18,362 research outputs found
Estimating single molecule conductance from spontaneous evolution of a molecular contact
We present an original method to estimate the conductivity of a single
molecule anchored to nanometric-sized metallic electrodes, using a Mechanically
Controlled Break Junction (MCBJ) operated at room temperature in liquid. We
record the conductance through the metal / molecules / metal nanocontact while
keeping the metallic electrodes at a fixed distance. Taking advantage of
thermal diffusion and electromigration, we let the contact naturally explore
the more stable configurations around a chosen conductance value. The
conductance of a single molecule is estimated from a statistical analysis of
raw conductance and conductance standard deviation data for molecular contacts
containing up to 14 molecules. The single molecule conductance values are
interpreted as time-averaged conductance of an ensemble of conformers at
thermal equilibrium.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure
Structural investigations on -FeGe at high pressure and low temperature
The structural parameters of -FeGe have been determined at ambient
conditions using single crystal refinement. Powder diffraction have been
carried out to determine structural properties and compressibility for
pressures up to 30 GPa and temperatures as low as 82 K. The discontinuous
change in the pressure dependence of the shortest Fe-Ge interatomic distance
might be interpreted as a symmetry-conserving transition and seems to be
related to a magnetic phase boundary line.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
The spark-associated soliton model for pulsar radio emission
We propose a new, self-consistent theory of coherent pulsar radio emission
based on the non-stationary sparking model of Ruderman & Sutherland (1975),
modified by Gil & Sendyk (2000) in the accompanying Paper I. According to these
authors, the polar cap is populated as densely as possible by a number of
sparks with a characteristic perpendicular dimension D approximately equal to
the polar gap height scale h, separated from each other also by about h. Each
spark reappears in approximately the same place on the polar cap for a time
scale much longer than its life-time and delivers to the open magnetosphere a
sequence of electron-positron clouds which flow orderly along a flux tube of
dipolar magnetic field lines. The overlapping of particles with different
momenta from consecutive clouds leads to effective two-stream instability,
which triggers electrostatic Langmuir waves at the altitudes of about 50
stellar radii. The electrostatic oscillations are modulationally unstable and
their nonlinear evolution results in formation of ``bunch-like'' charged
solitons. A characteristic soliton length along magnetic field lines is about
30 cm, so they are capable of emitting coherent curvature radiation at radio
wavelengths. The net soliton charge is about 10^21 fundamental charges,
contained within a volume of about 10^14 cm^3. For a typical pulsar, there are
about 10^5 solitons associated with each of about 25 sparks operating on the
polar cap at any instant. One soliton moving relativisticaly along dipolar
field lines with a Lorentz factor of the order of 100 generates a power of
about 10^21 erg/s by means of curvature radiation. Then the total power of a
typical radio pulsar can be estimated as being about 10^(27-28) erg/s.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Ap
Evaluation of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) gels as drug delivery systems at different pH values
Studies of dynamic and equilibrium swelling, structural characterisation and solute transport in swollen poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) gels (pHEMA) cross-linked with tripropyleneglycol diacrylate (TPGDA) were done for a wide range of TPGDA concentrations. The influence of the pH on these pHEMA properties was evaluated. In swelling studies it was found that in changing the pH from 6.5 to 12.0, a large increase in swelling occurred, from approximately 48 to 55%, for the lowest concentration of TPGDA (1 mol%), and from 40 to 80% for the highest concentration (10mol%). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements were made after the equilibrium swelling of the gels at different pH values, to explain these results. The advantage of using these gels as controlled drug delivery systems is illustrated using salicylic acid (SA) as a model drug. The loading and the release of the SA were made at different pH values and the results obtained showed that it is possible to modulate the hydrogel performance by controlling an external factor, the pH at which the drug loading and release were performed.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6T7W-3YMW350-4/1/bd1b81f7d9f216abf72881a42ad0163
Production cross-sections and momentum distributions of fragments from neutron-deficient 36Ar at 1.05 A.GeV
We have measured production cross sections and longitudinal momentum
distributions of fragments from neutron-deficient 36Ar at 1.05 A.GeV. The
production cross-sections show excellent agreement with the predictions of the
semiempirical formula EPAX. We have compared these results, involving extremly
neutron deficient nuclei, with model calculations to extract informa tion about
the response of these models close to the driplines. The longitudinal momentum
distributions have also been extracted and are compared with the Goldhaber and
Morrissey systematics.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure
Elemental and topographic characterization of LDPE based copolymeric films obtained by gamma irradiation
The preparation of PE-g-HEMA (polyethylene-grafted-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) films by 60Co gamma irradiation has been optimized to produce a new material suitable for bioapplications.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TJN-4PKFGWY-1/1/ce67dece44bee190c7fdab19460ed6d
Trans-Planckian Dark Energy?
It has recently been proposed by Mersini et al. 01, Bastero-Gil and Mersini
02 that the dark energy could be attributed to the cosmological properties of a
scalar field with a non-standard dispersion relation that decreases
exponentially at wave-numbers larger than Planck scale (k_phys > M_Planck). In
this scenario, the energy density stored in the modes of trans-Planckian
wave-numbers but sub-Hubble frequencies produced by amplification of the vacuum
quantum fluctuations would account naturally for the dark energy. The present
article examines this model in detail and shows step by step that it does not
work. In particular, we show that this model cannot make definite predictions
since there is no well-defined vacuum state in the region of wave-numbers
considered, hence the initial data cannot be specified unambiguously. We also
show that for most choices of initial data this scenario implies the production
of a large amount of energy density (of order M_Planck^4) for modes with
momenta of order M_Planck, far in excess of the background energy density. We
evaluate the amount of fine-tuning in the initial data necessary to avoid this
back-reaction problem and find it is of order H/M_Planck. We also argue that
the equation of state of the trans-Planckian modes is not vacuum-like.
Therefore this model does not provide a suitable explanation for the dark
energy.Comment: RevTeX - 15 pages, 7 figures: final version to appear in PRD, minor
changes, 1 figure adde
Search for the Higgs Boson at LHC in 3-3-1 Model
We present an analysis of production and signature of neutral Higgs boson
() on the version of the 3-3-1 model containing heavy leptons at the
Large Hadron Collider. We studied the possibility to identify it using the
respective branching ratios. Cross section are given for the collider energy,
14 TeV. Event rates and significances are discussed for two
possible values of integrated luminosity, 300 fb and 3000 fb.Comment: 17 pages 7 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1205.404
A note on inflation and transplanckian physics
In this paper we consider the influence of transplanckian physics on the CMBR
anisotropies produced by inflation. We consider a simple toy model that allows
for analytic calculations and argue on general grounds, based on ambiguities in
the choice of vacuum, that effects are expected with a magnitude of the order
of , where is the Hubble constant during inflation and
the scale for new physics, e.g. the Planck scale.Comment: 12 pages. v2: typos corrected and references added. v3: final version
accepted for publication by PRD. Improved discussion of adiabatic vacuu
Performances of multi-gap timing RPCs for relativistic ions in the range Z=1-6
We present the performance of Multi-gap timing RPCs under irradiation by
fully stripped relativistic ions (gamma*beta=2.7, Z=1-6). A time resolution of
80 ps at high efficiency has been obtained by just using standard `off the
shelf' 4-gap timing RPCs from the new HADES ToF wall. The resolution worsened
to 100 ps for ~ 1 kHz/cm2 proton flux and for ~ 100 Hz/cm2 Carbon flux. The
chambers were operated at a standard field of E=100 kV/cm and showed a high
stability during the experiment, supporting the fact that RPCs are a convenient
choice when accommodating a very broad range of ionizing particles is needed.
The data provides insight in the region of very highly ionizing particles (up
to x 36 mips) and can be used to constrain the existing avalanche and
Space-Charge models far from the usual `mip valley'. The implications of these
results for the general case of detection based on secondary processes (n,
gamma) resulting in highly ionizing particles with characteristic energy
distributions will be discussed, together with the nature of the time-charge
correlation curve.Comment: 31 pages, 19 figures, submitted to JINS
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