Stress monitoring in a Guinness 10-day scuba dive

Nowadays, there is high demand for sensitive gas sensors both for human and environmental monitoring. This paper deals with a high-resolution (0.2 ppb) laser-based photoacoustic spectroscopic system realized at ENEA Frascati, Italy, applied for monitoring stress in scuba divers during sustained immersion by analyzing breath samples. Blood tests and psychometric tests for scuba divers were performed at Catholic University in Rome. Results will be reported and discussed.     

Conditions of stability of magnetic sublattices at exchange mixing of states with different spins

The conditions of compatibility of the magnetic sublattice hypothesis with the requirements of quantum theory have been derived. These conditions imply the presence of (even weak) magnetic anisotropy and a macroscopic number of spins in the sublattice.     

Effect of oxygen stoichiometry and microstructure on superconducting properties of YBaCuO films

Microstructure and oxygen stoichiometry of YBaCuO films manufactured by laser ablation are investigated. Dependence of the specific electrical resistivity and superconducting parameters of films on microstructure and oxygen stoichiometry is demonstrated. Conditions of deposition are determined, under which films with minimum microstructure defects and good conducting properties are formed. __________ Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 2, pp. 41–45, February, 2007.     

Peritectic phase growth in directionally solidified Cu-70% Sn alloy

The growth mechanism of the peritectic η phase involving the peritectic reaction and peritectic transformation in Cu-70%Sn alloy was investigated under directional solidification. The results show that a major growth mechanism in thickening of the peritectic η-layer is not the peritectic reaction but the peritectic transformation. The transformation temperature and isothermal time play crucial roles in determining the volume fraction and the thickness of the peritectic η phase. With the increase of the temperature and isothermal time, the volume fraction of the peritectic η phase increases. The regressed data show that the relationship between the thickness of η phase (Δx) and the transformation temperature (T) meets the following equation In Δx=6.5−1673 1 / T. Additionally, there exists a relationship between the thickness of the η phase (Δx) and the isothermal time (t) at the 9 mm solidification distance below the peritectic reaction interface, Δx=0.72t ^1/2, which is consistent with the theoretical model. Supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50395102)     

Electro-absorption and refraction in Fabry-Perot quantum well modulators: a general discussion

Fabry-Perot resonators have long been advocated to improve the limited contrast ratio of multiple quantum well optical modulators used in photonic switches based on self electrooptic effect devices (SEEDs) and in other array based optical interconnection schemes. Using data on field dependent GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well absorption and refraction, we have modelled the reflectivity, modulation depth and contrast ratio of resonant modulators. Our results are generally valid for any quantum well modulator and demonstrate 23the important role played by electro-refraction even in regions of strong absorption. Resonators give large contrast ratios but there are trade-offs in the maximum reflectivity change achievable with Fabry-Perot resonators compared to simple modulators. The model gives the optimum number of quantum wells and reflectivity values required to make a resonator at any wavelength for a given quantum well structure. Understanding the limits of Fabry-Perot quantum well modulator performance is important for their application in symmetric self electrooptic effectiveness for photonic switching where modulation and detection properties are both used and for optical interconnection systems.     

Supersymmetric Dirichlet operators

A canonical supersymmetric extension of classical Dirichlet forms and operators given by measures on linear spaces is considered. In the case of log-concave measures, the supersymmetric Dirichlet operator generates a hypercontractive semigroup. This setting is appropriate for infinite-dimensional geometry and quantum field theory.Dedicated to Yu. M. Berezanskii on the occasion of his seventieth birthdayPublished in Ukrainskii Matematicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 47, No. 5, pp. 583–592, May, 1995.The present work was supported by the DFG.     

Thermal degradation of two liquid fuels and detonation tests for pulse detonation engine studies

The use of liquid fuels such as kerosene is of interest for the pulse detonation engine (PDE). Within this context, the aim of this work, which is a preliminary study, was to show the feasibility to initiate a detonation in air with liquid-fuel pyrolysis products, using energies and dimensions of test facility similars to those of PDEs. Therefore, two liquids fuels have been compared, JP10, which is a synthesis fuel generally used in the field of missile applications, and decane, which is one of the major components of standard kerosenes (F-34, Jet A1, ...). The thermal degradation of these fuels was studied with two pyrolysis processes, a batch reactor and a flow reactor. The temperatures varied from 600°C to 1,000°C and residence times for the batch reactor and the flow reactor were, respectively, between 10–30 s and 0.1–2 s. Subsequently, the detonability of synthetic gaseous mixtures, which was a schematisation of the decomposition state after the pyrolysis process, has been studied. The detonability study, regarding nitrogen dilution and equivalence ratio, was investigated in a 50 mm-diameter, 2.5 m-long detonation tube. These dimensions are compatible with applications in the aircraft industry and, more particularly, in PDEs. Therefore, JP10 and decane were compared to choose the best candidate for liquid-fuel PDE studies. This paper was based on work that was presented at the 20th International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, Montreal, Canada, July 31 – August 5, 2005.     

The fracture energy of materials under pulse microsecond-scale loading

Based on the results of fracture in polymethyl methacrylate and a spheroplastic using a magnetic-pulse setup, the specific work of the formation of a new surface is estimated, which is similar to Griffith’s surface energy for quasi-static tests. The value obtained is greater than the corresponding value determined from the quasi-static tests by an order of magnitude and tends to increase as the loading time decreases.