Specific heat of disordered superfluid 3He

The specific heat of superfluid 3He, disordered by a silica aerogel, is found to have a sharp discontinuity marking the thermodynamic transition to superfluidity at a temperature reduced from that of bulk 3He. The magnitude of the discontinuity is also suppressed. This disorder effect can be understood from the Ginzburg-Landau theory which takes into account elastic quasiparticle scattering suppressing both the transition temperature and the amplitude of the order parameter. We infer that the limiting temperature dependence of the specific heat is linear at low temperatures in the disordered superfluid state, consistent with predictions of gapless excitations everywhere on the Fermi surface.     

Local control of light polarization with low-temperature fiber optics

A fiber-optic-based polarization control system that uses a backreflection measurement scheme at low temperatures has been developed. This provides a stringent test of the light polarization state at the output of the fiber, allowing for determination and control of the degree of circular polarization; i.e., it can generate linear, right, or left circular polarization with cryogenic fibers. This polarization controller is paving the way toward the control and manipulation of nuclear spins in semiconductors via the optical Overhauser effect and could be used, for example, for the purpose of quantum information processing with the large nuclear spins of GaAs.     

Simple DFT model of clusters embedded in rare gas matrix: trapping sites and spectroscopic properties of Na embedded in Ar

We present a theoretical model to study the dynamics of metallic clusters embedded in a rare gas matrix. We describe the active electrons of the embedded cluster using time dependent density functional theory, while the surrounding matrix is described in terms of classical molecular dynamics of polarizable atoms. The coupling between the cluster and the rare gas atoms is deduced from the work of Gross and Spiegelmann [J. Chem. Phys. 108, 4148 (1998)] and reformulated explicitly in a simple and efficient density functional form. The electron rare gas interaction takes the form of an averaged dipole fluctuation term, which retains the van der Waals long range interaction, and a short range repulsive pseudopotential, which accounts for the Pauli repulsion of the electron by the rare gas atom. We applied our model to Na clusters embedded in Ar matrix. For the latter we developed an efficient local pseudopotential, which allows studying systems containing more than 10(3) Ar atoms. We show that large systems are indeed necessary to account properly for long range polarization of the matrix, that competes with the matrix confinement effect. We focus our study on Na(2), Na(4), and Na(8). For each system, we have determined the geometry of the most favorable trapping site by means of damped molecular dynamics. We present the effect of matrix embedding on the optical absorption spectrum. For Na(2), the trapping site can be unambiguously identified by comparison of the absorption spectrum with experiment. For Na(4) the spectrum of the embedded cluster is significantly different from the free cluster spectrum, while for Na(8) differences are less pronounced.     

Diastereoselective synthesis of 2,3,5-trisubstituted tetrahydrofurans via cyclofunctionalization reactions. Evidence of stereoelectronic effects.

The work described herein considers the impact of stereoelectronic effects and allylic 1,3-strain in controlling the cyclofunctionalization reaction when a hydroxyl group is at the allylic position. The stereoelectronic arguments are supported by independent iodocyclization reactions performed using two secondary alcohols. The transition-state pathways involved in these reactions are established through a comparison of relative reaction rates. A bi-directional approach is used to demonstrate the potential of the iodocyclization reaction to differentiate a terminus in molecules with a pseudo C(2) axis of symmetry, showing that two-directional synthesis can be used to differentiate between alternative transition-state pathways.     

The α2‐polymorph of salicylidene­aniline

N‐Salicylideneaniline (SA), C₁₃H₁₁NO, belongs to the large family of aromatic Schiff bases. It is of particular importance owing to its reversible photoreactivity. SA forms two photochromic polymorphs, both with two non‐coplanar benzene rings. In addition, we have recently discovered a planar polymorph, named the β‐polymorph, which will be discussed in a subsequent paper. We report here the structure of the α₂‐polymorph in the orthorhombic crystal system. This compound exhibits a strong intra­molecular O—H⋯N hydrogen bond and the dihedral angle between the two rings varies with temperature.     

W-geometry from chiral embeddings

Recent work by Y. Matsuo and the present author is summarized. It is shown that, classically, the conformal Toda equations associated with the simple lie algebras A_n sl (n + 1) follow from the embedding of particular 2D surfaces in CPⁿ. Since these Toda theories provide Noether realizations of W-symmetries, this gives the geometrical interpretation of the corresponding two-dimensional physics.     

Water injection effects on hot supersonic jet noiseEffets de la température sur le rayonnement acoustique des jets supersoniques en présence d'injection d'eau

The effects of temperature both on supersonic jet noise with water injection (used for noise reduction) and on the efficiency of the method are investigated. The location of injection varies from 1.5D to 15D while the other parameters remain fixed to their optimum values. One notices better overall noise level reductions by injecting close to the nozzle exit. Moreover spectral analysis emphasizes that attenuation in high and low frequencies depends on the location of injection. Finally, the jet temperature does not greatly affect the efficiency of this method as the measured attenuation is similar to that encountered with supersonic jets with ambiant temperature. To cite this article: Y. Marchesse et al., C. R. Mecanique 330 (2002) 1–8     

Dual string spectrum in Polyakov's quantization (II). Mode separation

The analysis of our first paper is completed by (a) explicitly working out the set of ground state classical motions, (b) separating the modes into equally spaced harmonic oscillators. The Virasoro generators are obtained as quadratic expressions of these modes providing a spectrum generating algebra. The quantum spectrum is shown to be similar to a standard string spectrum with a new kind of zero mode associated with a representation of a dynamical SU(2) group.     

New quantum treatment of Liouville field theory

We exhibit a new treatment of the quantum Liouville theory in a box. In this treatment, the central charge of the Virasoro algebra is finite at the critical dimension of the associated string model, and we show how to reconstruct conformally covariant quantum field operators, in terms of a set of equally spaced harmonic oscillators.