Pulse interaction in nonlinear vacuum electrodynamics

The energy-momentum conservation law is used to investigate the interaction of pulses in the framework of nonlinear electrodynamics with Lorentz-invariant constitutive relations. It is shown that for the pulses of the arbitrary shape the interaction results in phase shift only.Comment: LaTeX, 5 pages, 2 EPS figure

Rotational kinetics of absorbing dust grains in neutral gas

We study the rotational and translational kinetics of massive particulates (dust grains) absorbing the ambient gas. Equations for microscopic phase densities are deduced resulting in the Fokker-Planck equation for the dust component. It is shown that although there is no stationary distribution, the translational and rotational temperatures of dust tend to certain values, which differ from the temperature of the ambient gas. The influence of the inner structure of grains on rotational kinetics is also discussed.Comment: REVTEX4, 20 pages, 2 figure

Technical Note: VUV photodesorption rates from water ice in the 120-150 K temperature range - significance for Noctilucent Clouds

Laboratory studies have been carried out with the aim to improve our understanding of physicochemical processes which take place at the water ice/air interface initiated by solar irradiation with a wavelength of 121.6 nm. It was intended to mimic the processes of ice particles characteristic of Noctilucent Clouds (NLCs). The experimental set-up used includes a high-vacuum chamber, a gas handling system, a cryostat with temperature controller, an FTIR spectrometer, a vacuum ultraviolet hydrogen lamp, and a microwave generator. We report the first results of measurements of the absolute photodesorption rate (loss of substance due to the escape of photoproducts into gas phase) from thin (20–100 nm) water ice samples kept in the temperature range of 120–150 K. The obtained results show that a flow of photoproducts into the gas phase is considerably lower than presumed in the recent study by Murray and Plane (2005). The experiments indicate that almost all photoproducts remain in the solid phase, and the principal chemical reaction between them is the recombination reaction H + OH → H<sub>2</sub>O which is evidently very fast. This means that direct photolysis of mesospheric ice particles seems to have no significant impact on the gas phase chemistry of the upper mesosphere