On the possibility of terahertz wave generation upon dense gas optical breakdown

The possibility of applying the physical principles underlying the operation of a solid-state terahertz oscillator to plasma gas-discharge media is analyzed. A new method of electromagnetic wave generation in the terahertz frequency range is proposed. It is based on the excitation of plasma-oscillation current by a static electric field in a laser spark produced by an axicon lens, followed by the radiation of an electromagnetic pulse through the Cherenkov mechanism.     

Elemental composition of nanoclusters formed by pulsed irradiation with low-energy ions during Ge/Si epitaxy

Multilayer silicon structures with built-in layers of Ge nanoclusters were studied experimentally by Raman light scattering. The built-in layers were formed by the pulsed action of a low-energy beam of intrinsic ions during molecular-beam epitaxy. It is found that the ion-stimulated nucleation and the subsequent growth make it possible to obtain Ge nanoclusters almost free of Si.     

Capture of an Ensemble of Microparticles in the Field of Laser Multibeam Interference

Capture of an ensemble of polymeric microspheres in a water suspension under the action of optical gradient forces in the field of interfering laser beams has been investigated for the case of two-, three-, and four-beam interference. The self-diffraction and diffraction of radiation on induced ordered spatial distribution of particles have been obtained.     

Spectral enhancement of Polish vowels to improve their identification by hearing impaired listeners

Abnormalities in the cochlear function usually cause broadening of the auditory filters which reduces the speech intelligibility. An attempt to apply a spectral enhancement algorithm has been undertaken to improve the identification of Polish vowels by subjects with cochlear-based hearing-impairment. The identification scores of natural (unprocessed) vowels and spectrally enhanced (processed) vowels has been measured for hearing-impaired subjects. It has been found that spectral enhancement improves vowel scores by about 10% for those subjects, however, a wide variation in individual performance among subjects has been observed. The overall vowels identification scores obtained were 85% for natural vowels and 96% for spectrally enhanced vowels.     

Photoluminescence of liquid-crystal azo derivatives in nanopores

Optics and Spectroscopy - The fluorescence of the nematic liquid crystal n-butyl-n′-methoxyazoxybenzene (BMAOB) in the form of a layer and in porous glasses with pores of different diameter...     

Commuting Rank 2 Differential Operators Corresponding to a Curve of Genus 2

We construct commuting rank 2 formally self-adjoint ordinary differential operators corresponding to a curve of genus 2.     

Raman echo under medium excitation by extremely short pulses

A generalization of the Bloembergen-Shen model to Raman active molecules with an arbitrary number of normal modes was suggested. The generalized model was used to study Raman echo signal characteristics when a system of molecules was excited by pulses of widths up to one period of optical oscillations. It was shown that a large number of echo responses on Stokes and anti-Stokes components could arise even under a two-pulse action in a continuous monochromatic pumping field. The number of echo responses depended on the number of molecular normal modes and the geometry of measurements. At small exciting pulse “areas,” the echo responses whose Stokes and anti-Stokes components corresponded to normal vibrational modes of a molecule had the highest intensity, whereas the components formed by normal mode combinations were strongly suppressed.     

Groups in which every non-abelian subgroup is permutable

A subgroupH of a groupG is said to bepermutable ifHX=XH for every subgroupX ofG. In this paper the structure of groups in which every subgroup either is abelian or permutable is investigated. This work was done while the last author was visiting the University of Napoli Federico II. He thanks the “Dipartimento di Matematica e Applicazioni” for its financial support.