A novel monochromator for experiments with ultrashort X‐ray pulses

Aiming at advancing storage‐ring‐based ultrafast X‐ray science, over the past few years many upgrades have been undertaken to continue improving beamline performance and photon flux at the Femtoslicing facility at BESSY II. In this article the particular design upgrade of one of the key optical components, the zone‐plate monochromator (ZPM) beamline, is reported. The beamline is devoted to optical pump/soft X‐ray probe applications with 100 fs (FWHM) X‐ray pulses in the soft X‐ray range at variable polarization. A novel approach consisting of an array of nine off‐axis reflection zone plates is used for a gapless coverage of the spectral range between 410 and 1333 eV at a designed resolution of E/ΔE = 500 and a pulse elongation of only 30 fs. With the upgrade of the ZPM the following was achieved: a smaller focus, an improved spectral resolution and bandwidth as well as excellent long‐term stability. The beamline will enable a new class of ultrafast applications with variable optical excitation wavelength and variable polarization.     

Possible formation of antihydrogen atoms from metastable antiprotonic helium atoms and positrons/positroniums

The possible formation of antihydrogen atoms via the collision of metastable antiprotonic helium atoms with positrons and positroniums is discussed based on the known behavior of positrons in helium media.     

Gas chromatographic determination of aromatic amines in water samples after solid-phase extraction and derivatization with iodine: I. Derivatization

A new method for the selective determination of aromatic amines is presented, which is based on the solid-phase extraction at pH 9 and subsequent derivatization of the analytes to the corresponding iodobenzenes. These can selectively and sensitively be determined with gas chromatography and electron-capture detection. Separation of at least 30 compounds in a single chromatographic run in 30 min is possible. With this method, 56 aromatic amines were investigated, and only in six cases no derivatives were obtained. Limits of quantitation were between 0.5 and 8 μg l⁻¹, but may still be lowered with higher sample volumes or different injection techniques. The application to water samples revealed the suitability for the investigation of ground, leachate and wastewater.     

Correlation between mechanical and electrical properties on conductive SiC-fibre reinforced composites

Electrical and mechanical properties of ceramic composites are investigated to develop “smart materials” and establish a fracture prediction technique. The “smart materials” are based on silicon carbide fibre-reinforced composites. The SiC-fibres were checked to determine the changes in mechanical and electrical properties during the composites’ production. Samples were produced for the determination of the mechanical strength with in situ detection of the degree of damage by recording the electrical resistance.     

Induced characters, Mackey analysis and primitive ideal spaces of nilpotent discrete groups

Let G be a nilpotent discrete group and Prim(C^*(G)) the primitive ideal space of the group C^*-algebra C^*(G). If G is either finitely generated or has absolutely idempotent characters, we are able to describe the hull-kernel topology on Prim(C^*(G)) in terms of a topology on a parametrizing space of subgroup-character pairs. For that purpose, we introduce and study induced traces and develop a Mackey machine for characters. We heavily exploit the fact that the groups under consideration have the property that every faithful character vanishes outside the finite conjugacy class subgroup.     

Ein Hebbarkeitssatz für Automorphismengruppen kompakter komplexer Mannigfaltigkeiten

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