Intra- and inter-chain fluctuations in entangled polymer melts in bulk and confined to pore channels

It is known that topological restraints by “chain entanglements” severely affect chain dynamics in polymer melts. In this field-cycling NMR relaxometry and fringe-field NMR diffusometry study, melts of linear polymers in bulk and confined to pores in a solid matrix are compared. The diameter of the pore channels was 10 nm. It is shown that the dynamics of chains in bulk dramatically deviate from those observed under pore constraints. In the latter case, one of the most indicative signatures of the reptation model is verified 28 years after its prediction by de Gennes: The frequency and molecular mass dependencies of the spin-lattice relaxation time obey the power law T_! ∝ M⁰ v^3/4 on a time scale shorter than the longest Rouse relaxation time τ_R. The mean squared segment displacement in the pores was also found to be compatible to the reptation law < r²>∝ M^−1/2t^1/2 predicted for τ_R < t < τ_d, where τ_d is the so-called disengagement time. Contrary to these findings, bulk melts of entangled polymers show frequency and molecular mass dependencies significantly different from what one expects on the basis of the reptation model. The data can however be described with the aid of the renormalized Rouse theory.     

Influence of air pollution and site conditions on trends of carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in tree ring cellulose

Oxygen and carbon isotopic compositions of tree ring cellulose (delta13Ccell and delta18Ocell) were measured for pines growing at four sites in east Germany. Three sites differed markedly in soil water availability within a short distance and the fourth site served as a reference. The choice of the sites was guided by the desire to detect effects of air pollution on the long-term trend of isotopic compositions and to examine the influence of soil water availability on the relationship between the carbon and oxygen isotope ratios. Locations in east Germany are particularly well suited for the study of pollution effects because there was a steady increase in environmental contamination until the German Reunification in 1990, followed by a sharp decline due to the implementation of stricter environmental standards. The long-term trend of delta13Ccell showed an extraordinary increase in the period 1945-1990 and a rapid decrease after 1990, whereas delta18Ocell remained nearly constant. The increase of delta13Ccell is explained by secondary fractionation caused by phytotoxicity of SO2. Two effects are mainly responsible for the secondary fractionation under SO2 exposure: increase of dark respiration, and changes in photosynthate allocation and partitioning. Both effects do not influence delta18Ocell. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation between the year-to-year variations of carbon and oxygen isotope ratios (delta13Cresid and delta18Oresid) has been found for all sites. The slopes of the relationship between delta13Cresid and delta18Oresid differ insignificantly. It is concluded that this relationship is not influenced by soil water availability but by climatic variables.     

Evidence for a spin-quartet of nucleon resonances at 2 GeV

Results from a multichannel partial wave analysis of elastic and inelastic πN and γN   induced reactions are presented. The analysis evidences the existence of a spin-quartet of nucleon resonances with total angular momenta J^P=1/2⁺,…,7/2⁺$J^P=1/2^{+},\dots ,7/2^{+}$. All states fall into a ±130 MeV mass gap centered at 1.97 GeV. The spin quartet is at variance with S-wave diquark configurations required in classical diquark models.     

Properties of baryon resonances from a multichannel partial wave analysis

Properties of nucleon and Δ resonances are derived from a multichannel partial wave analysis of pion and photo-induced reactions off protons. This paper summarizes the latest results on masses, widths, and decay properties of nucleon and Δ resonances.     

Solving stochastic systems with low-rank tensor compression

For parametrised equations, which arise, for example, in equations dependent on random parameters, the solution naturally lives in a tensor product space. The application which we have in mind is a stochastic linear elliptic partial differential equation (SPDE). Usual spatial discretisation leads to a potentially large linear system for each point in the parameter space. Approximating the parametric dependence by a Galerkin ‘ansatz’, the already large number of unknowns—for a fixed parameter value—is multiplied by the dimension of the Galerkin subspace for the parametric dependence, and thus can be very large. Therefore, we try to solve the total system approximately on a smaller submanifold which is found adaptively through compression during the solution process by alternating iteration and compression. We show that for general linearly converging stationary iterative schemes and general adaptation processes—which can be seen as a modification or perturbation of the iteration—the interlaced procedure still converges. Our proposed modification can be used for most stationary solvers for systems on tensor products. We demonstrate this on an example of a discretised SPDE with a simple preconditioned iteration. We choose a truncated singular value decomposition (SVD) for the compression and give details of the implementation, finishing with some examples.     

Measurements of L-shell X-ray emission lines of neonlike europium on an electron beam ion trap

We report a measurement of the two X-ray transitions that proceed from the and (1s²2s_1/22p⁶3p_1/2)_{J = 1} upper levels to the (1s²2s²2p⁶)_{J = 0} ground level in neonlike Eu⁵³⁺ (Z = 63), that is,  near the previously documented avoided crossing of the two upper levels at Z = 68. The measurement was carried out using the calorimeter spectrometer on the Livermore EBIT-I electron beam ion trap. It affirms the trends set by the neighboring neonlike ions both in terms of the relative intensity of the two lines and in terms of the magnitude of disagreement with theoretical energy level predictions.