Hydrogen storage in sonicated carbon materials

The hydrogen storage in purified single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), graphite and diamond powder was investigated at room temperature and ambient pressure. The samples were sonicated in 5 M HNO₃ for various periods of time using an ultrasonic probe of the alloy Ti-6Al-4V. The goal of this treatment was to open the carbon nanotubes. The maximum value of overall hydrogen storage was found to be 1.5 wt %, as determined by thermal desorption spectroscopy. The storage capacity increases with sonication time. The sonication treatment introduces particles of the Ti alloy into the samples, as shown by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and chemical analysis. All of the hydrogen uptake can be explained by the assumption that the hydrogen is only stored in the Ti-alloy particles. The presence of Ti-alloy particles does not allow the determination of whether a small amount of hydrogen possibly is stored in the SWNTs themselves, and the fraction of nanotubes opened by the sonication treatment is unknown. Received: 18 December 2000 / Accepted: 18 December 2000 / Published online: 9 February 2001     

Discrete optimization in public rail transport

Many problems arising in traffic planning can be modelled and solved using discrete optimization. We will focus on recent developments which were applied to large scale real world instances. Most railroad companies apply a hierarchically structured planning process. Starting with the definition of the underlying network used for transport one has to decide which infrastructural improvements are necessary. Usually, the rail system is periodically scheduled. A fundamental base of the schedule are the lines connecting several stations with a fixed frequency. Possible objectives for the construction of the line plan may be the minimization of the total cost or the maximization of the passengers’s comfort satisfying certain regulations. After the lines of the system are fixed, the train schedule can be determined. A criterion for the quality of a schedule is the total transit time of the passengers including the waiting time which should be minimized satisfying some operational constraints. For each trip of the schedule a train consisting of a locomotive and some carriages is needed for service. The assignment of rolling stock to schedule trips has to satisfy operational requirements. A comprehensible objective is to minimize the total cost. After all strategic and tactical planning the schedule has to be realized. Several external influences, for example delayed trains, force the dispatcher to recompute parts of the schedule on-line. A Web page with examples quoted in this survey can be found at http://www.math.tu-bs.de/mo/ismp.html.     

Transient magnetic reconnection and unstable shear layers

We study three-dimensional magnetic reconnection caused by the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability and differential rotation in subsonic and sub-Alfvenic flows. The flows, which are modeled by the resistive magnetohydrodynamic equations with constant resistivity, are stable in the direction of the magnetic field but unstable perpendicular to the magnetic field. Localized transient reconnection is observed on the KH time scale, and kinetic energy increases with decreasing resistivity. As in flux-transfer events in the Earth's magnetopause boundary layer, bipolar structures in the normal flux and bidirectional jetting away from reconnection zones are observed.     

Field induced biquadratic exchange in hard/soft ferromagnetic bilayers

The appearance of biquadratic exchange coupling between soft Fe and hard SmCo thin layers is found. The remanent magnetization in the Fe layer reorients from parallel to perpendicular with respect to the SmCo easy axis after application of large enough negative field. To explain such an unexpected behavior in contacting ferromagnetic layers a model is proposed based on Slonczewski's fluctuating exchange mechanism. In our samples a partial remagnetization of the hard layer creates fluctuations of the bilinear interactions. The intralayer exchange averaging of the resulting magnetization fluctuations in the soft layer causes the observed biquadratic coupling.     

Very compact tunable solid-state laser utilizing a thin-film organic semiconductor

Optically pumped organic semiconductor lasers are fabricated by evaporation of a thin film of tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq(3)) molecularly doped with a laser dye on top of a polyester substrate with an embossed grating structure. We achieve low-threshold, longitudinally monomode distributed-feedback laser operation. By varying the film thickness of the organic semiconductor film, we can tune the wavelength of the surface-emitting laser over 44 nm. The low laser threshold allows the use of a very compact all-solid-state pump laser ( approximately 10 cm long). This concept opens up a way to obtain inexpensive lasers that are tunable over the whole visible range.     

Monopoles in an antiferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate

We show that even in three dimensions an antiferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate, which can, for instance, be created with (23)Na atoms in an optical trap, has not only singular linelike vortex excitations, but also allows for singular pointlike topological excitations, i.e., monopoles similar to the 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles. We discuss the static and dynamic properties of these monopoles.     

Nonlinear stationary waves with transport current in superconductors

The profile of a nonlinear stationary thermomagnetic wave in the resistive state of superconductors is studied at different transport currents. It is proved that the thermomagnetic wave has an oscillating profile at relatively high values of the transport current in the sample. A shock wave with a monotonic structure corresponds to comparatively weak transport currents. The wave propagation velocity and the wave front width in a superconductor are estimated.     

Inclusive excitation-energy distributions of hot nuclei from 44 MeV/nucleon Ar- and 32 MeV/nucleon Kr-induced reactions

Inclusive neutron multiplicity distributions were measured by means of 4π liquid-scintillator detectors for Ar and Kr-induced reactions at 44 MeV/nucleon and 32 MeV/nucleon, respectively. For all the systems studied, the observed distributions exhibit a bump structure at large multiplicity, corresponding to highly dissipative collisions. For Ar-induced reactions, the excitation energies necessary to explain the most probable neutron multiplicity associated with these dissipative collisions are estimated, the correspondence between excitation energy and neutron multiplicity being calculated in the framework of the statistical model. The so-obtained values of excitation energies, which are systematically lower than those predicted using the massive-transfer picture, are discussed.     

A study of dipolar interactions and dynamic processes of water molecules in tendon by 1H and 2H homonuclear and heteronuclear multiple-quantum-filtered NMR spectroscopy

The effect of proton exchange on the measurement of 1H-1H, 1H-2H, and 2H-2H residual dipolar interactions in water molecules in bovine Achilles tendons was investigated using double-quantum-filtered (DQF) NMR and new pulse sequences based on heteronuclear and homonuclear multiple-quantum filtering (MQF). Derivation of theoretical expressions for these techniques allowed evaluation of the 1H-1H and 1H-2H residual dipolar interactions and the proton exchange rate at a temperature of 24 degrees C and above, where no dipolar splitting is evident. The values obtained for these parameters at 24 degrees C were 300 and 50 Hz and 3000 s-1, respectively. The results for the residual dipolar interactions were verified by repeating the above measurements at a temperature of 1.5 degrees C, where the spectra of the H2O molecules were well resolved, so that the 1H-1H dipolar interaction could be determined directly from the observed splitting. Analysis of the MQF experiments at 1.5 degrees C, where the proton exchange was in the intermediate regime for the 1H-2H dipolar interaction, confirmed the result obtained at 24 degrees C for this interaction. A strong dependence of the intensities of the MQF signals on the proton exchange rate, in the intermediate and the fast exchange regimes, was observed and theoretically interpreted. This leads to the conclusion that the MQF techniques are mostly useful for tissues where the residual dipolar interaction is not significantly smaller than the proton exchange rate. Dependence of the relaxation times and signal intensities of the MQF experiments on the orientation of the tendon with respect to the magnetic field was observed and analyzed. One of the results of the theoretical analysis is that, in the fast exchange regime, the signal decay rates in the MQF experiments as well as in the spin echo or CPMG pulse sequences (T2) depend on the orientation as the square of the second-rank Legendre polynomial.     

TheS=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the triangular lattice: Exact results and spin-wave theory for finite cells

We study the ground state properties of theS=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet (HAF) on the triangular lattice with nearest-neighbour (J) and next-nearest neighbour (J) couplings. Classically, this system is known to be ordered in a 120° Néel type state for values-<1/8 of the ratio of these couplings and in a collinear state for 1/8<<1. The order parameter and the helicity /gC of the 120° structure are obtained by numerical diagonalisation of finite periodic systems of up toN=30 sites and by applying the spin-wave (SW) approximation to the same finite systems. We find a surprisingly good agreement between the exact and the SW results in the entire region-<<1/8. It appears that the SW theory is still valid for the simple triangular HAF (=0) although the sublattice magnetisation is substantially reduced from its classical value by quantum fluctuations. Our numerical results for the order parameterM of the collinear order support the previous conjecture of a first order transition between the 120° and the collinear order at 1/8.