A shape model for the twisting power of chiral solutes in nematics

The twisting power of chiral probes in nematics is interpreted in terms of a shape model, in which the surface elements of the solute molecules tend to align with the local director. The theoretical treatment is based on a previous approach, suitable for relating order parameters in nematics to molecular shape, and leads to the definition of a molecular pseudo-tensor whose orientational average determines the pitch and handedness of the helical macrostructures. Results of numerical calculations performed for distorted biphenyl and binaphthyl molecules are in agreement with the experimental results.     

Orientational ordering of liquid crystals containing a difluoro-substituted phenyl ring

The orientational ordering of several liquid crystals containing a difluorosubstituted phenyl ring has been studied through the use of C-13 NMR. The fluorinated phenyl ring of these liquid crystals have C_s symmetry, so three order parameters are required to completely describe the ordering of this ring. All three of these order parameters have been calculated from carbon-fluorine dipolar coupling constants obtained from the carbon-fluorine splittings in the C-13 NMR spectra. Because of the complexity of the fluorine-coupled spectra, variable angle spinning (VAS) was used to resolve the carbon-fluorine splittings. In order to study the orientational ordering over wide ranges of temperature, we have developed an empirical correlation between the order parameter and the value of a carbon-fluorine dipolar coupling constant. This enabled us to study the change in the order parameter with temperature. The results of applying this method to several structurally similar liquid crystals containing the same type of difluorinated phenyl ring are presented. A comparison is made to a similar mono-fluorinated liquid crystal.     

Spectroscopic investigation of Pt—methanol interface in perchloric acid medium by sum-frequency generation

We recorded vibrational spectra of the CO poison resulting from the electrochemical decomposition of CH₃OH on platinum by sum-frequency generation using the infrared free electron laser CLIO. At high CH₃OH concentration (0.1 M) in the electrolyte, both multi-bonded and linearly bonded CO are equally present. At lower CH₃OH concentration (0.004 M), the multi-bonded species is predominant. The CO poison still remains on the surface at potentials (0.05 V/NHE) close to the hydrogen evolution onset.     

Collisions for the quantum Coulomb Hamiltonian

We study the propagation of phase space singularities for the time dependent Schrödinger equation with potential having Coulomb-type singularities in space dimension equal tothree. We prove that the singularities (frequency set) of the solution are reflected by a Coulomb center exactly as in the classical problem, i.e. the frequency set follows theregularized trajectories of Classical Mechanics after a collision.     

Method of fictitious regions for second-order quasilinear elliptical equations

We consider the application of the fictitious region method to solve the first and second boundary-value problems for a second-order quasilinear elliptical equation. Rate of convergence bounds are obtained for two versions of the fictitious region method.Translated from Vychislitel'naya i Prikladnaya Matematika, No. 56, pp. 7–14, 1985