Communication: An Improved Synthesis of Methyl 2,3-Anhydro-α and β-D-Lyxofuranosides

Methyl 2,3-anhydro-α (6) and β (7)-D-lyxofuranosides are important intermediates in the synthesis of C-3 substituted derivatives of D-arabinose which show biological activity as a tumor inhibitor.^1,2 Some syntheses of 6 and 7 are reported but they are either expensive or give poor yields ^3-4 and generally the authors refer to Baker and coll.⁵ who synthesized both α and β epoxides from D-xylose in five steps; yields were 28% and 22% respectively. This synthesis is very well described but reaction times and workups are long and several intermediates are distilled with difficulty under reduced pressure. Unger and coll.⁶, using Baker's method, improved the yield of compound 6 and Martin and coll.⁷ described a three steps synthesis of 6 but the final purification is very difficult and the use of mercuric reagents is not consistent with biological activity; furthermore these two publications concern only α anomer 6.     

Prospects for p̄p → ȲY studies at PANDA

Strangeness and charm production provide an excellent probe of QCD in the confinement domain. With the PANDA detector at FAIR, this can be studied in e.g., hyperon production in the p?p → ?Y reactions. In PANDA, all ground state strange hyperons and single charmed Λ’s will be accessible. Simulations show that the differential cross sections and spin observables can be well reconstructed for these reaction channels.     

Impurity-defect interaction and diffusion in In-implanted nickel

Rutherford backscattering and time-differential perturbed angular correlation experiments were performed on In-implanted nickel foils annealed up to 900 K. The impuritydamage interaction is shown to anneal out just at (or very slightly below) the In diffusion temperature.Work partially supported by CNRS under RCP-157.     

The electronic states of carbon monofluoride: Rydberg states

Hartree-Fock and multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock calculations are reported on some low-lying Rydberg states of CF and the ground state of CF⁺. For the CF⁺ ground state, ¹Σ⁺, the calculations give a bond length of 1.55 Å, a fundamental frequency of 1821 cm^?1, and a dissociation energy of 6.9 eV. Many interactions between the valence and Rydberg state manifolds are revealed. Also a strong mixing of the 3dσ and 4sσ components due to an accidental degeneracy is described.     

Benchmark calculations with correlated molecular wavefunctions. XIII. Potential energy curves for He2, Ne2 and Ar2 using correlation consistent basis sets through augmented sextuple zeta

The potential energy curves of the rare gas dimers He2, Ne2, and Ar2 have been computed using correlation consistent basis sets ranging from singly augmented aug-cc-pVDZ sets through triply augmented t-aug-cc-pV6Z sets, with the augmented sextuple basis sets being reported herein. Several methods for including electron correlation were investigated, namely Møller—Plesset perturbation theory (MP2, MP3 and MP4) and coupled cluster theory [CCSD and CCSD(T)]. For He2 CCSD(T)/d-aug-cc-pV6Z calculations yield a well depth of 7.35 cm-1 (10.58 K), with an estimated complete basis set (CBS) limit of 7.40 cm-1 (10.65 K). The latter is smaller than the 'exact' well depth (Aziz, R. A., Janzen, A. R., and Moldover, M. R., 1995, Phys. Rev. Lett., 74, 1586) by about 0.2 cm-1 (0.35 K). The Ne2 well depth, computed with the CCSD(T)/d-aug-cc-pV6Z method, is 28.31 cm-1 and the estimated CBS limit is 28.4 cm-1, approximately 1 cm-1 smaller than the empirical potential of Aziz, R. A., and Slaman, M., J., 1989, Chem. Phys., 130, 187. Inclusion of core and core—valence correlation effects has a negligible effect on the Ne2 well depth, decreasing it by only 0.04 cm-1. For Ar2, CCSD(T)/d-aug-cc-pV6Z calculations yield a well depth of 96.2 cm-1. The corresponding HFDID potential of Aziz, R. A., 1993, J. chem. Phys., 99, 4518 predicts of De of 99.7 cm-1. Inclusion of core and core-valence effects in Ar2 increases the well depth and decreases the discrepancy by approximately 1 cm-1.     

Probing noise in flux qubits via macroscopic resonant tunneling

Macroscopic resonant tunneling between the two lowest lying states of a bistable rf SQUID is used to characterize noise in a flux qubit. Measurements of the incoherent decay rate as a function of flux bias revealed a Gaussian-shaped profile that is not peaked at the resonance point but is shifted to a bias at which the initial well is higher than the target well. The rms amplitude of the noise, which is proportional to the dephasing rate 1/tauphi, was observed to be weakly dependent on temperature below 70 mK. Analysis of these results indicates that the dominant source of low energy flux noise in this device is a quantum mechanical environment in thermal equilibrium.     

Gaseous Fuel Reactor Research

Gaseous Fuel Nuclear Reactors are externally moderated and contain the fissile material inside a cavity where it is suspended by fluid mechanics forces. The gaseous phase of the nuclear fuel permits operation of the reactor at temperatures much higher than the melting point of all materials. NASA has originally supported relevant research for space propulsion. The continuation of this work includes now research on power generation on Earth for improved economy and environmental acceptability. In reactor experiments with enriched uranium hexafluoride, UF6, a critical mass of 6 kg is determined. Pressurized UF6 remains chemically stable at temperatures up to 2000 kelvins. The interaction of fission fragments with their gaseous environment causes preferential excitation and ionization, leading to non-equilibrium optical radiation. Powerful fluxes of photons are expected to become a superior mechanism of energy extraction from the fissioning gas or plasma in the reactor. The pumping of lasers solely by fission fragments is realized in a variety of lasants. A near term objective of the NASA gaseous fuel reactor program is a benchmark experiment at 100 kw power and at a gas temperature of 1600 kelvins, demonstrating the feasibility of major advances in reactor technology. A concerted research effort is leading to this experiment. A plasma core cavity reactor for high specific impulse propulsion in space reminas a long range goal.     

The electronic structure of vanadium carbide, VC

Within an energy range of 2.4 eV, we have explored 29 of the 36 states of the diatomic molecule VC that arise from the atoms in their ground state, V(4s23d3;4F)+C(2s2 2p2;3P). We use multireference methods with large atomic natural orbital basis sets. The ground state is of 2Delta symmetry with the first two excited states, 4Delta and 2Sigma+, located 4.2 and 7.0 kcal/mol above the X state. All the states examined in this work are relatively strongly bound and show significant charge transfer from V to C. The binding energy of the X 2Delta state is estimated to be 95.3 kcal/mol in good agreement with the experimental value.     

Comparison between algebraic and topological K-theory of locally convex algebras

This paper is concerned with the algebraic K-theory of locally convex C-algebras stabilized by operator ideals, and its comparison with topological K-theory. We show that if L is locally convex and J a Fréchet operator ideal, then all the different variants of topological K-theory agree on the completed projective tensor product , and that the obstruction for the comparison map to be an isomorphism is (absolute) algebraic cyclic homology. We prove the existence of an exact sequence (Theorem 6.2.1)We show that cyclic homology vanishes in the case when J is the ideal of compact operators and L is a Fréchet algebra whose topology is generated by a countable family of sub-multiplicative seminorms and admits an approximate right or left unit which is totally bounded with respect to that family (Theorem 8.3.3). This proves the generalized version of Karoubi's conjecture due to Mariusz Wodzicki and announced in his paper [M. Wodzicki, Algebraic K-theory and functional analysis, in: First European Congress of Mathematics, Vol. II, Paris, 1992, in: Progr. Math., vol. 120, Birkhäuser, Basel, 1994, pp. 485-496].We also consider stabilization with respect to a wider class of operator ideals, called sub-harmonic. Every Fréchet ideal is sub-harmonic, but not conversely; for example the Schatten ideal Lp is sub-harmonic for all p>0 but is Fréchet only if p?1. We prove a variant of the exact sequence above which essentially says that if A is a C-algebra and J is sub-harmonic, then the obstruction for the periodicity of K_∗(AC_⊗J) is again cyclic homology (Theorem 7.1.1). This generalizes to all algebras a result of Wodzicki for H-unital algebras announced in [M. Wodzicki, Algebraic K-theory and functional analysis, in: First European Congress of Mathematics, Vol. II, Paris, 1992, in: Progr. Math., vol. 120, Birkhäuser, Basel, 1994, pp. 485-496].The main technical tools we use are the diffeotopy invariance theorem of Cuntz and the second author (which we generalize in Theorem 6.1.6), and the excision theorem for infinitesimal K-theory, due to the first author.