Liquid Phase Epitaxy of SiC in the System Si?Tb?SiC by Temperature Gradient Zone Melting (I). Investigation of Solubilities in the System Si?Tb?SiC

In the paper which is divided into three parts the liquid phase epitaxy of SiC by temperature gradient zone melting with the solvent Si Tb is discussed. In the first part the solubility of SiC at different initial compositions of the Si Tb solvent is studied in the temperature range 2000–2500 K.     

Vanishing integral relations and expectation values for Bloch functions in finite domains

Integral identities for particular Bloch functions in finite periodic systems are derived. All following statements are proven for a finite domain consisting of an integer number of unit cells. It is shown that matrix elements of particular Bloch functions with respect to periodic differential operators vanish identically. The real valuedness, the time-independence and a summation property of the expectation values of periodic differential operators applied to superpositions of specific Bloch functions are derived.     

On the optimality of individual entangling-probe attacks against BB84 quantum key distribution

Some MIT researchers [Phys. Rev. A 75, 042327 (2007)] have recently claimed that their implementation of the Slutsky-Brandt attack [Phys. Rev. A 57, 2383 (1998); Phys. Rev. A 71, 042312 (2005)] to the BB84 quantum-key-distribution (QKD) protocol puts the security of this protocol “to the test” by simulating “the most powerful individual-photon attack” [Phys. Rev. A 73, 012315 (2006)]. A related unfortunate news feature by a scientific journal [G. Brumfiel, Quantum cryptography is hacked, News @ Nature (april 2007); Nature 447, 372 (2007)] has spurred some concern in the QKD community and among the general public by misinterpreting the implications of this work. The present article proves the existence of a stronger individual attack on QKD protocols with encrypted error correction, for which tight bounds are shown, and clarifies why the claims of the news feature incorrectly suggest a contradiction with the established “old-style” theory of BB84 individual attacks. The full implementation of a quantum cryptographic protocol includes a reconciliation and a privacy-amplification stage, whose choice alters in general both the maximum extractable secret and the optimal eavesdropping attack. The authors of [Phys. Rev. A 75, 042327 (2007)] are concerned only with the error-free part of the so-called sifted string, and do not consider faulty bits, which, in the version of their protocol, are discarded. When using the provably superior reconciliation approach of encrypted error correction (instead of error discard), the Slutsky-Brandt attack is no more optimal and does not “threaten” the security bound derived by Lütkenhaus [Phys. Rev. A 59, 3301 (1999)]. It is shown that the method of Slutsky and collaborators [Phys. Rev. A 57, 2383 (1998)] can be adapted to reconciliation with error correction, and that the optimal entangling probe can be explicitly found. Moreover, this attack fills Lütkenhaus bound, proving that it is tight (a fact which was not previously known).     

Observation of an exotic S = +1 baryon in exclusive photoproduction from the deuteron

In an exclusive measurement of the reaction gammad-->K(+)K(-)pn, a narrow peak that can be attributed to an exotic baryon with strangeness S=+1 is seen in the K(+)n invariant mass spectrum. The peak is at 1.542+/-0.005 GeV/c(2) with a measured width of 0.021 GeV/c(2) FWHM, which is largely determined by experimental mass resolution. The statistical significance of the peak is (5.2+/-0.6)sigma. The mass and width of the observed peak are consistent with recent reports of a narrow S=+1 baryon by other experimental groups.     

Synthesis of DNA interstrand cross-links using a photocaged nucleobase

The missing linking: BCNU is a chemotherapy drug that generates an ethylene bridge between N(1) of deoxyguanosine and N(3) of deoxycytidine. No synthesis of a DNA containing this moiety has been reported until now. A new strategy uses a photocaged nucleobase that, when released, generates a highly reactive intermediate which cross-links the opposing DNA strand in a manner analogous to BCNU (see scheme, NBOC=ortho-nitrobenzyloxycarbonyl).     

Synthesis and Structural Characterization of Hexacoordinate Silicon,Germanium, and Titanium Complexes of the E. coli Siderophore Enterobactin

The E. coli siderophore enterobactin, one of the strongest Fe^III chelators known to date, is also capable of binding Si^IV under physiological conditions. We report on the synthesis and structural characterization of the tris(catecholate) Si^IV–enterobactin complex and its Ge^IV and Ti^IV analogues. Comparative structural analysis, supported by quantum‐chemical calculations, reveals the correlation between the ionic radius and the structural changes in enterobactin upon complexation.     

Posets of Copies of Countable Non-Scattered Labeled Linear Orders

Order - We show that the poset of copies $\mathbb {P} (\mathbb {Q}_{n} )=\langle \{ f[X]: f\in \text {Emb} (\mathbb {Q}_{n} ) \},\subset \rangle $ of the countable homogeneous universal n-labeled...