Thermally stimulated luminescence and infrared studies of CaS : Bi,Tm phosphors

Calcium sulphide phosphors doped with bismuth and thulium are prepared from Indian minerals. The glow curves are recorded in the temperature range of 96–320 °K. The activation energies are determined by analyzing the glow peaks after thermal cleaning, using different methods. The results show that, in these phosphors, the electron traps responsible for thermoluminescence are present prior to irradiation. The infrared absorption spectra are recorded in the range of 4000-250 cm^-1. It is concluded that the traps are due to host lattice defects which may arise from S^-2 ion vacancies, created during phosphor preparation.     

The vanishing likelihood of space-time singularity in quantum conformal cosmology

A general formalism is developed for studying the behavior of quantized conformal fluctuations near the space-time singularity of classical relativistic cosmology. It is shown that if the material contents of space-time are made of massive particles which obey the principle of asymptotic freedom and interact only gravitationally, then it is possible to estimate the quantum mechanical probability that, of the various possible conformal transforms of the classical Einstein solution, the actual model had a singularity in the past. This probability turns out to be vanishingly small, thus indicating that within the regime of quantum conformal cosmology it is extremely unlikely that the universe originated out of a space-time singularity.     

Quantum fluctuations near the classical space-time singularity

The method of path integration is used to study the effects of quantum fluctuations in the space-time geometry near the classical singularity of general relativity. It is shown that in certain special cases explicit Feynman propagators can be constructed which enable us to evaluate these fluctuationsquantitatively. The cases discussed are (i) the gravitational collapse of a uniform dust ball, (ii) the Friedmann cosmologies, (iii) the axisymmetric Bianchi type I cosmological model, and (iv) the general anisotropic Bianchi type I cosmological model. In all cases discussed here the quantum uncertainty grows to infinity as the classical space-time singularity is approached. In this wider regime of quantum gravitation nonsingular solutions can occur with finite probabilities.     

On identical nature of the superconductivity mechanisms in 30 K and 90 K superconductors

A systematic study of Zn substitution in both lanthanum and yttrium-based oxide superconductors withT _cof 30 K and 90 K has been carried out simultaneously under identical conditions. Contrary to the general belief, the results indicate that the mechanism responsible for superconductivity in 30 K compounds is unlikely to be radically different from that of the 90 K compounds.