The plasticity of the Cu(H2O) 6 2+ Jahn-Teller complex affected by lattice strains and cooperative interactions

The EPR spectra evolution of Cs₂Zn_1?x Cu_x(ZrF₆)₂ · 6H₂O (x=0.01, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0) in the temperature range 4.2–330 K and the x-ray structure analysis of the compound with x=1.0 in the range 150–327 K show that the Jahn-Teller (JT) complex Cu(H₂O)₆ coordination sphere undergoes a plastic deformation. The observed effect is due to the combined influence of small lattice strains existing in the paraphase and a new one appearing as a result of a ferroelastic phase transition and increasing with decreasing temperature below T _c . It is proved that both cooperative interactions between JT complexes and ferroelastic strain stabilize a certain JT configuration. The problem of instability of a JT configuration compressed at T ～ 265 K is discussed.     

Probe measurements in a discharge with liquid nonmetallic electrodes in air at atmospheric pressure

Discharges with liquid nonmetallic electrodes of much interest for applications are investigated. It is found that a dc discharge between two streams of tap water in air at atmospheric pressure is stable at a currentof 40≤I≤100 mA. The discharge exists in the diffuse (volume) form with a relatively low current density (∼0.2 A/cm²) and a high (above one kilovolt) voltage drop across the air gap (∼1 cm) between the water electrodes. The current density and voltage depend only slightly on the discharge current. Probe measurements show that three regions can be distinguished in the discharge: two electrode regions (1–2 mm in length) and a discharge column with a constant electric field of ≈0.8 kV/cm (i.e., E/N≈20 Td, because the gas in the discharge is heated up to 1500–2000 K). The average electric field strength near the electrodes is E≈2–3×10³ V/cm (E/N≈60–80 Td). The charged particle density in the column is n ∼ 10¹² cm⁻³. The probe measurements of n agree with the previous microwave absorption measurements. The water vapor concentration in the column is also estimated from probe measurements.     

Resummation of the jet broadening in DIS

We calculate the leading and next-to-leading logarithmic resummed distribution for the jet broadening in deep inelastic scattering, as well as the power correction for both the distribution and mean value. A truncation of the answer at NLL accuracy, as is standard, leads to unphysical divergences. We discuss their origin and show how the problem can be resolved. We then examine DIS specific procedures for matching to fixed order calculations and compare our results to the data. One of the tools developed for the comparison is an NLO parton distribution evolution code. When compared to PDF sets from MRST and CTEQ it reveals limited discrepancies in both. Received: 16 October 2001 / Published online: 12 April 2002     

Gluon jets from quarkonia

A detailed analysis is made within perturbative QCD of the decays into gluon jets of P-wave and S-wave quarkonia (J^PC = 0⁺⁺, 1⁺⁺, 2⁺⁺, 1^+? and 0^?+, 1^??). For all those states we compute to leading non-trivial order in α_s the conventional fraction f(?, δ) of the jet-like hadronic final states, characterized by the back-to-back cone of half angle δ, in which all but a small fraction ? of the total energy is emitted. To the same order we give also the average values of thrust momenta and spherocity distributions.     

The electrical resistivity of some uranium tellurides

Electrical resistivity of U₃Tein4, U₂Te₃ (cubic) and UTe₃ has been measured over temperature range 4.2–300 K. The two former compounds appear to be semimetallic conductors while the last one has semiconducting character. The results are discussed in the terms of available magnetic data.     

A search technique for global optimization in a chaotic environment

We describe a new algorithm which uses the trajectories of a discrete dynamical system to sample the domain of an unconstrained objective function in search of global minima. The algorithm is unusually adept at avoiding nonoptimal local minima and successfully converging to a global minimum. Trajectories generated by the algorithm for objective functions with many local minima exhibit chaotic behavior, in the sense that they are extremely sensitive to changes in initial conditions and system parameters. In this context, chaos seems to have a beneficial effect: failure to converge to a global minimum from a given initial point can often be rectified by making arbitrarily small changes in the system parameters.     

Enantiodiscrimination of racemic electrophiles by diketopiperazine enolates: asymmetric synthesis of methyl 2-amino-3-aryl-butanoates and 3-methyl-aspartates

Enolates of (S)-N,N′-bis-(p-methoxybenzyl)-3-iso-propylpiperazine-2,5-dione exhibit high levels of enantiodiscrimination in alkylations with (RS)-1-aryl-1-bromoethanes and (RS)-2-bromoesters, affording substituted diketopiperazines containing two new stereogenic centres in high de. Deprotection and hydrolysis of the resultant substituted diketopiperazines provides a route to the asymmetric synthesis of homochiral methyl 2-amino-3-aryl-butanoates and 3-methyl-aspartates in high de and ee.