Song of the dunes as a self-synchronized instrument

Since Marco Polo it has been known that some sand dunes have the peculiar ability to emit a loud sound with a well-defined frequency, sometimes for several minutes. The origin of this sustained sound has remained mysterious, partly because of its rarity in nature. It has been recognized that the sound is not due to the air flow around the dunes but to the motion of an avalanche, and not to an acoustic excitation of the grains but to their relative motion. By comparing singing dunes around the world and two controlled experiments, in the laboratory and the field, we prove that the frequency of the sound is the frequency of the relative motion of the sand grains. Sound is produced because moving grains synchronize their motions. The laboratory experiment shows that the dune is not needed for sound emission. A velocity threshold for sound emission is found in both experiments, and an interpretation is proposed.     

Huge excitonic effects in layered hexagonal boron nitride

The all-electron GW approximation energy band gap of bulk hexagonal boron nitride is shown to be of indirect type. The resulting computed in-plane polarized optical spectrum, obtained by solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the electron-hole two-particle Green function, is in excellent agreement with experiment and has a strong anisotropy compared to out-of-plane polarized spectrum. A detailed analysis of the excitonic structures within the band gap shows that the low-lying excitons belong to the Frenkel class and are tightly confined within the layers. The calculated exciton binding energy is much larger than that obtained by Watanabe et al. [Nat. Mater. 3, 404 (2004).] based on a Wannier model assuming h-BN to be a direct-band-gap semiconductor.     

A New Differential Method Applied to the Study of Arbitrary Cross Section Microstructured Optical Fibers

The present work adapts a recent grating theory called “Fast Fourier factorization” to cylindrical coordinates in order to study microstructured optical fibers (MOFs). Compared with the classical differential method, this new differential method takes into account the truncation of Fourier series and the discontinuities of the fields across the diffracting surface with the help of new factorization rules. The main advantage of this method is that the directrix of the diffracting cylindrical surface is arbitrary and permits anisotropic and inhomogeneous media although its numerical application needs longer computation time, compared with other well-known numerical methods. The S-propagation algorithm is used to avoid numerical contaminations. The numerical results are validated and compared with the well-established Multipole method in the case of a MOF with six circular cylinders. Further, a new cross-sectional profile (with sectorial inclusions) that the Multipole method cannot consider is studied.     

Directed and elliptic flow in 197Au+197Au at intermediate energies

Directed and elliptic flow for the ¹⁹⁷Au+¹⁹⁷Au system at incident energies between 40 and 150 MeV per nucleon has been measured using the INDRA 4π multi-detector. For semi-central collisions, the excitation function of elliptic flow shows a transition from in-plane to out-of-plane emission at around 100 MeV per nucleon. The directed flow changes sign at a bombarding energy between 50 and 60 MeV per nucleon and remains negative at lower energies. Molecular dynamics calculations (CHIMERA) indicate sensitivity of the global squeeze-out transition on the σ _NN and demonstrate the importance of angular momentum conservation in transport codes at low energies.     

Line Intensities in the ν6Band of CH3F at 8.5 μm

Infrared absolute line intensities of the ν₆band of CH₃F have been measured around 8.5 μm using a diode-laser spectrometer. These line strengths were obtained by the equivalent width method and, for 13 lines, by fitting a Rautian profile to the measured shape of the lines. From these results, we have deduced the vibrational band strength to beS⁰_v= 9.66 ± 0.13 cm⁻²atm⁻¹at 296 K and the first Herman–Wallis factors.     

Strangelet search and particle production studies in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 AGeV/c at CERN SPS

We searched for long-lived strange quark matter particles, so-calledstrangelets, and studied particle and antiparticle production in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon at zero degree production angle. We give upper limits for the production of strangelets covering a mass to charge ratio up to 120 GeV/c ² and lifetimest _lab>1.2 μs and plot invariant differential production cross sections as a function of rapidity for a variety of particles.     

Recent results on hyperpolarized<Superscript>3</Superscript>He−<Superscript>4</Superscript>He liquid mixtures

Laser optical pumping in low magnetic field provides very high nuclear polarizations in gaseous helium mixtures, and is used to prepare polarized liquid. Wall relaxation in glass cells is effiently reduced using cesium coatings, and bulk longitudinal relaxation times are measured. In highly magnetized samples, dipolar fields control the spin dynamics in anisotropic volumes and weak external magnetic field inhomogeneities. Long lived magnetostatic modes are observed by pulsed NMR. Detailed analysis of their frequency and damping gives information on magnetization density and spin diffusion coefficient in polarized mixtures. Experiments are performed above 0.2 K on mixtures with³He concentrations of order a few percents or larger. When phase separation occurs, the³He-rich phase retains a high polarization.     

A Mössbauer spectroscopic study of cobalt-iron molybdates

Fe _x Co_1–x MoO₄ compounds prepared by coprecipitation were studied by XRD, electrical conductivity and mainly by absorption and emission Mössbauer spectroscopy. FeMoO₄ and CoMoO₄ samples were shown to contain Fe³⁺ and Co³⁺, respectively, in solid solution. Three kinds of Fe _x Co_1–x MoO₄ solids can be described. Forx0.16: one has a -Co(Fe²⁺, Fe³⁺)MoO₄ solid solution. For 0.17x0.25: one has the same solid solution with its surface rich in Fe³⁺. Forx0.26: one has the same solid solution with only bulk Fe³⁺, and ferric molybdate. Studies of reduction by hydrogen and of catalytic reaction of mechanical mixtures of CoMoO₄ and ferric molybdate support these statements.