperature which indicates the relaxation of tensile strain in ZnO thin films. A decrease in energy band gap is observed with increase of annealing temperature. The mechanism of blue-green luminescence of ZnO thin film has been analyzed. The resistivity is found to decrease with annealing temperature.     

Intense Upconversion Luminescence of Yb<Superscript>3+</Superscript>-Er<Superscript>3+</Superscript> in Li<Subscript>2</Subscript>O Content Tungsten-tellurite Glasses

The Er³⁺ -Yb³⁺ codoped in Li₂O content tungsten -tellurite (TWL) transparent glasses are synthesized and measured the absorption, Raman and upconversion luminescence (UPL) spectra. At room temperature intense green emission peak at 560 nm ( ⁴S_3/2→⁴I_15/2) and red emission peak at 670 nm ( ⁴F_9/2→⁴I_15/2) of Er³⁺ observed even at minimum 86 mW pumping power of infrared 980 nm excitation. For structure of the TWL glass, Raman spectrum result revealed that an important role of WO₃ in the formation of glass network linkage with Li₂O. Under this influence estimated lifetime of the ⁴I_11/2 of Er³⁺ was 1.89 μs and due to lower phonon energy of the glass produce strong upconversion signal. The effect of Er₂O₃ concentration on emission intensity result indicated that green emission intensity initially increase in compare to red emission. Under the 980 nm pump power variation measured the relatively increases the red emission to the green emission intensity and analyze the possible upconversion mechanism and process.     

Formation of Gallium-induced nanostructures on single crystal HOPG surface

The room temperature growth of gallium atoms on the highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) surface has been performed. The gallium atoms were deposited by thermal evaporation method in an ultra high vacuum system at a base pressure 5 × 10⁻¹⁰ torr. The X-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS) studies had been performed to confirm the presence of gallium atoms on HOPG surface. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STM) technique was employed to study the surface morphology of the clean HOPG surface and gallium covered HOPG surfaces which recognize the formation of gallium induced nanostructures. The deconvoluted XPS core level spectra of C (1s) and Ga (3d) demonstrate the possible interaction between substrate and the adsorbate atoms. The STM analysis revealed that the gallium deposition on HOPG led to significant change in the surface morphology. It was observed that the Ga atoms adsorbed as layer structure on HOPG surface for low coverage while quasi one-dimensional chain like nanostructure (1 ± 0.2 nm) has been formed for higher Ga coverage. The nanostructured surfaces induced by Ga deposition are found to be stable and could be used as a template for the growth of metallic nanostructures.     

Heavy quarkonia spectra and their decays in a relativistic quark model

Using the phenomenological relativistic harmonic model (RHM) for quarks, we have obtained the masses of S wave charmonium and bottomonium states. The full Hamiltonian used in the investigation has Lorentz scalar plus vector confinement potential, along with the confined one gluon exchange potential (COGEP). A good agreement with the experimental masses for the ground and the radially excited states is obtained both for the triplet and singlet S wave mesons. The decay properties of the ground state charmonium and bottomonium are investigated.     

Optical and fluorescence spectroscopy of Eu2O3-doped P2O5-K2O-KF-MO-Al2O3 (M = Mg, Sr and Ba) glasses

Fluorophosphate glasses of composition, P₂O₅ + K₂O + KF + MO + Al₂O₃ + xEu₂O₃ (M = Mg, Sr and Ba; x = 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0 and 6.0 mol%) were prepared and characterized their optical properties. Crystal-field (CF) analysis revealed a relatively weak CF strength around Eu³⁺ ions in the Ba based fluorophosphate glasses. The Judd-Ofelt parameters have been estimated from the oscillator strengths of ⁷F₀ → ⁵D₂, ⁷F₀ → ⁵D₄ and ⁷F₀ → ⁵L₆ absorption transitions of Eu³⁺ ions and were used to evaluate the radiative properties of the ⁵D₀ → ⁷F_J (J = 0-4) transitions. Considerable variation has been observed in the relative intensity ratio of ⁵D₀ → ⁷F₂ to ⁵D₀ → ⁷F₁ transitions of Eu³⁺ ions due to change in the alkaline earth metal ions. The decay of the ⁵D₀ level shows single exponential and less sensitive to Eu³⁺ ions concentration as well as MgO/SrO/BaO modifiers.     

One-neutron stripping reactions of <Superscript>11</Superscript>Be and <Superscript>19</Superscript>C on light target

We have calculated the one-neutron absorption cross-section and the longitudinal momentum distribution of the core fragment coming out from the breakup of ¹¹Be and ¹⁹C on ⁹Be target at 63 MeV/A and 88 MeV/A beam energies respectively. The reaction mechanism is treated within the framework of the eikonal approximation. The effective range of the nuclear interaction between the core and the valence neutron within the projectile has been determined by comparing the predicted stripping cross-section with the recently measured one. The effective range for ¹⁹C has been found to be smaller than that for ¹¹Be. It qualitatively indicates that ¹⁹C is slightly more halo than ¹¹Be. The smaller width, predicted as well as measured, of the LMD of ¹⁸C than ¹⁰Be also strengthens this fact. The experimental data concerning the LMD of core fragments have been well represented.      

Conductivity and dielectric properties of sol–gel derived porous zirconia

The 8-mol percentage Y₂O₃-stabilized Porous Zirconia was prepared using sol–gel method. Zirconium oxalate gel was prepared by the addition of appropriate amount of oxalic acid solution into the 1 M aqueous solution of zirconium-oxy chloride. A cubic phase zirconia powder was obtained by calcination and milling of the zirconium oxalate gel. Crystallization temperature was found about 450 °C from the Differential thermal analysis. The phase analysis by X-ray diffraction shows the presence of cubic phase. Pellets sintered at 1,350 °C were highly porous, and the electrical conductivity was found with lower value due to the porosity, and the hardness was about 8.0 GPa. Paper presented at the Third International Conference on Ionic Devices (ICID 2006), Chennai, Tamilnadu, India, Dec. 7–9, 2006.     

Plane Symmetric Viscous Fluid Cosmological Models with Varying <Emphasis Type="Italic">Λ</Emphasis>-Term

Plane symmetric viscous fluid cosmological models of the universe with a variable cosmological term are investigated. The viscosity coefficient of bulk viscous fluid is assumed to be a power function of mass density whereas the coefficient of shear viscosity is to be proportional to rate of expansion in the model. We have also obtained a special model in which the shear viscosity is assumed to be zero. The cosmological constant Λ is found to be a decreasing function of time and a positive which is supported by results from recent supernovae Ia observations. Some physical and geometric properties of the models are also discussed.