Thermal conductivity of neutron-irradiated silica

Low temperature thermal conductivity Λ(T) of vitreous silica has been measured after exposure to various neutron fluences. It has been observed that the increase in Λ(T) saturates for approximately the same fluence for which the change in mass density ? saturates. A correlation between Λ(T) and the fictive temperature has been found.     

Electronic energy bands in model three dimensional lattices

The paper presents a discussion of the energy bands in a three dimensional lattice in which the potential is assumed to have a constant nonvanishing value in a spherical region round each nucleus and vanishes in the interspace. Introducing some simplifying approximations, a relation between the electronic energy and the wave vector is obtained. The case of an ordered diatomic alloy is next considered and the splitting of the bands for such a lattice is clearly brought out. The significance of this result in the theory of antiferromagnetism is pointed out. Lastly it is noted that for our model alloy, the theorem enunciated bySaxon andHütner is valid.     

Variational treatment of an isolated vortex tube in type-II superconductor

The structure of an isolated vortex tube, representing the mixed state of type-II superconductors near the lower critical field, has been investigated variationally for arbitrary values of the Ginzburg-Landau (G-L) parameter κ. The results are in excellent agreement with other calculations.     

Sensitivity to disorder of the metallic state in the ruthenates

We report the results of transport measurements on SrRuO3, Sr3Ru2O7, and CaRuO3. In SrRuO3 and Sr3Ru2O7, our findings are consistent with the predictions of Fermi liquid theory, in contrast to previous reports based on samples with much shorter mean free paths. In CaRuO3, however, a T1.5 power law is seen in the resistivity in the high purity samples studied here. Our work gives concrete evidence that even the metallic state of the ruthenates is highly sensitive to disorder.     

B and collider physics: Working group report

This report summarises the work done during WHEPP-6 (Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India, Jan 3–15, 2000) in Working group on ‘B and collider physics’.     

Phase fluctuations in a strongly disordered s-wave NbN superconductor close to the metal-insulator transition

We explore the role of phase fluctuations in a three-dimensional s-wave superconductor, NbN, as we approach the critical disorder for destruction of the superconducting state. Close to critical disorder, we observe a finite gap in the electronic spectrum which persists at temperatures well above T(c). The superfluid density is strongly suppressed at low temperatures and evolves towards a linear-T variation at higher temperatures. These observations provide strong evidence that phase fluctuations play a central role in the formation of a pseudogap state in a disordered s-wave superconductor.     

Iterative in situ click chemistry assembles a branched capture agent and allosteric inhibitor for Akt1

We describe the use of iterative in situ click chemistry to design an Akt-specific branched peptide triligand that is a drop-in replacement for monoclonal antibodies in multiple biochemical assays. Each peptide module in the branched structure makes unique contributions to affinity and/or specificity resulting in a 200 nM affinity ligand that efficiently immunoprecipitates Akt from cancer cell lysates and labels Akt in fixed cells. Our use of a small molecule to preinhibit Akt prior to screening resulted in low micromolar inhibitory potency and an allosteric mode of inhibition, which is evidenced through a series of competitive enzyme kinetic assays. To demonstrate the efficiency and selectivity of the protein-templated in situ click reaction, we developed a novel QPCR-based methodology that enabled a quantitative assessment of its yield. These results point to the potential for iterative in situ click chemistry to generate potent, synthetically accessible antibody replacements with novel inhibitory properties.     

Tunneling studies on single crystals of superconducting Bi2Ca1−xYxSr2Cu2O8+δ

Tunneling studies have been carried out on single crystals of Bi₂Ca_1−xSr_xCu₂O_8+δ over a wide range of compositions wherein the hole concentration varies by a factor of 2.5. The 2Δ value varies between 25 meV and 75 meV over the composition range studied, but scales with 2Δ/k_BT_c≈9.5 throughout.     

Almost strict competitiveness in extensive games

We consider an extension of an almost strictly competitive game, introduced by Aumann (1961), inn-person extensive games by incorporating Selten's subgame perfection. We call it a subgame perfect weakly-almost (SPWA) strictly competitive game, in particular, an SPWA strictly competitive game in strategic form is simply called a WA strictly competitive game. We give some general results on the structure of this class of games. One result gives an easy way to verify almost strict competitiveness of a given extensive game. We show that a two-person weakly unilaterally competitive extensive game, introduced by Kats and Thisse (1992) for normal form games, is SPWA strictly competitive. We remark that some of our main results for SPWA strictly competitive games do not hold for the modification of almost strict competitiveness with trembling-hand perfection.The author is indebted to Mamoru Kaneko for valuable discussions, comments and criticism throughout the paper. He thanks N. Bose, M. Frascatore, R. Gilles, H. Haller, A. Kats, J. Kline and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier drafts. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Possible observation of coulomb blockade at room temperature

We have studied the (I–V) characteristics of the tunnel junction formed between the tip and the substrate in an STM at room temperature. We find that in such an arrangement it may be possible to get a junction capacitance ⋍10⁻¹⁹ F and junction conductance <1μs. When the junction conductance is <1μs strong nonlinearity is observed in the (I–V) characteristics. We explain this nonlinearity as onset of coulomb blockade of tunneling electrons.