Quantum hair and quantum gravity

A black hole may carry quantum numbers that arenot associated with massless gauge fields, contrary to the spirit of the no-hair theorems. The quantum hair is invisible in the classical limit, but measurable via quantum interference experiments. Quantum hair alters the temperature of the radiation emitted by a black hole. It also induces non-zero expectation values for fields outside the event horizon; these expectation values are non-perturbative in , and decay exponentially far from the hole. The existence of quantum hair demonstrates that a black hole can have an intricate quantum-mechanical structure that is completely missed by standard semiclassical theory.Based on an essay which received second award from the Gravity Research Foundation, 1991     

The Synthesis of Poly(Dimethylsiloxane-b-Isobutylene-b-Dimethylsiloxane) and Poly-(Dimethylsiloxane-b-Isobutylene-b-Dimethylsiloxane) from Alcohol-Telechelic Polyisobutylenes

The purpose of these studies was to combine polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polyisobutylene (PIB) sequences into novel triblock, PDMS-b-PIB-b-PDMS, and multiblock, (-PDMS-b-PIB-b-PDMS-)n, copolymers. The key toward syntheses was the definition of conditions for the initiation of living anionic polymerization of hexamethyl-cyclotrisiloxane (D₃) at the CH₂OLi termini of well-defined tele-chelic PIB sequences. Subsequent deactivation of living D₃ polymerization charges with Me₃ SiCl yielded the target triblock whereas stoichiometric amounts of Me₂ SiCl₂ gave the multiblock copolymer.     

Synthesis of the 8,19-Epoxysteroid Eurysterol A

We report the first chemical synthesis of eurysterol A, a cytotoxic and antifungal marine steroidal sulfate with a unique C8−C19 oxy-bridged cholestane skeleton. After C19 hydroxylation of cholesteryl acetate, used as an inexpensive commercial starting material, the challenging oxidative functionalization of ring B was achieved by two different routes to set up a 5α-hydroxy-7-en-6-one moiety. As a key step, an intramolecular oxa-Michael addition was exploited to close the oxy-bridge (8β,19-epoxy unit). DFT calculations show this reversible transformation being exergonic by about −30 kJ mol⁻¹. Along the optimized (scalable) synthetic sequence, the target natural product was obtained in only 11 steps in 5 % overall yield. In addition, an access to (isomeric) 7β,19-epoxy steroids with a previously unknown pentacyclic ring system was discovered.