High-nuclearity manganese and iron complexes with the anionic ligand methyl salicylimidate

The three novel clusters [Mn6O4(OMe)2(OAc)4(Mesalim)4] (3), [Mn8O2(OH)2(OMe)12(OAc)2(Mesalim)4] (4), and [Fe10O4(OMe)14Cl2(Mesalim)6] (5) have been synthesized from a simple bidentate ligand HMesalim (HMesalim = methyl salicylimidate). Starting from the mononuclear complex [Mn(Mesalim)2(OAc)(MeOH)].MeOH (1), either the hexanuclear complex 3 or the octanuclear complex 4 is obtained after recrystallization, depending upon the reaction conditions and solvents used. Similarly, starting from the purple-colored mononuclear complex [Fe(Mesalim)2Cl] (2), the orange-colored decanuclear iron(III) cluster 5 has been obtained upon recrystallization from methanol. Complex 3, which could also be prepared directly from manganese acetate and the ligand, has a face-sharing double-cubane [Mn6O6] core, unique in transition metal chemistry. Compounds 4 and 5 are composed of [M3O4] partial cubanes. All complexes belong to a class of oxo-bridged cubic close-packed molecular clusters resembling the metal oxide/hydroxide ores. Complex 4 exhibits intramolecular ferromagnetic interactions, as evidenced from dc magnetic susceptibility studies (1.8-300 K), resulting in a high-spin ground state, probably with S(T) = 8. Complex 4 displays single molecule magnet behavior as indicated by frequency and temperature dependences of its ac susceptibility. An Arrhenius plot gave relatively large experimental activation energy of 36.0 K. The magnetic properties of complexes 3 and 5 are dominated by antiferromagnetic interactions leading to zero-spin ground states.     

Radiation induced stabilization of unusual oxidation states in Tl (I) Ln (III) (SO4)2.4H2O (Ln=Sm,Eu and Nd): EPR investigations

Double sulfates of thallium and lanthanides form an interesting series of compounds with first fractional crystallization leading to the formation of tetrahydrated double sulfates. The radiation induced defects including changes in the oxidation states were studied by carrying out EPR investigations of -irradiated Tl (I) Ln (III) (SO₄)₂.4H₂O (Ln=Sm, Eu and Nd) compounds. The important finding of these investigations is the formation of a radiation-induced paramagnetic center Tl²⁺ simultaneously with that of Eu²⁺, revealing their intrinsic association. Similar formation of Tl²⁺ was not observed in other rare earth salts, implying that the stability of the half-filled electronic configuration of Eu²⁺ may be responsible for the stabilization of Tl²⁺. Their relaxation back to Eu³⁺ and Tl⁺ simultaneously at 255 K gives further confirmation of their association and suggests that the matrix intrinsically does not favor the stabilization of Eu²⁺ as reported in a number of other matrices. The hyperfine coupling constant for Tl²⁺ was calculated using the Breit-Rabi equation and was found to be 80 GHz.     

Determination of metallic impurities in U3O8 using energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry

In order to examine the capability of energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry for the determination of some common metallic impurities in nuclear grade U₃O₈ matrix, a series of synthetic U₃O₈ standards, containing impurities such as Ca, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni ,V, W and Zn in the concentration range, 100–1000 μg/g, were prepared. Using these standards, calibration curves were set up for different elements after optimizing the spectrometer parameters. Two synthetic samples and five reference standards obtained through an inter-laboratory comparison exercise within analytical laboratories of Department of Atomic Energy, India were analyzed to evaluate the performance of the newly developed analytical methods. The estimates for most of the analytes were in good agreement with the added amounts. The method is fast, since it requires no chemical treatment. The method has good precision for the analytes determined.     

Closing remarks

This talk will consist of a set of personal remarks giving my impressions of the International Workshop on Linear Colliders (LCWS06) and a theorist’s perspective.      

Can the Aleph four-jet excess be explained in a supersymmetric model with R-parity violation?

We investigate the possibility that the excess of four-jet events in e ⁺ e ^? collisions at LEP-1.5 which has been reported by the ALEPH Collaboration could be due to the production of charginos or neutralinos, followed by their decay into quark jets through baryon number-violating (λ″) couplings. An estimate at the parton level shows, however, that these events cannot be due to neutralinos because of the low cross-section, and is unlikely to be due to the production of chargino pairs because of the largely different event shapes.     

Resolved photon processes

After giving a very brief introduction to the resolved photon processes, I will summarize the latest experimental information from HERA, on resolved photon contribution to largep _T jet production as well as to direct photon production. I will point out the interesting role that resolved photon processes can play in increasing our understanding of the dynamics of the quarkonium production. I will then discuss the newer information on the parton content of virtual photons as well as thek _T distribution of the partons in the photon. I will end by giving predictions of an eikonalized minijet model for σ _γγ ^inel which crucially uses the experimental measurement of the abovementionedk _T distribution and comparing them with data. On leave of absence from Department of Physics, University of Bombay, Mumbai 400 076, India     

Resolved photon processes

We review high-energy scattering processes that are sensitive to the hadronic structure of the photon, describing theoretical predictions as well as recent experimental results. These processes include deep-inelastic electron-photon scattering ate ⁺ e ⁻ colliders; and the production of jets, heavy quarks and isolated photons in the collision of real photons ate ⁺ e ⁻ colliders, as well as in photon-photon collisions atep colliders. We also comment on minijet based calculations of totalγp andγγ cross-sections, and discuss the possibility that future lineare ⁺ e ⁻ colliders might produce very large photon fluxes due to the beamstrahlung phenomenon; in the most extreme cases, we predict more than one hadronicγγ event to occur at every bunch crossing.     

Binary consecutive covering arrays

A k × n array with entries from a q-letter alphabet is called a t-covering array if each t × n submatrix contains amongst its columns each one of the q ^t different words of length t that can be produced by the q letters. In the present article we use a probabilistic approach based on an appropriate Markov chain embedding technique, to study a t-covering problem where, instead of looking at all possible t × n submatrices, we consider only submatrices of dimension t × n with its rows being consecutive rows of the original k × n array. Moreover, an exact formula is established for the probability distribution function of the random variable, which enumerates the number of deficient submatrices (i.e., submatrices with at least one missing word, amongst their columns), in the case of a k × n binary matrix (q = 2) obtained by realizing kn Bernoulli variables.