Alpha-decay of neutron-deficient 200Fr and heavier neighbours

A new measurement of the ²⁰⁰Fr -decay half-life, with improved accuracy compared to previous measurements, has been carried out at the Isolde-CERN on-line mass separator. A half-life of 49(4) ms has been obtained, which is substantially different from earlier literature values. For the ¹⁹⁶At daughter decay, a half-life of 389(54) ms and an branching ratio b = 94(5)% were measured. In addition, the half-lives of ^{201, 203, 205}Fr and ^197,199At are reported.     

$ B \to D^{(*)}$ transitions in a quark model

We propose a constituent quark model to evaluate heavy decay constants and form factors relevant for semileptonic transitions. We show that the model reproduces the scaling laws dictated by the spin-flavor symmetry in the heavy quark limit and describes quite well the experimental data.Received: 29 December 2004, Published online: 21 February 2005     

Hydrogen bond directed self-assembly of core-substituted naphthalene bisimides with melamines in solution and at the graphite interface

A series of red and blue highly fluorescent core-substituted naphthalene bisimide dyes has been synthesized and they have been investigated as supramolecular building blocks. NMR and UV-Vis titration experiments of these dyes with complementary melamines revealed the formation of triple hydrogen bonds (DAD-ADA arrays) in solution. At stoichiometric ratios, ditopic melamine receptors could dissolve otherwise insoluble bisimides by means of hydrogen bonding, even in aliphatic solvents. At the solution/graphite interface, one-dimensional chains of hydrogen bonded naphthalene bisimides and two-dimensional adlayers of ditopic melamines are formed for the pure compounds but little evidence for heterocomplexes between the two complementary building blocks could be obtained.     

Contrasting effects of exterior and interior hydrophobic moieties in the complexation of amino acid functionalized gold clusters with alpha-chymotrypsin

[chemical structure: see text]. A series of L-amino acid functionalized gold nanoparticles with oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) tethers of varying length are prepared. These studies show that the hydrophobic side chains of amino acids facilitate the structural retention of alpha-chymotrypsin (ChT) but the interior alkyl chains promote its denaturation. An 80-fold range of denaturation rate constants were obtained for ChT in the presence of various nanoparticles. Thus, the tunable denaturation of protein could be achieved by rational combination of amino acid side chains and OEG tethers.     

Probing fragment complementation by rigid-body docking: in silico reconstitution of calbindin D9k

Fragment complementation is gaining an increasing impact as a nonperturbing method to probe noncovalent interactions within protein supersecondary structures. In this study, the fast Fourier transform rigid-body docking algorithm ZDOCK has been employed for in silico reconstitution of the calcium binding protein calbindin D9k, from its two EF-hands subdomains, namely, EF1 (residues 1-43) and EF2 (residues 44-75). The EF1 fragment has been used both in its wild type and in nine mutant forms, in line with in vitro experiments. Consistent with in vitro data, ZDOCK reconstituted the proper fold of wild-type and mutated calbindin, locating the nativelike structures (i.e., holding a root-mean-square deviation < 1 A with respect to the X-ray structure) among the first 10 top-scored solutions out of 4000. Moreover, the three independent in silico reconstitutions of wild-type calbindin ranked a nativelike structure at the top of the output list, that is, the best scored one. The algorithm has been also successfully challenged in reconstituting the EF2 homodimer from two identical copies of the monomer. Furthermore, quantitative models consisting of linear correlations between thermodynamic data and ZDOCK scores were built, providing a tested tool for very fast in silico predictions of the free energy of association of protein-protein complexes solved at the atomic level and known to not undergo significant conformational changes upon binding.     

Synthesis of 1-alkyl-4-imidazolecarboxylates: a catch and release strategy

The novel alkyl N-methyl-N-polystyreneamino-2-isocyanoacrylate was used for the synthesis of 1-substituted imidazole-4-carboxylates utilizing a "catch and release" methodology. The reactions were performed under microwave irradiation, affording the title compounds in both high yields and chemical purity directly to solution, from the solid phase support.     

First observation of 54Zn and its decay by two-proton emission

The nucleus 54Zn has been observed for the first time in an experiment at the SISSI/LISE3 facility of GANIL in the quasifragmentation of a 58Ni beam at 74.5 MeV/nucleon in a (nat)Ni target. The fragments were analyzed by means of the ALPHA-LISE3 separator and implanted in a silicon-strip detector where correlations in space and time between implantation and subsequent decay events allowed us to generate almost background free decay spectra for about 25 different nuclei at the same time. Eight 54Zn implantation events were observed. From the correlated decay events, the half-life of 54Zn is determined to be 3.2(+1.8)(-0.8) ms. Seven of the eight implantations are followed by two-proton emission with a decay energy of 1.48(2) MeV. The decay energy and the partial half-life are compared to model predictions and allow for a test of these two-proton decay models.     

Measurement of harmonic phase differences by interference of attosecond light pulses

By using a self-referencing technique, we have experimentally measured the influence of the carrier-envelope phase of femtosecond light pulses on the phase of the electric field of the radiation produced by high-order harmonic generation. We show that, in particular experimental conditions, the temporal evolution of the electric field of the attosecond pulses, is directly controlled by the carrier-envelope phase of the driving pulses.     

Evidence for a kaon-bound state K(-)pp produced in K(-) absorption reactions at rest

We have searched for a deeply bound kaonic state by using the FINUDA spectrometer installed at the e(+)e(-) collider DAPhiNE. Almost monochromatic K(-)'s produced through the decay of phi(1020) mesons are used to observe K(-) absorption reactions stopped on very thin nuclear targets. Taking this unique advantage, we have succeeded to detect a kaon-bound state K(-)pp through its two-body decay into a Lambda hyperon and a proton. The binding energy and the decay width are determined from the invariant-mass distribution as 115(+6)(-5)(stat)(+3)(-4)(syst) MeV and 67(+14)(-11)(stat)(+2)(-3)(syst) MeV, respectively.     

Dissociation of vortex stacks into fractional-flux vortices

We discuss the zero field superconducting phase transition in a finite system of magnetically coupled superconducting layers. Transverse screening is modified by the presence of other layers resulting in topological excitations with fractional flux. Vortex stacks trapping a full flux and present at any finite temperature undergo a dissociation transition which corresponds to the depairing of fractional-flux vortices in individual layers. We propose an experiment with a bilayer system allowing us to identify the dissociation of bound vortex molecules.