Flow Structure of Swirling Turbulent Propane Flames

Flow structure of premixed propane–air swirling jet flames at various combustion regimes was studied experimentally by stereo PIV, CH* chemiluminescence imaging, and pressure probe. For the non-swirling conditions, a nonlinear feedback mechanism of the flame front interaction with ring-like vortices, developing in the jet shear layer, was found to play important role in the stabilisation of the premixed lifted flame. For the studied swirl rates (S = 0.41, 0.7, and 1.0) the determined domain of stable combustion can be divided into three main groups of flame types: attached flames, quasi-tubular flames, and lifted flames. These regimes were studied in details for the case of S = 1.0, and the difference in the flow structure of the vortex breakdown is described. For the quasi-tubular flames an increase of flow precessing above the recirculation zone was observed when increased the stoichiometric coefficient from 0.7 to 1.4. This precessing motion was supposed to be responsible for the observed increase of acoustic noise generation and could drive the transition from the quasi-tubular to the lifted flame regime.     

Immunocytochemical Localization of XRCC1 and γH2AX Foci Induced by Tightly Focused Femtosecond Laser Radiation in Cultured Human Cells

To assess the prospects for using intense femtosecond laser radiation in biomedicine, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms of its action on biological macromolecules, especially on the informational macromolecule—DNA. The aim of this work was to study the immunocytochemical localization of DNA repair protein foci (XRCC1 and γH2AX) induced by tightly focused femtosecond laser radiation in human cancer A549 cells. The results showed that no XRCC1 or γH2AX foci tracks were observed 30 min after cell irradiation with femtosecond pulses of 10¹¹ W∙cm⁻² peak power density. An increase in the pulse power density to 2 × 10¹¹ W∙cm⁻² led to the formation of linear tracks consisting both of XRCC1 and γH2AX protein foci localized in the places where the laser beam passed through the cell nuclei. A further increase in the pulse power density to 4 × 10¹¹ W∙cm⁻² led to the appearance of nuclei with total immunocytochemical staining for XRCC1 and γH2AX on the path of the laser beam. Thus, femtosecond laser radiation can be considered as a tool for local ionization of biological material, and this ionization will lead to similar effects obtained using ionizing radiation.     

Self-Diffusion Coefficients for Pure and Mixed Adsorbate Fluids in Narrow Pores

The equilibrium distribution and the concentration dependence of the local and average self-diffusion coefficients for pure fluid and binary mixture components in narrow slitlike pores were analyzed. The coefficients were calculated using the lattice gas model in the quasi-chemical approximation on the assumption of a spherical shape and approximately equal sizes of the components. For the pure adsorbate, these calculations were compared with molecular dynamics simulations. Both methods gave similar concentration profile changes and dynamic characteristics of interlayer particle redistributions in strong nonuniform adsorption fields for dense fluids. A satisfactory agreement was obtained for the temperature dependences of the self-diffusion coefficients along the pore axis. The influence of the molecule–wall potential and of intermolecular interaction were considered. The self-diffusion coefficients of the adsorbate were shown to strongly depend on the density of the mixture and the distance from pore walls.     

Ninetieth Birthday of Nikolai Konstantinovich Kochetkov

Anniversaries and Dates

Ninetieth Birthday of Nikolai Konstantinovich Kochetkov     

2,4,5,7-Tetranitrofluorescein in solutions: novel type of tautomerism in hydroxyxanthene series as detected by various spectral methods

Stepwise dissociation and tautomerism of 2,4,5,7-tetranitrofluorescein (TNF) were studied by using vis-spectroscopy in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), in aqueous acetone, and in cetyl-trimethylammonium chloride (CTAC) micellar solutions at ionic strength of the bulk phase 4.00M KCl. The pK(a) values in DMSO and 90 mass% (CH3)2CO as well as the 'apparent'pK(a)(a) values of the substance in micellar media were determined spectrophotometrically. The neutral (molecular) form H2R is found to be completely converted into the colorless lactone. Moreover, the lactonic structure, yellow due to 'nitrophenolate' absorption band, predominates also in the case of TNF dianion R2-. Contrary to the unsubstituted fluorescein, and like 2,4,5,7-tetrabromofluorescein (eosin), the monoanion HR- of TNF with lambda(max) 522-525 nm and E(max) approximately (60-62)x10(3) dm(3)mol(-1)cm(-1) exists mainly as a deeply and intensively colored structure with non-ionized carboxylic and ionized hydroxylic group; its fluorescence spectra in various media are registered. In 90% acetone, the Stokes shift is 1.17x10(3)cm(-1), fluorescence lifetime equals 2.3 ns. An extremely expressed trend to dianion-lactone formation of R2- ion of TNF is confirmed in the systems studied. For TNF in DMSO, in aqueous acetone, in surfactant micelles, and in trichloromethane extracts of ionic associatiates with N(n-Bu)4+ and N(n-Hept)4+, the deeply colored 'quinon-phenolate' dianion, typical for all hydroxyxanthenes, is not registered at all. The sequence of dissociation of functional groups in solution is confirmed using IR spectroscopy in DMSO.     

Stark effect and generalized Bloch-Siegert shift in a strongly driven two-level system

A superconducting qubit was driven in an ultrastrong fashion by an oscillatory microwave field, which was created by coupling via the nonlinear Josephson energy. The observed Stark shifts of the "atomic" levels are so pronounced that corrections even beyond the lowest-order Bloch-Siegert shift are needed to properly explain the measurements. The quasienergies of the dressed two-level system were probed by resonant absorption via a cavity, and the results are in agreement with a calculation based on the Floquet approach.     

No Outliers in the Spectrum of the Product of Independent Non-Hermitian Random Matrices with Independent Entries

We consider products of independent square random non-Hermitian matrices. More precisely, let \(n\ge 2\) and let \(X_1,\ldots ,X_n\) be independent \(N\times N\) random matrices with independent centered entries (either real or complex with independent real and imaginary parts) with variance \(N^{-1}\). In Götze and Tikhomirov (On the asymptotic spectrum of products of independent random matrices, 2011. arXiv:1012.2710) and O’Rourke and Soshnikov (Electron J Probab 16(81):2219–2245, 2011) it was shown that the limit of the empirical spectral distribution of the product \(X_1\cdots X_n\) is supported in the unit disk. We prove that if the entries of the matrices \(X_1,\ldots ,X_n\) satisfy uniform subexponential decay condition, then the spectral radius of \(X_1\cdots X_n\) converges to 1 almost surely as \(N\rightarrow \infty \).     

Asymptotic growth of trajectories of multifractional Brownian motion,with statistical applications to drift parameter estimation

We construct the least-square estimator for the unknown drift parameter in the multifractional Ornstein–Uhlenbeck model and establish its strong consistency in the non-ergodic case. The proofs are based on the asymptotic bounds with probability 1 for the rate of the growth of the trajectories of multifractional Brownian motion (mBm) and of some other functionals of mBm, including increments and fractional derivatives. As the auxiliary results having independent interest, we produce the asymptotic bounds with probability 1 for the rate of the growth of the trajectories of the general Gaussian process and some functionals of it, in terms of the covariance function of its increments.     

Ultrafast Fiske effect in semiconductor superlattices

The current flowing across a semiconductor superlattice in tilted electric and magnetic fields is known to exhibit resonant enhancement, when Landau states of neighboring wells align at certain ratios of the field strengths. We show that the ultrafast version of this effect, in which coherent electron wave packets are involved, has a profound analogy to the Fiske effect in superconductor Josephson junctions and superfluid weak links, in that the coupling of the tunneling-induced charge oscillations (magneto-Bloch versus Josephson oscillations) to another oscillator (in-plane cyclotron oscillations versus external oscillator modes) opens an elastic rectifying transport channel. We explore the superlattice effect both theoretically and experimentally, and find that the transient self-induced current can be adequately modeled if the damping of both types of coupled electron oscillations is properly taken into account.     

Boundary-value problems for the Helmholtz equation and their discrete mathematical models

We consider boundary-value problems of mathematical diffraction theory and discuss the possibility of reducing them to boundary hypersingular integral equations and solving them numerically. The analytic technique of parametric representations of pseudodifferential and integral operators and the numerical method of discrete singularities are essentially used. We discuss the reasoning in applying this approach to constructing mathematical models of wave diffraction problems and solving them numerically.