Effect of Pore Geometry on the Compressibility of a Confined Simple Fluid

Fluids confined in nanopores exhibit properties different from the properties of the same fluids in bulk, among these properties are the isothermal compressibility or elastic modulus. The modulus of a fluid in nanopores can be extracted from ultrasonic experiments or calculated from molecular simulations. Using Monte Carlo simulations in the grand canonical ensemble, we calculated the modulus for liquid argon at its normal boiling point (87.3~K) adsorbed in model silica pores of two different morphologies and various sizes. For spherical pores, for all the pore sizes (diameters) exceeding 2~nm, we obtained a logarithmic dependence of fluid modulus on the vapor pressure. Calculation of the modulus at saturation showed that the modulus of the fluid in spherical pores is a linear function of the reciprocal pore size. The calculation of the modulus of the fluid in cylindrical pores appeared too scattered to make quantitative conclusions. We performed additional simulations at higher temperature (119.6~K), at which Monte Carlo insertions and removals become more efficient. The results of the simulations at higher temperature confirmed both regularities for cylindrical pores and showed quantitative difference between the fluid moduli in pores of different geometries. Both of the observed regularities for the modulus stem from the Tait-Murnaghan equation applied to the confined fluid. Our results, along with the development of the effective medium theories for nanoporous media, set the groundwork for analysis of the experimentally-measured elastic properties of fluid-saturated nanoporous materials

Resonance absorption of a broadband laser pulse

Broad bandwidth, infrared light sources have the potential to revolutionize inertial confinement fusion (ICF) by suppressing laser-plasma instabilities. There is, however, a tradeoff: The broad bandwidth precludes high efficiency conversion to the ultraviolet, where laser-plasma interactions are weaker. Operation in the infrared could intensify the role of resonance absorption, an effect long suspected to be the shortcoming of early ICF experiments. Here we present simulations exploring the effect of bandwidth on resonance absorption. In the linear regime, bandwidth has little effect on resonance absorption; in the nonlinear regime, bandwidth suppresses enhanced absorption resulting from the electromagnetic decay instability. These findings evince that regardless of bandwidth, an ICF implosion will confront at least linear levels of resonance absorption

Monitoring synaptic transmission in primary neuronal cultures using local extracellular stimulation

Various techniques have been applied for the functional analysis of synaptic transmission in Cultured neurons. Here, we describe a method of studying synaptic transmission in neurons cultured at high-density from different brain regions such as the cortex, striatum and spinal cord. We use postsynaptic whole-cell recordings to monitor synaptic Currents triggered by presynaptic action potentials that are induced by brief stimulations with a nearby extracellular bipolar electrode. Pharmacologically isolated excitatory or inhibitory postsynaptic currents can be reliably induced, with amplitudes, synaptic charge transfers, and short-term plasticity properties that are reproducible from culture to culture. We show that the size and kinetics of pharmacologically isolated inhibitory postsynaptic Currents triggered by single action potentials or stimulus trains depend on the Ca2+ concentration, temperature and stimulation frequency. This method can be applied to study synaptic transmission in wildtype neurons infected with lentiviruses encoding various components of presynaptic release machinery, or in neurons from genetically modified mice, for example neurons carrying floxed genes in which gene expression can be acutely ablated by expression of Cre recombinase. The preparation described in this paper should be useful for analysis of synaptic transmission in inter-neuronal synapses formed by different types of neurons. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Critical Strain Region Evaluation of Self-Assembled Semiconductor Quantum Dots

A novel peak finding method to map the strain from high resolution transmission electron micrographs, known as the Peak Pairs method, has been applied to In(Ga) As/AlGaAs quantum dot (QD) samples, which present stacking faults emerging from the QD edges. Moreover, strain distribution has been simulated by the finite element method applying the elastic theory on a 3D QD model. The agreement existing between determined and simulated strain values reveals that these techniques are consistent enough to qualitatively characterize the strain distribution of nanostructured materials. The correct application of both methods allows the localization of critical strain zones in semiconductor QDs, predicting the nucleation of defects, and being a very useful tool for the design of semiconductor device

Nearby low-mass triple system GJ795

We report the results of our optical speckle-interferometric observations of the nearby triple system GJ795 performed with the 6-m BTA telescope with diffraction-limited angular resolution. The three components of the system were optically resolved for the first time. Position measurements allowed us to determine the elements of the inner orbit of the triple system. We use the measured magnitude differences to estimate the absolute magnitudes and spectral types of the components of the triple: $M_{V}^{Aa}$=7.31$\pm$0.08, $M_{V}^{Ab}$=8.66$\pm$0.10, $M_{V}^{B}$=8.42$\pm$0.10, $Sp_{Aa}$ $\approx$K5, $Sp_{Ab}$ $\approx$K9, $Sp_{B}$ $\approx$K8. The total mass of the system is equal to $\Sigma\mathcal{M}_{AB}$=1.69$\pm0.27\mathcal{M}_{\odot}$. We show GJ795 to be a hierarchical triple system which satisfies the empirical stability criteria.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, published in Astrophysical Bulleti

An estimate of the terrestrial carbon budget of Russia using inventory-based, eddy covariance and inversion methods

We determine the carbon balance of Russia, including Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan using inventory based, eddy covariance, Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVM), and inversion methods. Our current best estimate of the net biosphere to atmosphere flux is -0.66 Pg C yr-1. This sink is primarily caused by forests that using two independent methods are estimated to take up -0.69 Pg C yr-1. Using inverse models yields an average net biosphere to atmosphere flux of the same value with a interannual variability of 35%. The total estimated biosphere to atmosphere flux from eddy covariance observations over a limited number of sites amounts to -1 Pg C yr-1. Fires emit 137 to 121 Tg C yr-1 using two different methods. The interannual variability of fire emissions is large, up to a factor 0.5 to 3. Smaller fluxes to the ocean and inland lakes, trade are also accounted for. Our best estimate for the Russian net biosphere to atmosphere flux then amounts to -659 Tg C yr-1 as the average of the inverse models of -653 Tg C yr-1, bottom up -563 Tg C yr-1 and the independent landscape approach of -761 Tg C yr-1. These three methods agree well within their error bounds, so there is good consistency between bottom up and top down methods. The best estimate of the net land to atmosphere flux, including the fossil fuel emissions is -145 to -73 Tg C yr-1. Estimated methane emissions vary considerably with one inventory-based estimate providing a net land to atmosphere flux of 12.6 Tg C-CH4yr-1 and an independent model estimate for the boreal and Arctic zones of Eurasia of 27.6 Tg C-CH4yr-1

The seasonal cycle of the greenhouse gas balance of a continental tundra site in the Indigirka lowlands, NE Siberia

International audienceCarbon dioxide and methane fluxes were measured at a tundra site near Chokurdakh, in the lowlands of the Indigirka river in north-east Siberia. This site is one of the few stations on Russian tundra and it is different from most other tundra flux stations in its continentality. A suite of methods was applied to determine the fluxes of NEE, GPP, Reco and methane, including eddy covariance, chambers and leaf cuvettes. Net carbon dioxide fluxes were unusually high, compared with other tundra sites, with NEE=?92 g C m?2 yr?1, which is composed of an Reco=+141 g C m?2 yr?1 and GPP=?232 g C m?2 yr?1. This large carbon dioxide sink may be explained by the continental climate, that is reflected in low winter soil temperatures (?14°C), reducing the respiration rates, and short, relatively warm summers, stimulating high photosynthesis rates. Interannual variability in GPP was dominated by the frequency of light limitation (Rg ?2), whereas Reco depends most directly on soil temperature and time in the growing season, which serves as a proxy of the combined effects of active layer depth, leaf area index, soil moisture and substrate availability. The methane flux, in units of global warming potential, was +28 g C-CO2e m?2 yr?1, so that the greenhouse gas balance was ?64 g C-CO2e m?2 yr?1. Methane fluxes depended only slightly on soil temperature and were highly sensitive to hydrological conditions and vegetation composition