Experimental study of yttrium barium copper oxide superconducting tape’s critical current under twisting moment

Critical current (I _c) characteristics of 2G YBCO superconducting tape under the influence of twisting moment was experimentally investigated at varying current ramp rates in the self-field. Under a uniform twist, the degradation in the current-carrying capacity of YBCO tape up to 30% was observed at 77 K. The degradation is largely attributed to the shear stress and torsional shear strain resulting from the twisting. The superconductor to resistive transition index, n, is also found to behave in an identical manner with increase in the twisting. Finite element analysis (FEA) of the tape in the experimental configuration with twisting moment being applied on to it has been carried out in COMSOL. The torsional strain calculated analytically as per the experimental configuration matches closely with that of FEA results, which shows that the critical current degradation is a function of strain.     

Synthesis,characterization and third-order nonlinear optical properties of polydiacetylene nanostructures,silver nanoparticles and polydiacetylene–silver nanocomposites

We have synthesized, characterized and studied the third-order nonlinear optical properties of two different nanostructures of polydiacetylene (PDA), PDA nanocrystals and PDA nanovesicles, along with silver nanoparticles-decorated PDA nanovesicles. The second molecular hyperpolarizability γ(?ω; ω, ?ω, ω) of the samples has been investigated by antiresonant ring interferometric nonlinear spectroscopic (ARINS) technique using femtosecond mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser in the spectral range of 720–820 nm. The observed spectral dispersion of γ has been explained in the framework of three-essential states model and a correlation between the electronic structure and optical nonlinearity of the samples has been established. The energy of two-photon state, transition dipole moments and linewidth of the transitions have been estimated. We have observed that the nonlinear optical properties of PDA nanocrystals and nanovesicles are different because of the influence of chain coupling effects facilitated by the chain packing geometry of the monomers. On the other hand, our investigation reveals that the spectral dispersion characteristic of γ for silver nanoparticles-coated PDA nanovesicles is qualitatively similar to that observed for the uncoated PDA nanovesicles but bears no resemblance to that observed in silver nanoparticles. The presence of silver nanoparticles increases the γ values of the coated nanovesicles slightly as compared to that of the uncoated nanovesicles, suggesting a definite but weak coupling between the free electrons of the metal nanoparticles and π electrons of the polymer in the composite system. Our comparative studies show that the arrangement of polymer chains in polydiacetylene nanocrystals is more favourable for higher nonlinearity.     

Presence of Jahn-Teller distortions in a novel six-coordinate Ag(II) complex: temperature dependent EPR,optical and magnetic susceptibility measurements

Single-crystal variable temperature EPR, optical and polycrystalline magnetic susceptibility studies have been made on a novel six-coordinate Ag(II) complex. Temperature dependent EPR studies on pure single crystals of this compound reveal that dynamic Jahn-Teller distortion operates above 230 K, between 230 K and 120K static Jahn-Teller distortion sets in and below 110 K there is evidence of exchange interaction. Crystal g values were obtained by least-squares fitting with the data obtained from the orientation dependent EPR spectra of the undiluted single crystal of this complex at 300 K and 77 K. From an optical study the Jahn-Teller stabilization energy is found to be ～2250cm^?1. Comparison of Abs_max values for other silver(II) compounds enables us to conclude that the formal geometry of this complex is a tetragonally distorted octahedral. Infrared spectra of this complex were also recorded over a wide range of temperature. Magnetic susceptibility measurements over a wide range of temperature on the powder sample of this compound reveal that the complex is antiferromagnetically coupled in the temperature range 5–40 K with 2J = 0.906cm^?1, and above 40K it is ferromagnetically coupled with 2J = +7.4cm^?1. The effective magnetic moment (μ_eff) of this complex has been compared with that of a series of other silver(II) complexes available in the literature. Finally, the spectral and magnetic data of this complex have been compared with those of a corresponding isostructural and isomorphous copper(II) complex.     

An analytical study on the Rayleigh wave generation in a stratified structure

In this paper, an analytical method is used to investigate the Rayleigh wave generation in a stratified structure and the wave generation in a dry sandy layer constrained between the couple stress and inhomogeneous orthotropic half-spaces. This study is devoted to analyzing the impact of various effective parameters associated with the media on the phase velocities of the wave. The displacement components for each medium are derived by implementing the separable variable method. The frequency equation is secured by using the displacement components in the boundary conditions, imposed at the interfaces between the layer and half-spaces. Moreover, the secured equation is the relation between the phase velocity and the wave number. Numerical computations are performed, and graphical representations are demonstrated between the phase velocity and the wave number for both phase velocities with different values of the parameters.The comparison between the phase velocities is observed for the same value of each parameter.     

B s data at Tevatron and possible new physics

The new physics (NP) is parametrized with four model-independent quantities: the magnitudes and phases of the dispersive part M ₁₂ and the absorptive part ??₁₂ of the NP contribution to the effective Hamiltonian. We constrain these parameters using the four observables ??M _s, ????_s, the mixing phase $\beta_\mathrm{s}^{J/\psi\phi}$ and $A^b_{\rm sl}$ . This formalism is extended to include charge-parity-time reversal (CPT) violation, and it is shown that CPT violation by itself, or even in the presence of CPT-conserving NP without an absorptive part, helps only marginally in the simultaneous resolution of these anomalies.     

Measurement of copper vapour laser-induced deformation of dielectric-coated mirror surface by Michelson interferometer

A Michelson interferometer-based technique has been used to measure the deformation of dielectric-coated mirror, caused by an incident repetitive pulsed laser beam with high average power. Minimum measurable deformation of 17 nm is reported.     

The effect of nuclear structure in the emission of reaction products in heavy-ion reactions

Study of intermediate mass fragments (IMFs) and light charged particles (LCPs) emission has been carried out for a few reactions involving α-cluster and non- α-cluster systems to see how the emission processes are affected by nuclear clustering. Li, Be, B and α-particles have been studied from α-clustered system ¹⁶O + ¹²C for 117, 125, 145 and 160 MeV bombarding energies respectively. The enhanced yields of near-entrance channel fragment B and large quadrupole deformation of the produced composite ²⁸Si^? extracted from LCP spectra indicate the survival of orbiting-like process in ¹⁶O + ¹²C system at these energies. The same IMFs emitted from the α-cluster system ¹²C (77 MeV) + ²⁸Si and nearby non- α cluster ¹¹B (64 MeV) + ²⁸Si and ¹²C (73 MeV) + ²⁷Al (all having the same excitation energy of ～67 MeV) have also been studied. The fully energy damped (fusion–fission) and the partially energy damped (deep inelastic) components of the fragment energy spectra have been extracted. It has been found that the yields of the fully energy damped fragments for all the above reactions are in conformity with the respective statistical model predictions. The time-scales of various deep inelastic fragment emissions have been extracted from the angular distribution data. The angular momentum dissipation in deep inelastic collisions has been estimated from the data and it has been found to be close to the corresponding sticking limit value.     

Propagation of Love waves in non-homogeneous substratum over initially stressed heterogeneous half-space

The paper studies the propagation of Love waves in a non-homogeneous substratum over an initially stressed heterogeneous half-space. The dispersion equation of phase velocity is derived. The velocities of Love waves are calculated numerically as a function of kH and presented in a number of graphs, where k is the wave number, and H is the thickness of the layer. The case of Gibson’s half-space is also considered. It is observed that the speed of Love waves is finite in the vicinity of the surface of the half-space and vanishes as the depth increases for a particular wave number. It is also observed that an increase in compressive initial stresses causes decreases of Love waves velocity for the same frequency, and the tensile initial stress of small magnitude in the half-space causes increase of the velocity.     

Decay of Hoyle state

The prediction of Hoyle state was necessitated to explain the abundance of carbon, which is crucial for the existence of life on Earth and is the stepping stone for understanding the abundance of other heavier elements. After the experimental confirmation of its existence, soon it was realized that the Hoyle state was ‘different’ from other excited states of carbon, led to intense theoretical and experimental activities over the past few decades to understand its structure. In recent times, precision, high statistics experiments on the decay of Hoyle state have been performed at the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, to determine the quantitative contributions of various direct 3 α decay mechanisms of the Hoyle state. The present results have been critically compared with those obtained in other recent experiments and their implications have been discussed.