Heavy-Ion Collisions: Experimental Highlights

Lattice QCD predicts a phase transition between hadronic matter and a system of deconfined quarks and gluons (the Quark Gluon Plasma) at high energy densities. Our current understanding of this new state of matter will be discussed with two key results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).     

Kinetics of the oxidative coupling of methane in the presence of model catalysts

The kinetics of the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) in the presence of La/MgO and NaWMn/SiO₂ catalysts in a flow reactor at low reactant conversions was studied. It was found that, in spite of different compositions and properties of the test catalysts, the formation of ethane from methane and ethylene from ethane can be described within the framework of the Mars-van Krevelen redox model in both cases. The rate laws of side reactions, which lead to the formation of carbon oxides, are different from the rate laws of the target reactions of the conversion of methane into ethane and ethane into ethylene. The kinetic parameters required for the numerical simulation of the OCM process were determined for either of the catalysts.     

Kerr-Assisted Self-Compression of Mid-IR Femtosecond Laser Pulse in Dielectrics: Nonlinear-Medium Choice

We demonstrate an efficient method of mid-IR femtosecond-laser-pulse self-compression in transparent dielectrics based on a suitable selection of the parameters of the medium and laser radiation. We discuss the principle of selection of the nonlinear medium for ultrashort-pulse self-compression. We show that the proposed combination of the Kerr nonlinearity and negative group-velocity dispersion in a set of transparent dielectric crystals (CaF₂, BaF₂, YAG, etc.) provides a compression of the incident laser pulse to a 1–2 cycle pulse width.     

Supercontinuum generation under filamentation driven by intense femtosecond pulses in supercritical xenon and carbon dioxide

It is found that supercritical fluids are a unique source of multioctave supercontinuum radiation, which is generated upon filamentation of an intense femtosecond laser pulse. If the laser pulse power significantly exceeds the critical power of self-focusing, then a supercontinuum with a width of three and a half spectral octaves (from 350 to 2000 nm) is generated in supercritical xenon. The red wing of supercontinuum generated in supercritical carbon dioxide has the form of a plateau in the range from 1400 to 1900 nm, while the blue wing of the spectrum is almost completely attenuated.     

Laser-Synchrotron Facility of the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute”

Crystallography Reports - The laser-synchrotron facility (LSF) of the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute” (NRC KI) is a unique research complex that combines unprecedented...     

New Version of the KTM Lithium Divertor

Physics of Atomic Nuclei - At present, the Kazakhstan Tokamak for Material testing (KTM) project is in progress. The optimization of innovative design elements of the divertor is carried out at the...     

Actions of Ore extensions and growth of polynomial H-identities

We show that if A is a finite-dimensional associative H-module algebra for an arbitrary Hopf algebra H, then the proof of the analog of Amitsur’s conjecture for H-codimensions of A can be reduced to the case when A is H-simple. (Here we do not require that the Jacobson radical of A is an H-submodule.) As an application, we prove that if A is a finite-dimensional associative H-module algebra where H is a Hopf algebra H over a field of characteristic 0 such that H is constructed by an iterated Ore extension of a finite-dimensional semisimple Hopf algebra by skew-primitive elements (e.g., H is a Taft algebra), then there exists integer PIexp^H(A). In order to prove this, we study the structure of algebras simple with respect to an action of an Ore extension.     

Enhanced laser induced K X-rays generation during microchannel formation inside the object positioned in air

The increasing of yield of X-rays more than two times from femtosecond laser plasma produced in the target microchannel positioned in air compared to the case from fresh target’s surface was registered and the angular dependence of output of X-rays was firstly observed.     

Determination of the size of particles of highly dispersed materials by low temperature nitrogen adsorption

The average size of particles of highly dispersed materials (Al₂O₃, TiO₂, Y₂O₃) is calculated from their specific surface areas. The latter is determined with the analysis of sorption capacity of materials with nitrogen at ?196°C in the ranges of relative equilibrium pressures of 0.05–0.35 (the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method, BET) and 0.4–0.7 (the comparative method). Good agreement is obtained between results produced with the comparative method and familiar methods of analysis such as scanning and transmission electron microscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering.