Proton spectra from the 6,7Li(γ,p) 5,6He reactions at Eγ = 60 MeV

The ${}^{\mathrm{6,7}}\text{Li}\text{(γ,}\text{p}\text{)}$ reactions have been investigated for E_γ = 60 MeV. Excitation of residual (1p)^?1 and (1s)^?1 hole states is evident from the proton spectra measured at ?_p = 45°. The data are compared with a theoretical calculation which includes short-range correlations.     

Surface versus volume emissions in photon–hadron correlations

High-p _T photon–hadron correlations are studied within the next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD parton model with modified parton-jet fragmentation functions due to jet quenching in high-energy A+A collisions. In central A+A collisions, the away-side hadrons with large z _T=p _T ^h /p _T ^γ are controlled mainly by the surface emission of the gamma-jet events, while a small z _T region will be volume emission bias. In other words, gamma jets for a small-z _T region probe the dense matter deeper than those gamma jets for a large-z _T region, so the small-z _T gamma jets are found to be slightly more sensitive to the properties of the dense matter than the large-z _T gamma jets.     

Spectral Changes Due to Performance Environment in Singers, Nonsingers, and Actors

From postrecording interviews of professional singers, it was hypothesized that recording environments, i.e., sound-treated environment versus an auditorium, may induce different vocal behaviors. To test this hypothesis, three groups consisting of nonsingers, singers, and actors were recorded in two different recording environments: a sound-treated booth (IAC) and an auditorium (AUD). Three recordings were obtained from each participant: recording one (IAC) and two (AUD1) required the participants to read in a normal voice; recording three (AUD2) required participants to pretend that they were "performing" before a full house. Results indicated that only the singers and the actors exhibited significant spectral and/or frequency/duration differences from one recording environment to another, with the most dramatic differences exhibited by the singers. It was concluded that the environment in which we record experimental samples from professional voice users, especially singers, should be considered as a variable that can affect results.     

Eigenanalysis of some preconditioned Helmholtz problems

Summary. In this work we calculate the eigenvalues obtained by preconditioning the discrete Helmholtz operator with Sommerfeld-like boundary conditions on a rectilinear domain, by a related operator with boundary conditions that permit the use of fast solvers. The main innovation is that the eigenvalues for two and three-dimensional domains can be calculated exactly by solving a set of one-dimensional eigenvalue problems. This permits analysis of quite large problems. For grids fine enough to resolve the solution for a given wave number, preconditioning using Neumann boundary conditions yields eigenvalues that are uniformly bounded, located in the first quadrant, and outside the unit circle. In contrast, Dirichlet boundary conditions yield eigenvalues that approach zero as the product of wave number with the mesh size is decreased. These eigenvalue properties yield the first insight into the behavior of iterative methods such as GMRES applied to these preconditioned problems. Received March 24, 1998 / Revised version received September 28, 1998     

Relaxation mechanisms of the Zeeman sublevels of the phosphorescent triplet state of pyrazine at 1·6K

The observed change in the phosphorescence decay of the spin-aligned triplet state of pyrazine at 1·6K upon application of a magnetic field is examined both experimentally and theoretically. Experimentally, the decay curve is resolved into the three decay components of the three triplet sublevels in the field range of 0–6000 G. Both the decay constants and the fraction of total initial intensity of each decay component are determined for each field strength. Theoretically, the observed change in the decay characteristics is assumed to be solely due to the Zeeman mixing of the zero-field levels in the absence of spin-lattice relaxation processes. This has the effect of distributing the radiative strength of the strongly radiative zero-field level among the other two weakly radiative zero field levels. A simple approximate calculation gives excellent and encouraging agreement with experimental quantities in the range of validity of the approximations made (below 1000 G). A rigorous calculation was then performed using the exact solution of the secular equation resulting from the Hamiltonian including the spin-spin and Zeeman interactions. Due to the difficulty in finding a host of known crystal structure in which pyrazine can dissolve substitutionally and uniquely, the comparison between theory and experiment is made using a polycrystalline sample. A special averaging procedure is used in calculating a theoretical decay curve for each magnetic field strength used. The theoretical decay curve is then decomposed into three components employing the same computer programme used for decomposing the experimental decay curve. The agreement between the observed and the more rigorous calculated decay quantities is excellent up to 2000 G, but observed disagreement appears above 3000 G and increases with field strength. The calculated lifetimes above 3000 G are found to be longer than the observed ones. The difference is due to other relaxation mechanisms at these high fields, for example, in spin-lattice relaxation processes between the Zeeman sublevels of the lowest triplet state.     

Maximal proper acceleration and the structure of spacetime

A limiting proper acceleration in nature follows deductively from known physics and compels the union of spacetime and four-velocity space into a maximal-acceleration invariant phase space having an intrinsic Kaluza-Klein-type fiber-bundle structure with manifest gauge properties. The Riemann curvature scalar of the bundle manifold is determined, and a possible action principle is considered to serve as a basis for the generation of field equations.1. This is an expanded version of an invited paper presented at the Fifth Marcel Grossmann Meeting at the University of Western Australia, 8–12 August 1988.     

Free Energy as a Geometric Invariant

The free energy plays a fundamental role in statistical and condensed matter physics. A related notion of free energy plays an important role in the study of hyperbolic dynamical systems. In this paper we introduce and study a natural notion of free energy for surfaces with variable negative curvature. This geometric free energy encodes a new type of marked length spectrum of closed geodesics, which lies between the well-known marked length spectrum (marked by the corresponding element of the fundamental group) and the unmarked length spectrum. We prove that the free energy parametrizes the boundary of the domain of convergence of a Poincaré series which also encodes this spectrum. We also show that this new length spectrum, or equivalently the geometric free energy, is not an isometry invariant. In the final section we use tools from multifractal analysis to effect a fine asymptotic comparison of word length and geodesic length of closed geodesics. We hope that our geometric understanding of free energy will provide new insight into this fundamental physical and dynamical quantity. The work of the second author was partially supported by a National Science Foundation grant DMS-0355180. This work was completed during a visit by the first author to Penn State as a Shapiro Fellow.     

Crystallization in organo-mineral micro-domains in the crossed-lamellar layer of Nerita undata (Gastropoda, Neritopsina)

Crossed-lamellar shell microstructure consists of a sophisticated arrangement of interspersed lamellae, which is very commonly found in Gastropoda or Bivalvia shell layers. Its smallest constitutive microstructural units are usually described as sub-micrometric fibers, or rods, and form very ordered and regular patterns. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging confirms the presence of even smaller building units in the form of organo-mineral granules, and we further investigate their internal structure within aragonite crossed-lamellar internal layer of Nerita undata (Gastropoda, Neritopsina) shell. Their coalescence may have controlled anisotropically the propagation of the crystallographic coherence through this complex microstructure, as suggested by the propagation of the microtwinning pattern between neighboring granules.