Pfaffian systems and Radon transforms on affine Grassmann manifolds

Mathematische Annalen -     

Plasma property effects on spectral line broadening in double-pulse laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

Double-pulse Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) in an orthogonal configuration was used to investigate plasma temperature and electron density effects on Mg II emission spectral line broadening. The experiments were carried out with two Nd:YAG lasers, one operating at 355 nm for ablation and the other one at 1064 nm for plasma reheating in air at atmospheric pressure. Temporally resolved plasma temperature and electron density were measured at various delay times. Data in this study show prolonged emission of Mg II (280.27 nm) as well as enhancement of the signal intensity when using double-pulse excitation compared to the single-pulse case. An enhancement of ～8× was attained with a delay between the laser pulses equal to 1 μs. The enhancement was accompanied by higher plasma temperature and increased electron density. The double-pulse LIBS configuration provides energy to sustain the plasma emission at a period in time when the linewidth is minimum, thereby improving the analytical capabilities of low spectral resolution instrumentation typically used in LIBS system.     

Rotationally Resolved REMPI Spectra of CaH in a Molecular Beam

Rotationally resolved spectra of the CaH radical using a supersonic molecular beam are reported. Thus, high energy resolution of the (1+1′) REMPI spectra corresponding to the A←X and B←X electronic transitions were measured which allowed for the first time a clear and precise analysis of the low rotational part (J≤7) of the CaH spectrum. A comparison with previous studies revealed that the commonly accepted energy separation between the two band heads of B−X (v′=1, v′=0) of 10 cm⁻¹ is not correct. A value of ca. 1.6 cm⁻¹ was found to be more realistic. On the other hand, the present study confirmed that the perturbation appears only for v′=1, N′>3 of the B state.     

Muonium formation in xenon and argon up to 60 atmospheres

Results of muon polarization studies in xenon and argon up to 60 atm are reported. In argon for pressures up to 10 atm, the muon polarization is best explained by an epithermalcharge exchange model. Above this pressure, the decrease inP _D and increase inP _L are ascribed to charge neutralization and spin exchange reactions, respectively, in the radiolysis track. Measurements with Xe/He mixtures with a xenon pressure of 1 atm indicate that the lost polarization in the pure xenon at this pressure is due to inefficient moderation of the muon. As the pressure in pure xenon is increased above 10 atm, we find thatP _L remains roughly constant andP _D begins to increase. The lost fraction may be due to the formation of a XeMu Van der Waals type complex, whileP _D is ascribed to XeMu⁺ formation. This suggests that spur processes appear to be less important in xenon than in argon.     

Minimal boundaries enclosing a given volume

We prove some facts concerning surfaces of minimal area bounding regions of prescribed volume in ⁿ. The main result we prove is that the mean curvature of such a surface is constant, if possibly a discontinuous function of the enclosed volume. The boundary behaviour of the solutions is also discussed.     

Manipulating the magnetoimpedance by dc bias current in amorphous microwire

We have studied the effect of the internal circumferential magnetic field H_B created by the dc bias current I_B on longitudinal and off-diagonal magnetoimpedance (MI) in amorphous microwire with helical anisotropy and experimentally demonstrated that by changing the dc current I_B it is possible to considerably change the MI dependencies. The bias current applied to such microwire transforms the symmetric and hysteretic MI curve to asymmetrical and anhysteretic. The minimum of longitudinal MI curve shifts from the zero-field point. Reversing the bias current causes reversal of the bias field direction and results in a mirroring of the MI curves. It is proposed to apply a cross-checking of two MI curves with I_B of different polarity for magnetic field sensing. In particular, this method allows to overcome the drawbacks usually associated with longitudinal MI—namely the impossibility to determine the direction of an external axial magnetic field H_E and the low sensitivity near the zero-field point. Moreover, the operating range of the longitudinal MI sensor, in contrast to the off-diagonal one, can be much extended as it exhibits a quite high sensitivity in the field range up to one order of magnitude higher than the anisotropy field.     

Precise mass measurement of a double-stranded 500 base-pair (309 kDa) polymerase chain reaction product by negative ion electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry

Electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (ESI-FTICRMS) has been used to determine the mass of a double-stranded 500 base-pair (bp) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product with an average theoretical mass of the blunt-ended (i.e. unadenylated) species of 308 859.35 Da. The PCR product was generated from the linearized bacteriophage Lambda genome which is a double-stranded template. Utilization of ethanol precipitation in tandem with a rapid microdialysis step to purify and desalt the PCR product was crucial to obtain a precise mass measurement. The PCR product (0.8 pmol/μL) was electrosprayed from a solution containing 75% acetonitrile, 25 mM piperidine, and 25 mM imidazole and was infused at a rate of 200 nL/min. The average molecular mass and the corresponding precision were determined using the charge-states ranging from 172 to 235 net negative charges. The experimental mass and corresponding precision (reported as the 95% confidence interval of the mean) was 309 406 +/- 27 Da (87 ppm). The mass accuracy was compromised due to the fact that the PCR generates multiple products when using Taq polymerase due to the non-template directed 3'-adenylation. This results in a mixture of three PCR products with nearly identical mass (i.e. blunt-ended, mono-adenylated and di-adenylated) with unknown relative abundances that were not resolved in the spectrum. Thus, the experimental mass will be a weighted average of the three species which, under our experimental conditions, reflects a nearly equal concentration of the mono- and di-adenylated species. This report demonstrates that precise mass measurements of PCR products up to 309 kDa (500 bp) can be routinely obtained by ESI-FTICR requiring low femtomole amounts. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fusion reactions with the one-neutron halo nucleus (15)C

The structure of (15)C, with an s(1/2) neutron weakly bound to a closed-neutron shell nucleus (14)C, makes it a prime candidate for a one-neutron halo nucleus. We have for the first time studied the cross section for the fusion-fission reaction (15)C+(232)Th at energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier and compared it to the yield of the neighboring (14)C+(232)Th system measured in the same experiment. At sub-barrier energies, an enhancement of the fusion yield by factors of 2-5 was observed for (15)C, while the cross sections for (14)C match the trends measured for (12,13)C.     

Measurement of the B(+) production cross section in pp collisions at sqrt[s]=7 TeV

Measurements of the total and differential cross sections dσ/dp(T)(B) and dσ/dy(B) for B(+) mesons produced in pp collisions at sqrt[s]=7 TeV are presented. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 5.8 pb(-1) collected by the CMS experiment operating at the LHC. The exclusive decay B(+)→J/ψK(+), with J/ψ→μ(+)μ(-), is used to detect B(+) mesons and to measure the production cross section as a function of p(T)(B) and y(B). The total cross section for p(T)(B)>5 GeV and |y(B)|<2.4 is measured to be 28.1±2.4±2.0±3.1 μb, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is systematic, and the last is from the luminosity measurement.