Angular anisotropy and dichroism in molecular Auger spectroscopy following photo-absorption

This paper shows that angular distribution of spin-unresolved Auger electrons emitted in the decay of a vacancy created by the absorption of a photon in a certain class of free, unpolarized and gaseous non-linear molecules is completely characterized by three, rather than by two well-known parameters. The presence of this additional third parameter gives rise to circular dichroic effect which varies as cosine of the angle made by the departing Auger electron with the direction of incidence of the circularly polarized radiation. Linear dichroic effect varies as the square of sine of the angle made by the direction of emission of Auger electron and the polar axis of the space frame. Linear and circular dichroism in the angular correlation between theE ₁ photoelectron and Auger electron emitted sequentially from a molecule belonging to one of the 32 point groups has also been investigated.     

Conversion of longitudinal waves into electromagnetic radiation by a non-uniform plasma

Conversion of dispersive longitudinal oscillation into electromagnetic radiation field in a non uniform warm fluid plasma is studied with the help of the linear equations of coupled wave fields deduced earlier by Chakraborty (1971). Expression for the radiated Poynting flux is obtained in the far field approximation. Visiting Fellow. Permanent Address: Mathematics Department, Jadavpur University, Calcutta-32, India.     

Direct Numerical Simulation of Head-On Quenching of Statistically Planar Turbulent Premixed Methane-Air Flames Using a Detailed Chemical Mechanism

A three-dimensional compressible Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) analysis has been carried out for head-on quenching of a statistically planar stoichiometric methane-air flame by an isothermal inert wall. A multi-step chemical mechanism for methane-air combustion is used for the purpose of detailed chemistry DNS. For head-on quenching of stoichiometric methane-air flames, the mass fractions of major reactant species such as methane and oxygen tend to vanish at the wall during flame quenching. The absence of \(\text {OH}\) at the wall gives rise to accumulation of carbon monoxide during flame quenching because \(\text {CO}\) cannot be oxidised anymore. Furthermore, it has been found that low-temperature reactions give rise to accumulation of \(\text {HO}_{2}\) and \(\mathrm {H}_{2}\mathrm {O}_{2}\) at the wall during flame quenching. Moreover, these low temperature reactions are responsible for non-zero heat release rate at the wall during flame-wall interaction. In order to perform an in-depth comparison between simple and detailed chemistry DNS results, a corresponding simulation has been carried out for the same turbulence parameters for a representative single-step Arrhenius type irreversible chemical mechanism. In the corresponding simple chemistry simulation, heat release rate vanishes once the flame reaches a threshold distance from the wall. The distributions of reaction progress variable c and non-dimensional temperature T are found to be identical to each other away from the wall for the simple chemistry simulation but this equality does not hold during head-on quenching. The inequality between c (defined based on \(\text {CH}_{4}\) mass fraction) and T holds both away from and close to the wall for the detailed chemistry simulation but it becomes particularly prominent in the near-wall region. The temporal evolutions of wall heat flux and wall Peclet number (i.e. normalised wall-normal distance of \(T = 0.9\) isosurface) for both simple and detailed chemistry laminar and turbulent cases have been found to be qualitatively similar. However, small differences have been observed in the numerical values of the maximum normalised wall heat flux magnitude \(\left ({\Phi }_{\max } \right )_{\mathrm {L}}\) and the minimum Peclet number \((Pe_{\min })_{\mathrm {L}}\) obtained from simple and detailed chemistry based laminar head-on quenching calculations. Detailed explanations have been provided for the observed differences in behaviours of \(\left ({\Phi }_{\max }\right )_{\mathrm {L}}\) and \((Pe_{\min })_{\mathrm {L}}\). The usual Flame Surface Density (FSD) and scalar dissipation rate (SDR) based reaction rate closures do not adequately predict the mean reaction rate of reaction progress variable in the near-wall region for both simple and detailed chemistry simulations. It has been found that recently proposed FSD and SDR based reaction rate closures based on a-priori DNS analysis of simple chemistry data perform satisfactorily also for the detailed chemistry case both away from and close to the wall without any adjustment to the model parameters.     

A DNS Study of Closure Relations for Convection Flux Term in Transport Equation for Mean Reaction Rate in Turbulent Flow

The present work aims at modeling the entire convection flux \(\overline {\rho \mathbf {u}W}\) in the transport equation for a mean reaction rate \(\overline {\rho W}\) in a turbulent flow, which (equation) was recently put forward by the present authors. In order to model the flux, several simple closure relations are developed by introducing flow velocity conditioned to reaction zone and interpolating this velocity between two limit expressions suggested for the leading and trailing edges of the mean flame brush. Subsequently, the proposed simple closure relations for \(\overline {\rho \mathbf {u}W}\) are assessed by processing two sets of data obtained in earlier 3D Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) studies of adiabatic, statistically planar, turbulent, premixed, single-step-chemistry flames characterized by unity Lewis number. One dataset consists of three cases characterized by different density ratios and is associated with the flamelet regime of premixed turbulent combustion. Another dataset consists of four cases characterized by different low Damköhler and large Karlovitz numbers. Accordingly, this dataset is associated with the thin reaction zone regime of premixed turbulent combustion. Under conditions of the former DNS, difference in the entire, \(\overline {\rho {u}W}\), and mean, \(\tilde {u}\overline {\rho W}\), convection fluxes is well pronounced, with the turbulent flux, \(\overline {\rho u^{\prime \prime }W^{\prime \prime }}\), showing countergradient behavior in a large part of the mean flame brush. Accordingly, the gradient diffusion closure of the turbulent flux is not valid under such conditions, but some proposed simple closure relations allow us to predict the entire flux \(\overline {\rho \mathbf {u}W}\) reasonably well. Under conditions of the latter DNS, the difference in the entire and mean convection fluxes is less pronounced, with the aforementioned simple closure relations still resulting in sufficiently good agreement with the DNS data.     

Application of spectroscopic techniques for monitoring microbial diversity and bioremediation

Microbes are the most fascinating group, with huge diversity devising myriad functional applications in the field of medicine, pharmaceuticals, environmental remediation, and industries. Quantitative and qualitative determination of biomolecules and microbial assisted phenomena by spectroscopy is a pioneer approach. It facilitates the study of atomic and molecular geometries, energy levels, chemical bonds, and interactions between molecules and microbes. It produces fingerprints of the microbial species serving to characterize, differentiate, and identify microorganisms, in both the environment and at single-cell level. Spectroscopy-based bioremediation techniques like Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, force spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, photoemission spectroscopy, and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy have been very well represented and linked with the microbial applications. This review summarizes the traditional spectroscopic techniques used for the study of microbes and microbial-assisted products as well as illustrates its application in the field of microbial diversity and remediation. This will provide an outlook for the intricate characterization and dimension of microbes to be used for effective application in bioremediation.     

Current gain and external quantum efficiency modeling of GeSn based direct bandgap multiple quantum well heterojunction phototransistor

This paper aims to provide the performance characteristics of proposed, strain balanced direct band gap multiple quantum wells (MQWs) hetero phototransistor (HPT) made of SiGeSn/GeSn alloys grown on Si substrate which is compatible with recent CMOS fabrication technology. This also presents a comprehensive comparison of this proposed structure with the existing HPT structure made of indirect gap Ge/SiGe MQWs. Alloys of Ge and Sn grown on Si platform shows about tenfold increase in absorption over Ge at C and L-bands due to direct nature of band gap in GeSn. Initial work begins the solution of continuity equation to solve the different terminal current densities and optical gain of the multiple quantum well structure. Main analysis was concentrated on finding the external quantum efficiency depending on the doping variations of emitter and base, base width etc. Finally the photocurrent density variations are estimated for the structure and compared with existing indirect band gap HPT. The calculated values for direct band gap GeSn HPT device are found to be comparable with those for indirect band gap SiGe device to flourish as a potential candidate of photo detectors for the present day telecommunication network.     

On dynamics of velocity vector potential in incompressible fluids

An elegant quaternionic formulation is given for the Lagrangian advection equation for velocity vector potential in fluid dynamics. At first we study the topological significance of a restricted conserved quantity viz., stream-helicity and later more realistic configuration of open streamlines is figured out. Also, using Clebsch parameterisation of the velocity vector potential yet another physical significance for the stream-helicity is provided. Finally we give a Nambu-Poisson formalism of the Lagrangian advection equation for velocity vector potential.     

An improved model for computing the reflectivity of a AlAs/GaAs based distributed bragg reflector and vertical cavity surface emitting laser

In this paper, reflectivity of a Distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR) has been computed by considering the effects of changes of wavelength on the changes of the refractive index of the materials of DBR layers. The intrinsic losses of the materials have been included in the computation of the reflectivity of the DBR. It has been found that the effect of change of the wavelength on the refractive index of the DBR materials reduces the Full Width Half Maxima (FWHM) of the stop band significantly which is expected to improve the laser characteristics. If the FWHM is reduced, the thickness of the active layer of a VCSEL can also be reduced which will further reduce the threshold current of the device. It has been found that the intrinsic losses of the materials have a significant effect on the reflectivity of a DBR. It has also been found that peak reflectivity of a 20 pair AlAs/GaAs DBR reduces by 0.2% after including the intrinsic losses (with a value of the intrinsic losses α = 10 cm^?1).     

Effect of unfolding on the thickness of the hydration layer of a protein

Properties of water in the hydration layer around a protein is intimately correlated with its function. A knowledge of the thickness of the hydration layer is important to understand its role in guiding the folding-unfolding of the protein. We have performed atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of the folded native and a partially unfolded molten globule structure of the villin headpiece subdomain or HP-36 in aqueous solution to estimate the effect of unfolding on the thickness of hydration layer around different segments of the protein. In particular, several dynamic properties of water around different segments of the folded native and the unfolded structure have been calculated by varying the thickness of the hydration layers. It is found that unfolding of a segment of the protein is correlated with the dynamics of water around it, i.e., within the first hydration layer. The effect of unfolding on water properties has been found to diminish when water molecules present beyond the first hydration layer were included in the calculations.      

Stabilization of β-hairpin structures via inter-strand π-π and hydrogen bond interactions in α-, β-, γ-hybrid peptides

Synthesis and conformational studies of α-, β-, γ-hybrid peptides containing a pyrrole amino acid (Paa, 1) and a furan amino acid (Faa, 2), namely Boc-β-Phe-Faa-d-Pro-Gly-Paa-β-HGly-Faa-OMe (3) and Boc-Paa-β-Phe-Faa-d-Pro-Gly-Paa-β-HGly-Faa-OMe (4), were carried out and they adopt β-hairpin structures stabilized via inter-strand π-π and hydrogen bonding interactions.