Essay: The Quantum Gravitational Black Hole Is Neither Black Nor White

Understanding the end state of black hole evaporation, the microscopic origin of black hole entropy, the information loss paradox, and the nature of the singularity arising in gravitational collapse - these are outstanding challenges for any candidate quantum theory of gravity. Recently, a midisuperspace model of quantum gravitational collapse has been solved using a lattice regularization scheme. It is shown that the mass of an eternal black hole follows the Bekenstein spectrum, and a related argument provides a fairly accurate estimate of the entropy. The solution also describes a quantized mass-energy distribution around a central black hole, which in the WKB approximation, is precisely Hawking radiation. The leading quantum gravitational correction makes the spectrum non-thermal, thus providing a plausible resolution of the information loss problem.     

Modification of Paving Asphalts with Sulfur

Sulfur dissolved in oil components of asphalt is a binder, filler, and chemical co-reagent at once. The structure of sulfur-extended asphalt depends on its formula and heating temperature. Road pavement based on sulfur-extended asphalt demonstrates higher durability as compared to that with the conventional binders.     

Loading aircraft for military operations

In this paper, we describe an aircraft loading problem submitted by the French military agency (DGA) as part of a more general military airlift planning problem. It can be viewed as a kind of bi-dimensional bin-packing problem, with heterogeneous bins and several additional constraints. We introduce two-phase methods for solving this NP-hard problem. The first phase consists in building good initial solutions, thanks to two fast algorithms: a list-based heuristic and a loading pattern generation method. Both algorithms call a constraint-based subroutine, able to determine quickly if the items already loaded can be reshuffled to accommodate a new object. The second phase improves these preliminary solutions using local search techniques. Results obtained on real data sets are presented.     

New insights on amorphous silicon-nitride microcavities

All amorphous silicon-nitride planar optical microcavities operating in the visible range have been grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The luminescence intensity of the N-rich silicon-nitride layer from a microcavity with 6 period distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) is two order of magnitude higher than that of the luminescent layer without the cavity. Moreover, a strong directionality of the microcavities emission can be observed. Such results can be ascribed to the anisotropic optical density of states induced in the Fabry–Perot structure. The quality factors of the resonators are strictly correlated to the number of periods of the DBRs.     

Quantum-Chemical Study of Structural and Energy Characteristics of Benzonitrile Dimers

Ab initio MP2 calculations with several basis sets proved the existence of a stable benzonitrile dimer with a planar structure and a short contact between the H atom of one molecule and the N atom of another. The structure is greatly stabilized by attraction between the neighboring oppositely directed dipoles and donor-acceptor interaction between the orbital of the lone electron pair of the N′ atom and the vacant antibonding orbital localized on the C-H bond.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2004 by O. V. Sizova, E. P. Sokolova, V. I. Baranovskii, D. A. Rozmanov, and O. A. Tomashenko__________Translated from Zhurnal Strukturnoi Khimii, Vol. 45, No. 5, pp. 807–815, September–October, 2004.     

Relationships between Electrodynamic and Quantum-Mechanical Parameters in the Theory of Quantum Transitions

Relationships between the electrodynamic (wave propagation constants) and quantum-mechanical parameters (probability of induced transitions) of interaction between energy quanta and particles of the medium are derived for dipole and paramagnetic interaction types. It is demonstrated that quantum-mechanical parameters are generally complex.     

Induced Representations of Abelian Groups of Finite Rank

We prove that any irreducible faithful representation of an almost torsion-free Abelian group G of finite rank over a finitely generated field of characteristic zero is induced from an irreducible representation of a finitely generated subgroup of the group G.     

Density-Functional Theory Calculations of Normal Modes and Raman Intensities for Tetraazaporphin

The structure, harmonic frequencies, and nonresonance Raman intensities for porphin, tetraazaporphin (TAP), and three of its isotopomers are calculated by the density-functional theory of B3LYP/6-31G(d). Scaling of force constants for porphin in nonredundant natural coordinates is performed. The scaling factors obtained were used to predict the force field and normal modes of TAP and three of its isotopomers. Two alternative methods are used to carry out reliable assignment of the TAP frequencies: wavenumber-linear scaling method and frequency-shift method. There is good agreement between the frequencies predicted within the framework of the three methods used. The conservativeness of the out-of-plane B _2g - and B _3g -modes for porphin and TAP is examined. The Raman spectrum for TAP is simulated. A refinement of the assignment of the experimental frequencies for TAP of even symmetry types on the basis of the calculations performed is made.     

In-Situ Intrinsic Interface Strength Measurement at Elevated Temperatures and its Relationship to Interfacial Structure

A previously developed laser spallation technique has been modified to measure the tensile strength of thin film interfaces in-situ at temperatures up to 1100°C. Tensile strengths of Nb/A-plane sapphire, FeCrAl/A-plane sapphire and FeCrAlY/A-plane sapphire were measured up to 950°C. The measured strengths at high temperatures were substantially lower compared with their corresponding strengths at ambient temperature. For example, at 850°C, the interface tensile strength for the Nb/sapphire (151 ± 17 MPa), FeCrAl/sapphire (62 ± 8 MPa) and FeCrAlY/sapphire (82 ± 11 MPa) interface systems were lower by factors of approximately, 3, 5, and 8, respectively, over their corresponding ambient values. These results underscore the importance of using such in-situ measured values under operating conditions as the failure criterion in any life prediction or reliability models of such coated systems where local interface temperature excursions are expected. The results on alloy film interfaces also demonstrate that the presence of Y increases the strength of FeCrAl/Al₂O₃ interfaces.