Estimation of surface desorption times in hydrophobically coated nanochannels and their effect on shear-driven and pressure-driven chromatography

The present paper provides a detailed analysis of the analyte-wall adsorption effects in nanochannels, including a random walk study of the analyte-wall collision frequency, and uses these insights to estimate wall desorption times from chromatographic experiments in nanochannels. Using coumarin dye analytes and using a methanol/water mixture buffered at pH 3 in 120-nm deep channels, the surface desorption times on naked fused-silica glass were found to be maximally of the order of 60 to 150 μs, while they were found to be on the order of 100 to 500 μs on a hydrophobically coated wall. These nonzero adsorption and desorption times lead to an additional band broadening when conducting chromatographic separations. Shear-driven flows, requiring a noncoated moving wall and a stationary coated wall, intrinsically turn out to be more prone to this effect than pressure-driven or electro-driven flows for example. The present study also shows that, interestingly, the number of analyte-wall collisions increases with the inverse of the channel depth and not with its second power, as would be expected from the Einstein–Smoluchowski relationship for molecular diffusion.     

Particle production and nonlinear diffusion in relativistic systems

The short parton production phase in high‐energy heavy‐ion collisions is treated analytically as a nonlinear diffusion process. The initial buildup of the rapidity density distributions of produced charged hadrons within τ_p? 0.25 fm/c occurs in three sources during the colored partonic phase. In a two‐step approach, the subsequent diffusion in pseudorapidity space during the interaction time of τ_int? 7‐10 fm/c (mean duration of the collision) is essentially linear as expressed in the Relativistic Diffusion Model (RDM) which yields excellent agreement with the data at RHIC energies, and allows for predictions at LHC energies. Results for d+Au are discussed in detail.     

Discharge characteristic of very high frequency capacitively coupled argon plasma

The discharge characteristics of capacitively coupled argon plasmas driven by very high frequency discharge are studied. The mean electron temperature and electron density are calculated by using the Ar spectral lines at different values of power(20 W–70 W) and four different frequencies(13.56 MHz, 40.68 MHz, 94.92 MHz, and 100 MHz). The mean electron temperature decreases with the increase of power at a fixed frequency. The mean electron temperature varies nonlinearly with frequency increasing at constant power. At 40.68 MHz, the mean electron temperature is the largest. The electron density increases with the increase of power at a fixed frequency. In the cases of driving frequencies of 94.92 MHz and 100 MHz, the obtained electron temperatures are almost the same, so are the electron densities. Particle-in-cell/MonteCarlo collision(PIC/MCC) method developed within the Vsim 8.0 simulation package is used to simulate the electron density, the potential distribution, and the electron energy probability function(EEPF) under the experimental condition.The sheath width increases with the power increasing. The EEPF of 13.56 MHz and 40.68 MHz are both bi-Maxwellian with a large population of low-energy electrons. The EEPF of 94.92 MHz and 100 MHz are almost the same and both are nearly Maxwellian.     

Gluon saturation and net-proton spectra in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions

By means of the AKK08 fragmentation function, the net-proton transverse momentum (pT) spectra in A+A collisions are studied with two phenomenological models based on the Color Glass Condensate formalism. After a x2 analysis of the experimental data from BRAHMS, the normalization constant C is extracted at RHIC energies of √SNN =62.4 and 200 GeV, and the theoretical results of the net-proton pT spectra at selected rapidities are also given. It is shown that the theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental data. Finally, assuming the constant C should have an exponent dependence of √SNN, we also predict the theoretical results of net-proton pT spectra at LHC energies of √SNN = 2.76, 3.94, and 5.52 TeV.     

Properties of nano-scale soliton-like excitations in two-dimensional lattice layers

Nano-scale soliton-like supersonic, intrinsic localized excitations in two-dimensional atomic anharmonic lattice layers are here considered. We study the propagation, the velocity and other soliton-like features at head-on collisions of such lattice excitations created by using suitable initial mechanical and thermal conditions. Noteworthy is that narrow, highly-energetic solitons moving along one lattice row are very robust, accompanied by weak anti-phase oscillations in the lateral direction.     

Pair production of neutral Higgs bosons from the left-right twin Higgs model via γγ collisions

The left-right twin Higgs (LRTH) model predicts the existence of the neutral Higgs bosons (h, Φ⁰), which can be produced in pairs (Φ⁰Φ⁰, hh, Φ⁰h) via γγ collisions at the next generation e⁺e^- International Linear Collider (ILC). Our numerical results show that the production cross section of the neutral Higgs boson pair Φ⁰Φ⁰ can reach 8.8 fb. The subprocess γγ→Φ⁰Φ⁰ might be used to test the LRTH model in future ILC experiments.     

Neutron–proton elliptic flow difference as a probe for the high density dependence of the symmetry energy

We employ an isospin dependent version of the QMD transport model to study the influence of the isospin dependent part of the nuclear matter equation of state and in-medium nucleon–nucleon cross-sections on the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies. We find that the extraction of useful information on the isospin-dependent part of the equation of state of nuclear matter from proton or neutron elliptic flows is obstructed by their sensitivity to model parameters and in-medium values of nucleon–nucleon cross-sections. Opposite to that, neutron–proton elliptic flow difference shows little dependence on those variables while its dependence on the isospin asymmetric EoS is enhanced, making it more suitable for a model independent constraining of the high-density behaviour of asy-EoS. Comparison with existing experimental FOPI-LAND neutron–hydrogen data can be used to set an upper limit to the softness of asy-EoS. Successful constraining of the asy-EoS via neutron–proton elliptic flow difference will require experimental data of higher accuracy than presently available.