42,853 research outputs found
Lasercooled RaF as a promising candidate to measure molecular parity violation
The parameter , which characterizes nuclear spin-dependent
parity violation effects within the effective molecular spin-rotational
Hamiltonian, was computed for the electronic ground state of radium fluoride
(RaF) and found to be one of the largest absolute values predicted so far.
These calculations were performed with the complex generalised Hartree-Fock
method within a two-component (quasi-relativistic) zeroth-order regular
approximation framework. Peculiarities of the molecular electronic structure of
RaF lead to highly diagonal Franck-Condon matrices between vibrational states
of the electronic ground and first excited states, which renders the molecule
in principle suitable for direct laser cooling. As a trapped gas of cold
molecules offers a superior coherence time, RaF can be considered a promising
candidate for high-precision spectroscopic experiments aimed at the search of
molecular parity-violation effects.Comment: 4.5 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables. Supplementary material can be
requested from the authors. Minor changes to version
Collective Charge Excitations below the Metal-to-Insulator Transition in BaVS3
The charge response in the barium vanadium sulfide (BaVS3) single crystals is
characterized by dc resistivity and low frequency dielectric spectroscopy. A
broad relaxation mode in MHz range with huge dielectric constant ~= 10^6
emerges at the metal-to-insulator phase transition TMI ~= 67 K, weakens with
lowering temperature and eventually levels off below the magnetic transition
Tchi ~= 30 K. The mean relaxation time is thermally activated in a manner
similar to the dc resistivity. These features are interpreted as signatures of
the collective charge excitations characteristic for the orbital ordering that
gradually develops below TMI and stabilizes at long-range scale below Tchi.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR
Cities in fiction: Perambulations with John Berger
This paper explores selected novels by John Berger in which cities play a central role. These cities are places, partially real and partially imagined, where memory, hope, and despair intersect. My reading of the novels enables me to trace important themes in recent discourses on the nature of contemporary capitalism, including notions of resistance and universality. I also show how Berger?s work points to a writing that can break free from the curious capacity of capitalism to absorb and feed of its critique
Shintani functions, real spherical manifolds, and symmetry breaking operators
For a pair of reductive groups , we prove a geometric criterion
for the space of Shintani functions to be finite-dimensional
in the Archimedean case.
This criterion leads us to a complete classification of the symmetric pairs
having finite-dimensional Shintani spaces.
A geometric criterion for uniform boundedness of is
also obtained.
Furthermore, we prove that symmetry breaking operators of the restriction of
smooth admissible representations yield Shintani functions of moderate growth,
of which the dimension is determined for .Comment: to appear in Progress in Mathematics, Birkhause
Incorporation of Nitrogen into Organics Produced by Fischer-Tropsch Type Chemistry
Laboratory simulations have demonstrated that hydrothermal systems have the potential to produce a range of organic compounds through Fischer-Tropsch type (FTT) chemistry. The distribution of products depends on several factors, including the abundance and composition of feed-stock molecules, reaction temperature, and the physical and chemical characteristics of catalytic materials included in the reactions. The majority of studies per-formed to date have focused solely on inclusion of CO2 or CO and H2 as the carbon, oxygen and hydrogen sources, which limits the possible products to hydro-carbons, alcohols and carboxylic acids. A few studies have included nitrogen in the form of ammonia, which led to the production of amino acids and nitrogenous bases; and a separate suite of studies included sulfur as sulfide minerals or H2S, which yielded products such as thiols and amino acids. Although these demonstrations provide compelling evidence that FTT reactions can produce compounds of interest for the origins of life, such reactions have been conducted under a very limited range of conditions and the synthetic reaction mechanisms have generally not been well-characterized. As a consequence, it is difficult to extrapolate these results to geologic systems or to evaluate how variations in reactant compositions would affect the distribution of products over time. We have begun a series of laboratory experiments that will incorporate a range of precursor molecules in varying compositions to determine how these variables affect the relative amounts and speciation of life-essential elements in organic molecules produced under FTT conditions. In the present work, we focus on systems containing C, H, O and N
Harmonic coordinate method for simulating generic singularities
This paper presents both a numerical method for general relativity and an
application of that method. The method involves the use of harmonic coordinates
in a 3+1 code to evolve the Einstein equations with scalar field matter. In
such coordinates, the terms in Einstein's equations with the highest number of
derivatives take a form similar to that of the wave equation. The application
is an exploration of the generic approach to the singularity for this type of
matter. The preliminary results indicate that the dynamics as one approaches
the singularity is locally the dynamics of the Kasner spacetimes.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Revtex, discussion expanded, references adde
Prospects for near-infrared characterisation of hot Jupiters with VSI
In this paper, we study the feasibility of obtaining near-infrared spectra of
bright extrasolar planets with the 2nd generation VLTI Spectro-Imager
instrument (VSI), which has the required angular resolution to resolve nearby
hot Extrasolar Giant Planets (EGPs) from their host stars. Taking into account
fundamental noises, we simulate closure phase measurements of several
extrasolar systems using four 8-m telescopes at the VLT and a low spectral
resolution (R = 100). Synthetic planetary spectra from T. Barman are used as an
input. Standard chi2-fitting methods are then used to reconstruct planetary
spectra from the simulated data. These simulations show that low-resolution
spectra in the H and K bands can be retrieved with a good fidelity for half a
dozen targets in a reasonable observing time (about 10 hours, spread over a few
nights). Such observations would strongly constrain the planetary temperature
and albedo, the energy redistribution mechanisms, as well as the chemical
composition of their atmospheres. Systematic errors, not included in our
simulations, could be a serious limitation to these performance estimations.
The use of integrated optics is however expected to provide the required
instrumental stability (around 10^-4 on the closure phase) to enable the first
thorough characterisation of extrasolar planetary emission spectra in the
near-infrared.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, Proc. SPIE conference 7013 "Optical and Infrared
Interferometry" (Marseille 2008
Asymptotics for the Wiener sausage among Poissonian obstacles
We consider the Wiener sausage among Poissonian obstacles. The obstacle is
called hard if Brownian motion entering the obstacle is immediately killed, and
is called soft if it is killed at certain rate. It is known that Brownian
motion conditioned to survive among obstacles is confined in a ball near its
starting point. We show the weak law of large numbers, large deviation
principle in special cases and the moment asymptotics for the volume of the
corresponding Wiener sausage. One of the consequence of our results is that the
trajectory of Brownian motion almost fills the confinement ball.Comment: 19 pages, Major revision made for publication in J. Stat. Phy
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