Analysis of neutrino mass, mixing and flavor change

Established results on neutrino mass, mixing and flavor change (as of 2009) are briefly reviewed. Status and prospects of unknown neutrino properties (smallest mixing angle, Dirac/Majorana nature, absolute masses and their hierarchy) are also discussed.     

Surface Order Parameter of 4-n-Heptyl-4′-Cyanobiphenyl

We measured the order parameter near the interface between a liquid crystal and the solid substrate treated by several methods. The interfacial order parameter is different according to the surface treatment, and is larger than the bulk order parameter. Moreover, in the temperature above the clearing point, the interfacial order still has a finite value.     

Existence and structure results on almost periodic solutions of difference equations

We study the almost periodic solutions of Euler equations and of some more general Difference Equations. We consider two different notions of almost periodic sequences, and we establish some relations between them. We build suitable sequences spaces and we prove some properties of these spaces. We also prove properties of Nemytskii operators on these spaces. We build a variational approach to establish existence of almost periodic solutions as critical points, We obtain existence theorems fornonautonomous linear equations and for an Euler equation with a concave and coercive Lagrangian. We also use a Fixed Point approach to obtain existence results for quasi-linear Difference Equations.     

Design of electron wave filters in monolayer graphene with velocity modulations

We compare the transport properties of electrons in monolayer graphene by modulating the Fermi velocity inside the barrier. A critical transmission angle is found only when the Fermi velocity in the barriers is larger than the one outside the barriers. It is shown that the transmission exhibits periodicity with the incident angle below the critical transmission angle, and attenuates exponentially in the opposite situation. For both situations, peak splitting occurs in the transmission as the number of the velocity barriers increases, and the characteristics of the transmission suggest an interesting application of an excellent band-pass filter. The dependence of the conductance on the Fermi energy through an identical velocity- modulation structure differs wildly with different Fermi velocities of the barrier. The counterpart of the peak splitting is the sharp oscillations in the conductance profile. Furthermore, some oscillations for the multiple barriers are so sharp that the structure may be used as an excellent sensor.     

Ion acoustic solitary waves with adiabatic ions in magnetized electron-positron-ion plasmas

Linear and nonlinear ion acoustic waves in the presence of adiabatically heated ions in magnetized electron-positron-ion plasmas are studied. The Sagdeev potential approach is employed to obtain the energy integral equation in such a mulitcomponent plasma using fluid theory. It is found that electron density humps are formed in the subsonic region in magnetized electron-positron-ion plasmas. The amplitude of electron density hump is decreased with the increase of hot ion temperature in electron-positron-ion plasmas. However, the increase in positron concentration and obliqueness of the wave increases the amplitude of nonlinear structure. The increase in positron concentration also reduces the width of the nonlinear structure in a magnetized multicomponent plasma. The numerical solutions in the form of solitary pulses are also presented for different plasma cases. The results may be applicable to astrophysical plasma situations, where magnetized electron-positron-ion plasma with hot ions can exist.     

Noise induced intercellular propagation of calcium waves

In this paper, we investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of a bidirectional coupled chain of cells, in which a cell is subjected to an external noise. Noisy oscillations of calcium (Ca²⁺), that is, a bursting-like phenomenon induced by noise with fluctuations in the baseline values of calcium, are induced in the first cell and propagated along the chain with noise suppression. This phenomenon of noise suppression is further investigated by computing the normalized fluctuation of pulse durations. It is therefore found that the noise induced coherence resonance phenomenon occurs at the cellular level. Coherence biresonance behaviour appears in the transmission of noise induced oscillations at appropriate noise intensity or noise coupling (for low noise intensity) and the information flow in each cell can be simultaneously optimized at the optimal value of noise or coupling.