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Sanctions against Iran: An assessment of their global impact through the lens of international methanol prices
Iran’s energy and petrochemical exports have recently been restricted by a series of international sanctions. This paper focuses on one of the country’s exports, namely methanol - a petrochemical increasingly used for fuel blending and traded at various locations worldwide – and empirically explores the relationships among the North American, European, and Asian markets to investigate the incidence of these sanctions. The analyses are conducted under a parity bounds framework based on Negassa and Myers (2007). The model was applied to the main methanol importing markets to estimate the effects of the sanctions on the degree of spatial integration. The findings document the occurrence of a complete reconfiguration of the spatial extent of the methanol markets. Under the sanctions, an increased degree of market integration was observed across the Atlantic, while fragmentation rose between Europe, South East Asia, and the two giant economies of China and India which both experienced lower prices
Cubic optical nonlinearity of free electrons in bulk gold
A fast (τresponse <90 fs) free-electron spin-flipping frequency-degenerate nonlinearity with a significant value of |χ(3)xxyy(ω,ω,ω,-ω) χ(3)xyyx(ω,ω,ω,-ω)| ~ 10-8 esu has been observed in bulk gold at 1260 nm by use of a new pump-probe polarization-sensitive technique. <br/
Spectral classification of emission-line galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. II. A supplementary diagnostic for AGNs using the Dn(4000) index
In this paper we present a classification of emission-line galaxies at
intermediate and high redshifts (0.52.5 for near-infrared spectra), using the
Dn(4000) index as a supplementary diagnostic. Our goal is to complement the
diagnostic based only on emission-line ratios from the blue part of the
spectra, which suffer from some limitations for the classification of Seyfert 2
and composite galaxies. We used a sample of 89 379 galaxies with a good
signal-to-noise ratio from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (data release 7). Using
the classification scheme presented in Paper I, we classified these galaxies
with a diagnostic diagram involving the [Oiii]5007 /Hbeta and [Oii]3726+3729
/Hbeta emission-line ratios. Then we derived a supplementary diagnostic
involving Dn(4000) to improve this classification, in the regions where objects
of different types are mixed. To show the validity of our spectral
classification we established success-rate and contamination charts, then we
compared our results to those obtained with the reference classification that
was scheme obtained also using Halpha, [Nii]6584, and [Sii]6717+6731 emission
lines. We show that our supplementary classification based on the Dn(4000)
index allows to separate unambiguously star-forming galaxies from Seyfert 2 in
the region where they were mixed in Paper I. It also significantly reduces the
region where star-forming galaxies are mixed with composites.Comment: accepted for publication in A\&A, 10 pages corrected bug in LateX
file for equations 7 and
Size-Dependent Surface Plasmon Dynamics in Metal Nanoparticles
We study the effect of Coulomb correlations on the ultrafast optical dynamics
of small metal particles. We demonstrate that a surface-induced dynamical
screening of the electron-electron interactions leads to quasiparticle
scattering with collective surface excitations. In noble-metal nanoparticles,
it results in an interband resonant scattering of d-holes with surface
plasmons. We show that this size-dependent many-body effect manifests itself in
the differential absorption dynamics for frequencies close to the surface
plasmon resonance. In particular, our self-consistent calculations reveal a
strong frequency dependence of the relaxation, in agreement with recent
femtosecond pump-probe experiments.Comment: 8 pages + 4 figures, final version accepted to PR
Landau damping in thin films irradiated by a strong laser field
The rate of linear collisionless damping (Landau damping) in a classical
electron gas confined to a heated ionized thin film is calculated. The general
expression for the imaginary part of the dielectric tensor in terms of the
parameters of the single-particle self-consistent electron potential is
obtained. For the case of a deep rectangular well, it is explicitly calculated
as a function of the electron temperature in the two limiting cases of specular
and diffuse reflection of the electrons from the boundary of the
self-consistent potential. For realistic experimental parameters, the
contribution of Landau damping to the heating of the electron subsystem is
estimated. It is shown that for films with a thickness below about 100 nm and
for moderate laser intensities it may be comparable with or even dominate over
electron-ion collisions and inner ionization.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure
Size-dependent Correlation Effects in Ultrafast Optical Dynamics of Metal Nanoparticles
We study the role of collective surface excitations in the electron
relaxation in small metal particles. We show that the dynamically screened
electron-electron interaction in a nanoparticle contains a size-dependent
correction induced by the surface. This leads to new channels of quasiparticle
scattering accompanied by the emission of surface collective excitations. We
calculate the energy and temperature dependence of the corresponding rates,
which depend strongly on the nanoparticle size. We show that the
surface-plasmon-mediated scattering rate of a conduction electron increases
with energy, in contrast to that mediated by a bulk plasmon. In noble-metal
particles, we find that the dipole collective excitations (surface plasmons)
mediate a resonant scattering of d-holes to the conduction band. We study the
role of the latter effect in the ultrafast optical dynamics of small
nanoparticles and show that, with decreasing nanoparticle size, it leads to a
drastic change in the differential absorption lineshape and a strong frequency
dependence of the relaxation near the surface plasmon resonance. The
experimental implications of our results in ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy
are also discussed.Comment: 29 pages including 6 figure
An HDG Method for Dirichlet Boundary Control of Convection Dominated Diffusion PDE
We first propose a hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin (HDG) method to
approximate the solution of a \emph{convection dominated} Dirichlet boundary
control problem. Dirichlet boundary control problems and convection dominated
problems are each very challenging numerically due to solutions with low
regularity and sharp layers, respectively. Although there are some numerical
analysis works in the literature on \emph{diffusion dominated} convection
diffusion Dirichlet boundary control problems, we are not aware of any existing
numerical analysis works for convection dominated boundary control problems.
Moreover, the existing numerical analysis techniques for convection dominated
PDEs are not directly applicable for the Dirichlet boundary control problem
because of the low regularity solutions. In this work, we obtain an optimal a
priori error estimate for the control under some conditions on the domain and
the desired state. We also present some numerical experiments to illustrate the
performance of the HDG method for convection dominated Dirichlet boundary
control problems
Controlling the shape of a quantum wavefunction
The ability to control the shape and motion of quantum states(1,2) may lead to methods for bond-selective chemistry and novel quantum technologies, such as quantum computing. The classical coherence of laser light has been used to guide quantum systems into desired target states through interfering pathways(3-5). These experiments used the control of target properties-such as fluorescence from a dye solution(6), the current in a semiconductor(7,8) 8 Or the dissociation fraction of an excited molecule(9)-to infer control over the quantum state. Here we report a direct approach to coherent quantum control that allows us to actively manipulate the shape of an atomic electron's radial wavefunction, We use a computer-controlled laser to excite a coherent state in atomic caesium. The shape of the wavefunction is then measured(10) and the information fed back into the laser control system, which reprograms the optical field. The process is iterated until the measured shape of the wavefunction matches that of a target wavepacket, established at the start of the experiment. We find that, using a variation of quantum holography(11) to reconstruct the measured wavefunction, the quantum state can be reshaped to match the target within two iterations of the feedback loop.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62625/1/397233a0.pd
The Global Energy Transition: A Review of the Existing Literature
This chapter presents an overview of the existing literature on the geopolitics of the global energy transition. Notwithstanding its potentially re-defining role for international relations, this issue has, so far, not been analysed in a comprehensive manner but in a rather fragmented way. This chapter represents a useful summary to the state-of-the-art of knowledge in the field, and therefore a useful starting point for the book
Ribosomal scanning on the 5′-untranslated region of the human immunodeficiency virus RNA genome
Translation initiation on most eukaryotic mRNAs occurs via a cap-dependent scanning mechanism and its efficiency is modulated by their 5′-untranslated regions (5′-UTR). The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) 5′-UTR contains a stable TAR hairpin directly at its 5′-end, which possibly masks the cap structure. In addition, the 5′-UTR is relatively long and contains several stable RNA structures that are essential for viral replication. These characteristics may interfere with ribosomal scanning and suggest that translation is initiated via internal entry of ribosomes. Literature on the HIV-1 5′-UTR-driven translation initiation mechanism is controversial. Both scanning and internal initiation have been shown to occur in various experimental systems. To gain further insight in the translation initiation process, we determined which part of the 5′-UTR is scanned. To do so, we introduced upstream AUGs at various positions across the 5′-UTR and determined the effect on expression of a downstream reporter gene that was placed under control of the gag start codon. This strategy allowed us to determine the window of ribosomal scanning on the HIV-1 5′-UTR
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