Charge transfer between Li ions and Li atoms in the 14-1000-eV energy region

By means of a crossed-beam technique, the absolute cross section for charge transfer between lithium ions and lithium atoms has been measured for incident ions energies ranging from 14 to 1000 eV. The lithium ions are produced thermally in a b-eucryptite source and are accelerated and focused into a ribbon beam in a Peirce gun. The total energy spread of the beam is less than 3% at all energies; mass analysis shows that above 1000 degrees C emitter temperature the impurity ions in the beam are below 0.2%. This ion beam traverses a high-density, collimated lithium vapor beam issuing from an oven. A typical density of neutral lithium atoms in the interaction region is 10(13) atoms/cm(8). The slow ions produced in the charge-transfer interaction are collected on a negatively biased cage surrounding the interaction volume of the two beams. The slow-ion charge-transfer completely accounts for the ion-beam attenuation, thus indicating that all scattered beam ions are collected. The vapor-beam density was determined by condensing the vapor on a cold target, dissolving the metallic lithium thus collected, and titrating the resulting solution. The cross section for charge transfer varies from 240 X 10-(16) cm(2) at 14 eV incident ion energy to 880X10-(16) at 1000 eV, and has the expected energy dependence for resonant charge transfer where in cident ion energy E is in eV and Q is in cm(2).Supported by Advanced Research Project Agency, Project Defender. OH wishes to acknowledge support received from the Office of Naval Research though the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School Research Foundation

Equations over free inverse monoids with idempotent variables

We introduce the notion of idempotent variables for studying equations in inverse monoids. It is proved that it is decidable in singly exponential time (DEXPTIME) whether a system of equations in idempotent variables over a free inverse monoid has a solution. The result is proved by a direct reduction to solve language equations with one-sided concatenation and a known complexity result by Baader and Narendran: Unification of concept terms in description logics, 2001. We also show that the problem becomes DEXPTIME hard , as soon as the quotient group of the free inverse monoid has rank at least two. Decidability for systems of typed equations over a free inverse monoid with one irreducible variable and at least one unbalanced equation is proved with the same complexity for the upper bound. Our results improve known complexity bounds by Deis, Meakin, and Senizergues: Equations in free inverse monoids, 2007. Our results also apply to larger families of equations where no decidability has been previously known.Comment: 28 pages. The conference version of this paper appeared in the proceedings of 10th International Computer Science Symposium in Russia, CSR 2015, Listvyanka, Russia, July 13-17, 2015. Springer LNCS 9139, pp. 173-188 (2015

Unclear associations between small pelagic fish and jellyfish in several major marine ecosystems

During the last 20 years, a series of studies has suggested trends of increasing jellyfish (Cnidaria and Ctenophora) biomass in several major ecosystems worldwide. Some of these systems have been heavily fished, causing a decline among their historically dominant small pelagic fish stocks, or have experienced environmental shifts favouring jellyfish proliferation. Apparent reduction in fish abundance alongside increasing jellyfish abundance has led to hypotheses suggesting that jellyfish in these areas could be replacing small planktivorous fish through resource competition and/or through predation on early life stages of fish. In this study, we test these hypotheses using extended and published data of jellyfish, small pelagic fish and crustacean zooplankton biomass from four major ecosystems within the period of 1960 to 2014: the Southeastern Bering Sea, the Black Sea, the Northern California Current and the Northern Benguela. Except for a negative association between jellyfish and crustacean zooplankton in the Black Sea, we found no evidence of jellyfish biomass being related to the biomass of small pelagic fish nor to a common crustacean zooplankton resource. Calculations of the energy requirements of small pelagic fish and jellyfish stocks in the most recent years suggest that fish predation on crustacean zooplankton is 2–30 times higher than jellyfish predation, depending on ecosystem. However, compared with available historical data in the Southeastern Bering Sea and the Black Sea, it is evident that jellyfish have increased their share of the common resource, and that jellyfish can account for up to 30% of the combined fish-jellyfish energy consumption. We conclude that the best available time-series data do not suggest that jellyfish are outcompeting, or have replaced, small pelagic fish on a regional scale in any of the four investigated ecosystems. However, further clarification of the role of jellyfish requires higher-resolution spatial, temporal and taxonomic sampling of the pelagic community.publishedVersio

Production of XeO * in a CW microwave discharge

A low-power CW microwave discharge at 2.45 GHz was used to produce XeO * excimer molecules. It was found that a total gas pressure between 5 and 20 Torr, absorbed power of about 20–100 W, and an oxygen-to-xenon ratio of 1∶100 maximized the XeO( 1 S− 1 D) green emission at 5200 to 5600 Å. The XeO * emission appeared in the cooler parts of the discharge near the containment tube walls and in the electric field nodes of the TM 012 resonant mode.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45480/1/11090_2005_Article_BF01023916.pd

Microscopic simulation of xenon-based optical TPCs in the presence of molecular additives

[EN] We introduce a simulation framework for the transport of high and low energy electrons in xenon-based optical time projection chambers (OTPCs). The simulation relies on elementary cross sections (electron-atom and electron-molecule) and incorporates, in order to compute the gas scintillation, the reaction/quenching rates (atom-atom and atom-molecule) of the first 41 excited states of xenon and the relevant associated excimers, together with their radiative cascade. The results compare positively with observations made in pure xenon and its mixtures with CO2 and CF4 in a range of pressures from 0.1 to 10 bar. This work sheds some light on the elementary processes responsible for the primary and secondary xenon-scintillation mechanisms in the presence of additives, that are of interest to the OTPC technology.DGD is supported by the Ramon y Cajal program (Spain) under contract number RYC-2015-18820. The authors want to acknowledge the RD51 collaboration for encouragement and support during the elaboration of this work, and in particular discussions with F. Resnati, A. Milov, V. Peskov, M. Suzuki and A. F. Borghesani. The NEXT Collaboration acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC) under the Advanced Grant 339787-NEXT; the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of Spain under grants FIS2014-53371-C04 and the Severo Ochoa Program SEV-2014-0398; the GVA of Spain under grant PROM-ETEO/2016/120; the Portuguese FCT and FEDER through the program COMPETE, project PTDC/FIS-NUC/2525/2014 and UID/FIS/04559/2013; the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts number DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) and DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A& and the University of Texas at Arlington.Azevedo, C.; Gonzalez-Diaz, D.; Biagi, SF.; Oliveira, CAB.; Henriques, CAO.; Escada, J.; Monrabal, F.... (2018). Microscopic simulation of xenon-based optical TPCs in the presence of molecular additives. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment. 877:157-172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2017.08.049S15717287

Ion-beam excitation of liquid argon

The scintillation light of liquid argon has been recorded wavelength and time resolved with very good statistics in a wavelength interval ranging from 118 nm through 970 nm. Three different ion beams, protons, sulfur ions and gold ions, were used to excite liquid argon. Only minor differences were observed in the wavelength-spectra obtained with the different incident particles. Light emission in the wavelength range of the third excimer continuum was found to be strongly suppressed in the liquid phase. In time-resolved measurements, the time structure of the scintillation light can be directly attributed to wavelength in our studies, as no wavelength shifter has been used. These measurements confirm that the singlet-to-triplet intensity ratio in the second excimer continuum range is a useful parameter for particle discrimination, which can also be employed in wavelength-integrated measurements as long as the sensitivity of the detector system does not rise steeply for wavelengths longer than 190 nm. Using our values for the singlet-to-triplet ratio down to low energies deposited a discrimination threshold between incident protons and sulfur ions as low as ∼2.5 keV seems possible, which represents the principle limit for the discrimination of these two species in liquid argon

Low-power photolytically pumped lasers: Final technical report

We have carried out an extensive series of measurements of the time-resolved Xe/sub 2/* emission spectra following optical pumping by a short-pulse F/sub 2/ laser at 157.6 nm. Most measurements were performed using a gated Optical Multichannel Analyzer detector; we also made measurements using a scanning monochromator fitted with a photomultiplier and using a boxcar integrator for time resolution. The two sets of results agree well and show that both the singlet and triplet emission bands are broader than expected and have center wavelengths closer together than expected. Measurements were performed both at room temperature and at elevated (140/sup 0/C) and reduced (-27/sup 0/C) temperatures. The broad bandwidth of the individual spectral bands was unexpected and conflicted with a previous spectral measurement using optical pumping by the Xe* resonance line from a microwave discharge lamp. Therefore, we also performed a series of spectral measurements using this type of optical pumping. We achieved good agreement with some previous results in the literature, but not with the result in question. We conclude that the present results are reliable. The results presented in this report provide the first definitive measurement of the individual excimer emissions from each of the Xe/sub 2/(0/sub u//sup +/) and Xe/sub 2/(1/sub u/) states. From these measurements and the known ground state potential, we derived a 1/sub u/ potential that reproduces the emission band very well. However, the 1/sub u/ potential is in substantial disagreement with the recent 1/sub u/ potential derived by the Toronto group. 13 refs., 32 figs., 3 tabs

OBSERVATION OF THE C(3/2)←X(1/2)C(3/2)\leftarrow X(1/2) TRANSITION IN XeF

Author Institution: Molecular Physics Laboratory, SRI International$XeF(X_{v}-)$, produced by KrF Laser hotodissociation of $XeF_{2}$, is excited by a doubled dye-laser to $XeF(B_{v^{\prime}})$ and $XeF(C_{v^{\prime}})$ and the broad-band $B\rightarrow A$ and $C\rightarrow A$ fluorescence is detected. The B and C states are distinguished by their differing decay rates at low pressure. Through its fluorescence excitation spectrum the $C\leftarrow X$ transition is observed for the first time. The vibrational analysis of the C-X bands locates the $C(v^{\prime}=0)$ level at $775 cm^{-1}$ below the $B(v^{\prime}=0)$ level, and yields the first experimental vibrational constants for the C state $(\omega_{e} = 346 cm^{-1}$ and $\omega_{e}x_{e} = 2.2 cm^{-1})$. A bandshape analysis of the C-X bands suggests that the equilibrium internuclear separation of the C state lies around 2.45 \AA. Vibrational relaxation and vibrationally resolved collision-induced dissociation of $XeF(X_{v}-)$ are also observed. Supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under contract N0014-80-C-0506,through the office of Naval Research

Fullerene-fullerene collisions: fragmentation and electron capture

In this paper, we describe collisions between high-energy (100-keV) fullerene ions (C60+, C602+, C702+, and C703+) and C60. The fast, forward-directed charged collision products are identified, leading to information on electron capture and loss as well as fragmentation. Similar studies are performed on rare-gas targets (He and Xe), and the fragmentation patterns and charge-exchange cross sections are compared and discussed. The electron-capture cross sections are two orders of magnitude larger for collisions with C60 as compared to Xe, while the smaller cluster-ion fragment peaks are only 3-6 times more intense. These observations are discussed in the light of the low ionization energy and the large mass and size of C60