Universal consequences of the presence of excluded volume interactions in dilute polymer solutions undergoing shear flow

The role of solvent quality in determining the universal material properties of dilute polymer solutions undergoing steady simple shear flow is examined. A bead-spring chain representation of the polymer molecule is used, and the influence of solvent molecules on polymer conformations is modelled by a narrow Gaussian excluded volume potential that acts pairwise between the beads of the chain. Brownian dynamics simulations data, acquired for chains of finite length, and extrapolated to the limit of infinite chain length, are shown to be model independent. This feature of the narrow Gaussian potential, which leads to results identical to a delta-function repulsive potential, enables the prediction of both universal crossover scaling functions and asymptotic behavior in the excluded volume limit. Universal viscometric functions, obtained by this procedure, are found to exhibit increased shear thinning with increasing solvent quality. In the excluded volume limit, they are found to obey power law scaling with the characteristic shear rate beta, in close agreement with previously obtained renormalization group results. The presence of excluded volume interactions is also shown to lead to a weakening of the alignment of the polymer chain with the flow direction.     

Bond Prices Under Information Asymmetry and a Short Rate with Instantaneous Feedback

Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability - We study an information asymmetry problem in a bond market. Especially we derive bond price dynamics of traders with different levels of...     

Three-particle interactions in a quark-gluon plasma

We explore the influence of three-particle interactions, in either the initial or final state, on the collision rate in a high temperature plasma, and on the rate of quark and anti-quark pair (flavor) production. When the interactions are taken to be screened at the Debye wave numberq dT, three-particle interactions contribute significantly to the collision rate, but only marginally enhance flavor production over that from two-particle interactions. The magnitudes of the rates are, however, sensitive to the infra-red thresholds, which emphasizes the need for a reliable analysis of this issue. Our results also highlight the importance of treating many-particle processes adequately in the space-time evolution of quarks and gluons produced in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.We thank members of the Theoretical Physics Institute and the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota for their kind hospitality. Special thanks are due to J.I. Kapusta for stimulating discussions. The stay of P. L. at the University of Minnesota was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant No. DOE/DE-FG02-87ER-40328; travel expenses were borne by the grant MM SR 01/35. Research support for M. P. by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant No. DE-FG02-88ER-40388 is acknowledged. The paper was written in its final form at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, during the research program Strong Interactions at Finite Temperatures. The authors express gratitude for the warm hospitality extended there and acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY89-04035.     

Visible light induced reversible extrusion of nitric oxide from a ruthenium(II) nitrosyl complex: a facile delivery of nitric oxide

The new ruthenium compound [Ru(NO)(pysiS4)]Br (3) (pysiS4 = 2,6-bis(3-triphenylsilyl-2-sulfanylphenylthiomethyl)pyridine), containing sterically bulky SiPh3 groups ortho to the thiolate donors, has been synthesized. In solution, 3 releases NO efficiently on exposure to visible light (lambda >/= 455 nm) at room temperature to afford [Ru(Br)(pysiS4)] (4). Treatment of 4 with NO yielded exclusively 3 without any metal-bound side reaction.     

Synthesis of some new 4-imino-3,5,7-trisubstituted-pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine-2(1H)-thiones

The synthesis of 4-imino-3,5,7-trisubstituted-pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine-2(1H)-thiones is described. The elemental analysis, ir and nmr spectral data confirm the structure of the products.     

Thermal degradation of polystyrene in the presence of hydrogen by catalyst in solution

For the first time, low temperature degradation (170-240 °C) of polystyrene in benzene is carried out in the presence of hydrogen using iron(III) oxide catalyst. The effect of temperature, catalyst loading and polymer loading on degradation are studied in hydrogen atmosphere. Degradation is also carried out at different initial hydrogen partial pressure. The time dependent molecular weight is calculated using viscosity average method. It is found that the degradation is enhanced considerably in the presence of hydrogen and followed random degradation chain scission. A random degradation kinetic model of Kelen [Kelen T. Polymer degradation. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company; 1983.] is used to estimate the degradation rate constants. Empirical correlations are proposed to account for the effect of catalyst loading and initial hydrogen partial pressure on degradation. The true thermal degradation rate constants are calculated using these proposed correlations at given catalyst loading and initial hydrogen partial pressure with varying temperature. The frequency factor and activation energy are also determined using Arrhenius equation considering the true thermal degradation rate constants.     

Cumulative yields of short-lived isotopes of barium in the spontaneous fission of252Cf

Cumulative yields of short-lived/barium isotopes^{139, 141, 142}Ba have been determined in the spontaneous fission of²⁵²Cf, using fast radiochemical separation and gamma-ray spectrometry.¹⁴²Ba yield is reported for the first time. The measured cumulative yields are converted to chain yields, assuming normal charge distribution systematics for comparision with the literature data.