Cold collisions between linear polar molecules

Cold collisions between electrostatically trapped linear polar molecules are theoretically investigated. It is consequently shown that the inelestic collision cross-section is determined by S-wave scattering alone, while the contribution of D-wave scattering to the elastic collision cross-section becomes significant when the electric field strength is high. It is also shown that as the temperature decreases, it becomes difficult to obtain the evaporative cooling effect without collision loss. Received 12 September 2002 / Received in final form 21 November 2002 Published online 29 April 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: kajita@crl.go.jp     

Undamped undulation superposed on the passive Q-switching pulse of a CO2 laser

An undamped undulation superposed on the pulse tail of the passive Q-switching is observed using HCOOH gas as a saturable absorber. The pulse shapes with the undulation are nicely reproduced through the rate-equation analysis in which the laser gain medium is described as a three-level system. Good agreements between the observation and the calculation are also obtained in the dependence of the period and the width of passive Q-switching pulse on laser parameters. The mechanism of the undulation is interpreted as the relaxation oscillation attributed to the relaxation from the lower laser level. The collisional rate constant of HCOOH molecule is also obtained.     

Electrospray Generated from the Tip-Sealed Fine Glass Capillary Inserted with an Acupuncture Needle Electrode

In electrospray, excess charges are supplied to a sample solution by the occurrence of electrochemical reactions. Recently, different versions of electrospray, e.g., dielectric barrier electrospray ionization, inductive desorption electrospray ionization, and electrostatic-ionization driven by dielectric polarization, have been reported in which the sample solution was not in direct contact with the metal electrode but separated by dielectric materials. The objective of the current work is to elucidate the mechanism of dielectric barrier electrospray. A sealed borosilicate glass capillary inserted with a fine acupuncture needle was used as a probe. A sample solution (~ 400 nL) was captured on the glass capillary tip and a positive high voltage (HV) pulse (+?4.5 kV) was applied to the internal metal electrode. Mass spectra were measured as a function of the HV pulse width from μs to 10 s. Ions started to be detected with the pulse width of ~ 5 ms. The ion intensities increased slowly with time and reached a plateau in a few seconds. The charge distribution of cytochrome c [M?+?nH]ⁿ⁺ shifted to higher n values from a few ms to seconds. In addition to cone-jet mode normal electrospray that lasted until all the liquid sample was depleted from the glass tip, the polarization-induced electrospray ionization was observed at the early stage of the HV application.

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Individual fundamental mode dependence of H2O vibrational excitation in the 6-8 eV resonance region by electron impact

Resonance phenomena in the bending (010), symmetric (100), and asymmetric (001) stretching vibrational modes in water (H(2)O) molecules have been investigated by measuring differential cross sections (DCSs) at fixed energy losses of 0.43, 0.46, 0.49, and 0.51 eV while sweeping the impact energies from 1.6 to 10 eV, at angles 60 degrees and 90 degrees, using a crossed-beam method. No resonancelike enhanced features have been observed in the study of the (010) mode. In the DCSs for the combined (100+001) mode, a single broad hump was observed at each angle, whose position shifts towards the higher energy side with increasing scattering angle, a feature typical of the interference profiles previously observed in a study of the (301) vibrational mode. DCSs for the (001) mode exhibited a rather isotropic angular distribution with no evidence of resonances. However, enhancement of DCSs were indeed observed for the (100) mode, at the energy loss of 0.46 eV, which is attributable to the A(1) symmetry resonance that was studied by Seng and Linder [J. Phys. B 9, 2539 (1976)], with a typical s-wave characteristic angular distribution. Theoretical analysis based on the continuum multiple-scattering approach has been carried out to provide rationale to the experimental results.     

Platinum nanoparticles have an activity similar to mitochondrial NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase

This study was designed to examine if platinum nanoparticles have an activity similar to mitochondrial complex I, NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase. Platinum nanoparticles were prepared by a citrate reduction of H(2)PtCl(6) and protected by citrate itself and pectin (CP-Pt). Time- and dose-dependent decreases in NADH and a time-dependent increase in NAD(+) were observed in the presence of 50muM CP-Pt; these observations were made using a spectrophotometric method in which the maximum absorption spectra at 340 and 260nm were used for NADH and NAD(+), respectively. The required platinum concentration in CP-Pt to achieve a 50% oxidation of NADH for 3h was approximately 20muM, and this NADH oxidation did not require oxygen as an electron acceptor. We also verified NAD(+) formation using an NAD(+)/NADH quantification kit. The absorption peak shift from 278 to 284nm of 2,3-dimethoxy-5-methyl-6-(3-methyl-2-butenyl)-1,4-benzoquinone (CoQ(1)) was observed by incubating CoQ(1) with CP-Pt in an aqueous buffer. A further analysis with HPLC revealed the reduction of CoQ(1) to CoQ(1)H(2) by CP-Pt. As a whole, platinum nanoparticles have an NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase-like activity. This suggests that platinum nanoparticles are a potential medicinal substance for oxidative stress diseases with suppressed mitochondrial complex I.     

Future atmospheric neutrino data from Super-Kamiokande

Expected sensitivity of future atmospheric neutrino data from Super-Kamiokande on neutrino oscillation physics is discussed. We expect that the accuracy of the sin ²θ₂₃ measurement will be improved with (exposure time) . By analyzing high energy fully contained events, it could be possible to statistically demonstrate the existence of charged current ν_τ interactions at the 3 standard deviation level with a few more years of data. Subdominant ν_μ → ν_e oscillations could be observed if θ₁₃ is near the present limit. However, significantly more data will be required to observe a 3 standard deviation effect.