Alternating field-induced phase transition in zigzag carbon nanotubes

We predict the possibility of spontaneous emergence of a constant electric field in carbon nanotubes if a high-frequency electric field is applied to them. The effect can be related to the nonequilibrium state of the electron subsystem of carbon nanotubes. The characteristics of the spontaneous field with respect to the parameters of the problem under consideration are revealed.     

Statistical analysis of the autoregressive modeling of reverberant speech

Hands-free speech input is required in many modern telecommunication applications that employ autoregressive (AR) techniques such as linear predictive coding. When the hands-free input is obtained in enclosed reverberant spaces such as typical office rooms, the speech signal is distorted by the room transfer function. This paper utilizes theoretical results from statistical room acoustics to analyze the AR modeling of speech under these reverberant conditions. Three cases are considered: (i) AR coefficients calculated from a single observation; (ii) AR coefficients calculated jointly from an M-channel observation (M > 1); and (iii) AR coefficients calculated from the output of a delay-and sum beamformer. The statistical analysis, with supporting simulations, shows that the spatial expectation of the AR coefficients for cases (i) and (ii) are approximately equal to those from the original speech, while for case (iii) there is a discrepancy due to spatial correlation between the microphones which can be significant. It is subsequently demonstrated that at each individual source-microphone position (without spatial expectation), the M-channel AR coefficients from case (ii) provide the best approximation to the clean speech coefficients when microphones are closely spaced (<0.3m).     

Host-guest complexes of carotenoids with beta-glycyrrhizic acid

The structure, stability, and reactivity of the host-guest complexes between a set of carotenoids and the triterpene glycoside, beta-glycyrrhizic acid (GA), were investigated by different physicochemical techniques: high-performance liquid chromatography, optical absorption, and fluorescence spectroscopy. It has been demonstrated recently that the molecular complexes of GA with a number of drugs are characterized by reduced toxicity and increased therapeutic activity of these drugs. In the present work it was found that carotenoids form 1:2 complexes with GA in aqueous solutions as well as in polar organic solvents, methanol, acetonitrile, and dimethylsulfoxide. We assume that the structure of the complex is a cycliclike dimer of GA encapsulating a carotenoid molecule. The stability constants in all solvents are near 10(4) M(-1). In addition, GA forms inclusion complexes with carotenoid radical cations, which results in their stabilization. Complex formation (a) decreases the rate of electron transfer from carotenoids to electron acceptors (Fe3+ or quinone) and (b) considerably increases the lifetime of the carotenoid-quinone charge-transfer complex and the yield of the major product (a carotenoid-quinone adduct). A thermodynamic study shows that hydrophobic interactions are the main driving force of the carotenoid-GA complex formation. These results are important for understanding both the nature of GA complexes and the influence of GA on the therapeutic activity of some drugs. Furthermore, carotenoid-GA complexes could be used for the design of artificial light-harvesting, photoredox, and catalytic systems.     

Superglass phase of 4He

We study different solid phases of 4He, by means of path integral Monte Carlo simulations based on a recently developed worm algorithm. Our study includes simulations that start off from a high- gas phase, which is then "quenched" down to T = 0.2 K. The low-T properties of the system crucially depend on the initial state. While an ideal hcp crystal is a clear-cut insulator, the disordered system freezes into a superglass, i.e., a metastable amorphous solid featuring off-diagonal long-range order and superfluidity.     

Entropy enhancement and black hole microstates

We show that the entropy of fluctuating two-charge supertubes placed in three-charge scaling microstate solutions depends on their "effective" charges, which in strong magnetic fields can be much larger than their charges. This leads to a much larger entropy than one naively would expect. Since fluctuating supertubes source smooth geometries in certain duality frames, we propose that such an entropy enhancement mechanism might lead to a black-hole-like entropy coming entirely from configurations that are smooth and horizonless in the regime of parameters where the classical black hole exists.     

Modified method of simplest equation and its application to nonlinear PDEs

We search for traveling-wave solutions of the class of PDEswhere A_p(Q),B_r(Q),C_s(Q),D_u(Q) and F(Q) are polynomials of Q. The basis of the investigation is a modification of the method of simplest equation. The equations of Bernoulli, Riccati and the extended tanh-function equation are used as simplest equations. The obtained general results are illustrated by obtaining exact solutions of versions of the generalized Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, reaction-diffusion equation with density-dependent diffusion, and the reaction-telegraph equation.