Ambient Moisture Accelerates Hydroamination Reactions of Vinylarenes with Alkali-Metal Amides under Air

A straightforward alkali-metal-mediated hydroamination of styrenes using biorenewable 2-methyltetrahydrofuran as a solvent is reported. Refuting the conventional wisdom of the incompatibility of organolithium reagents with air and moisture, shown here is that the presence of moisture is key in favoring formation of the target phenethylamines over competing olefin polymerization products. The method is also compatible with sodium amides, with the latter showing excellent promise as highly efficient catalysts under inert atmosphere conditions.     

Pressure-Induced Enhancement of the Photoluminescence in Ca 1−x Sr x F 2 :Mn 2+

The surprising disappearance of the Mn 2+ photoluminescence (PL) on passing from CaF 2 to SrF 2 through the Ca 1 m x Sr x F 2 :Mn 2+ series is investigated through pressure spectroscopy, and as a function of the temperature. The PL quenching which is observed along the series is explained on the basis of multiphonon relaxation mechanisms, which are described by a thermally activated process. In non-luminescent crystals, PL can be recovered by applying pressure. The results are accounted for through an universal equation relating the PL lifetime as a function of P (or V ) and T , using an activation energy and a transition rate that are strongly dependent on the lattice parameter (crystal volume).     

A hybrid method for bubble geometry reconstruction in two-phase microchannels

Understanding bubble dynamics is critical to the design and optimization of two-phase microchannel heat sinks. This paper presents a hybrid experimental and computational methodology that reconstructs the three-dimensional bubble geometry, as well as provides other critical information associated with nucleating bubbles in microchannels. Rectangular cross-section silicon microchannels with hydraulic diameters less than 200 μm were fabricated with integrated heaters for the flow experiments, and the working liquid used was water. Bubbles formed via heterogeneous nucleation and were observed to grow from the silicon side walls of the channels. Two-dimensional images and two-component liquid velocity field measurements during bubble growth were obtained using micron-resolution particle image velocimetry (μPIV). These measurements were combined with iterative three-dimensional numerical simulations using finite element software, FEMLAB. The three-dimensional shape and location of the bubble were quantified by identifying the geometry that provided the best match between the computed flow field and the μPIV data. The reconstructed flow field through this process reproduced the experimental data within an error of 10–20%. Other important information such as contact angles and bubble growth rates can also be estimated from this methodology. This work is an important step toward understanding the physical mechanisms behind bubble growth and departure.     

Collisions and Regularization for the 3-Vortex Problem

We study the dynamics of 3 point-vortices on the plane for a fluid governed by Euler’s equations, concentrating on the case when the moment of inertia is zero. We prove that the only motions that lead to total collisions are self-similar and that there are no binary collisions. Also, we give a regularization of the reduced system around collinear configurations (excluding binary collisions) which smoothes out the dynamics. Both authors gratefully acknowledge support from DGAPA-UNAM under project PAPIIT IN101902 and from CONACyT under grant 32167-E. The second author thanks the hospitality of IIMAS-UNAM during the preparation of this paper.     

Synthesis of powders and thin films of bismuth ferrite from solution: a magneto-electric study

Metalorganic decomposition and coprecipitation from aqueous solution have been used to synthesize thin film and bulk bismuth ferrite (BiFeO₃) with perovskite structure. X-ray diffraction, thermomagnetic analysis, and scanning electron microscopy were used to analyze the material and identify spurious phases. The magnetic characterization at room temperature revealed remarkable differences between bulk and film samples. The results show that in BiFeO₃ bulk ceramics, spontaneous magnetization is not observed at room temperature. Nevertheless, in thin films, a well-defined ferromagnetic behavior is observed at room temperature. Dielectric measurements taken on ceramic samples present an anomaly around 643 K that can be associated with the Néel temperature.     

Harada–Tsutsui gauge recovery procedure: From Abelian gauge anomalies to the Stueckelberg mechanism

Revisiting a path-integral procedure developed by Harada and Tsutsui for recovering gauge invariance from anomalous effective actions, it is shown that there are two ways to achieve gauge symmetry: one already presented by the authors, which is shown to preserve the anomaly in the sense of standard current conservation law, and another one which is anomaly-free, preserving current conservation. It is also shown that the application of the Harada–Tsutsui technique to other models which are not anomalous but do not exhibit gauge invariance allows the identification of the gauge invariant formulation of the Proca model, also done by the referred authors, with the Stueckelberg model, leading to the interpretation of the gauge invariant map as a generalization of the Stueckelberg mechanism.     

Exclusive c → s,d Semileptonic Decays of Spin-1/2 and Spin-3/2 cb Baryons

We present results for exclusive semileptonic decay widths of ground state spin-1/2 and spin-3/2  cb baryons corresponding to a c → s, d transition at the quark level. The relevance of hyperfine mixing in spin-1/2 cb baryons is shown. Our form factors are compatible with heavy quark spin symmetry constraints obtained in the infinite heavy quark mass limit.     

Cooperation within triplets in the rock-paper-scissors game

We study a population involved in a cyclic game of three strategies – the rock-paper-scissors game – whose agents interact through groups of three individuals (triplets), considering the possibility that two weak agents cooperate and beat a strong one. In a wide range of parameters the system presents a stable heteroclinic cycle, which implies that in a finite population some of the strategies become extinct and others survive. We find that the cooperation within triplets only benefits the survival of the strategy if the cooperation probability is above a certain threshold. We study the survival probabilities of the different strategies as a function of the cooperation parameters through a analytic approximation and compare with simulations, obtaining a good agreement. Results are generalizable to other systems with heteroclinic cycles.