Particle ratios from a chiral SU(3) model

The measured particle ratios in central heavy-ion collisions are investigated within a chemical and thermal equilibrium chiral SU(3) σ?ω approach. Contrary to the commonly adopted non-interacting gas calculations, the chiral SU(3) model predicts modified effective hadron masses and effective chemical potentials in the medium and a transition to a chirally restored phase at high temperatures or chemical potentials. the influence of three different types of phase transitions is investigated. We show that the deduced freeze-out values considerably depend on the underlying model while the quality of the fit is approximately the same.     

A nucleophilic substitution reaction in microemulsions based on either an alcohol ethoxylate or a sugar surfactant

A nucleophilic substitution reaction between 4-tert-butylbenzyl bromide and a series of iodide salts has been performed in oil-in-water microemulsions based on either a fatty alcohol ethoxylate or a sugar surfactant. The reaction kinetics was compared with the kinetics of the same reaction performed in a microhomogeneous reaction medium, d-MeOH. Previous results showing a particularly high reactivity in the microemulsion based on the fatty alcohol ethoxylate was confirmed. It was shown that in both microemulsions the reaction rate was almost independent of the choice of counterion to iodide. This indicates that complexation of the cation with the surfactant headgroup, which, in particular, could have taken place with surfactants containing oligooxyethylene chains (a “crown ether effect”), seems not to be of importance.

¹²⁷I NMR studies, as well as quadrupole splitting experiments performed by ²H NMR, indicate that there is a certain accumulation of iodide at the oil–water interface of the microemulsions. It is difficult to draw any quantitative conclusions in this respect, however.

The results obtained in this study, combined with results from previous investigations of the same reaction, indicate that the unexpectedly high reactivity obtained in the microemulsion based on a surfactant containing an oligooxyethylene headgroup is most probably due to the nucleophile being poorly solvated when present in the headgroup layer of such a microemulsion. Poorly solvated anions are known to be highly reactive nucleophiles.     

Three-dimensional structure of Saccharomyces cerevisiae inorganic pyrophosphatase complexed with cobalt and phosphate ions

Crystals of Saccharomyces cerevisiae inorganic pyrophosphatase suitable for X-ray diffraction study were grown by cocrystallization of the enzyme with cobalt chloride and imidodiphosphate. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a metal-dependent enzyme which catalyzes hydrolysis of inorganic pyrophosphate to orthophosphate. The three-dimensional structure of this enzyme was solved by the molecular-replacement method and refined at 1.8 Å resolution to an R factor of 19.5%. Cobalt and phosphate ions were revealed in the active centers of both identical subunits (A and B) of the pyrophosphatase molecule. In subunit B, a water molecule was found between two cobalt ions. It is believed that this water molecule acts as an attacking nucleophile in the enzymatic cleavage of the pyrophosphate bond. It was demonstrated that cobalt ions and a phosphate group occupy only part of the potential binding sites (two chemically identical and crystallographically independent subunits have different binding sites). The arrangement of ligands and the structure of the nucleophile-binding site are discussed in relation to the mechanism of action of the enzyme and the nature of the metal activator.     

A Lieb-Thirring Bound for a Magnetic Pauli Hamiltonian

A Lieb-Thirring-Sobolev type inequality for Pauli Hamiltonians with magnetic fields is derived. The bound is in terms of an effective field, whose energy is comparable to that of the magnetic field itself. An application to the stability of matter in magnetic fields is given. Received: 19 September 1996 / Accepted: 3 January 1997