Towards sympathetic cooling of large molecules: Cold collisions between benzene and rare gas atoms

This paper reports on calculations of collisional cross sections for the complexes Z-CDH6 (X = 3He, 4He, Ne) at temperatures in the range 1)μK - 10K and shows that relatively large cross sections in the 103-105Å2 range are available for collisional cooling. Both elastic and inelastic processes are considered in this temperature range. The calculations suggest that sympathetically cooling benzene to microkelvin temperatures is feasible using these co-trapped rare gas atoms in an optical trap. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschan

Creating ultracold molecules by collisions with ultracold rare gas atoms in an optical trap

We study collisions of para-H$_2$ with five rare gas atomic species (He, Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe) over the range from 1 K to 1 $\mu$ K and evaluate the feasibility of sympathetic cooling H$_2$ with ultracold ground state rare gas atoms co-trapped within a deep optical trap. Collision cross-sections over this large temperature range show that all of these species could be used to cool H$_2$ to ultracold temperatures and that argon and helium are the most promising species for future experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, submitted for publicatio

Spectroscopically determined potential energy surface of H216O up to 25 000 cm–1

A potential energy surface for the major isotopomer of water is constructed by fitting to observed vibration–rotation energy levels of the system using the exact kinetic energy operator nuclear motion program DVR3D. The starting point for the fit is the ab initio Born–Oppenheimer surface of Partridge and Schwenke [J. Chem. Phys. 106, 4618 (1997)] and corrections to it: both one- and two-electron relativistic effects, a correction to the height of the barrier to linearity, allowance for the Lamb shift and the inclusion of both adiabatic and nonadiabatic non-Born–Oppenheimer corrections. Fits are made by scaling the starting potential by a morphing function, the parameters of which are optimized. Two fitted potentials are presented which only differ significantly in their treatment of rotational nonadiabatic effects. Energy levels up to 25 468 cm–1 with J = 0, 2, and 5 are fitted with only 20 parameters. The resulting potentials predict experimentally known levels with J≤10 with a standard deviation of 0.1 cm–1, and are only slightly worse for J = 20, for which rotational nonadiabatic effects are significant. The fits showed that around 100 known energy levels are probably the result of misassignments. Analysis of misassigned levels above 20 000 cm–1 leads to the reassignment of 23 transitions

Yang-Mills fields on CR manifolds

We study pseudo Yang-Mills fields on a compact strictly pseudoconvex CR manifold.Comment: 52 page

Air quality in the Industrial Heartland of Alberta, Canada and potential impacts on human health.

The "Industrial Heartland" of Alberta is Canada's largest hydrocarbon processing center, with more than 40 major chemical, petrochemical, and oil and gas facilities. Emissions from these industries affect local air quality and human health. This paper characterizes ambient levels of 77 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the region using high-precision measurements collected in summer 2010. Remarkably strong enhancements of 43 VOCs were detected, and concentrations in the industrial plumes were often similar to or even higher than levels measured in some of the world's largest cities and industrial regions. For example maximum levels of propene and i-pentane exceeded 100 ppbv, and 1,3-butadiene, a known carcinogen, reached 27 ppbv. Major VOC sources included propene fractionation, diluent separation and bitumen processing. Emissions of the measured VOCs increased the hydroxyl radical reactivity (kOH), a measure of the potential to form downwind ozone, from 3.4 s-1 in background air to 62 s-1 in the most concentrated plumes. The plume value was comparable to polluted megacity values, and acetaldehyde, propene and 1,3-butadiene contributed over half of the plume kOH. Based on a 13-year record (1994-2006) at the county level, the incidence of male hematopoietic cancers (leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma) was higher in communities closest to the Industrial Heartland compared to neighboring counties. While a causal association between these cancers and exposure to industrial emissions cannot be confirmed, this pattern and the elevated VOC levels warrant actions to reduce emissions of known carcinogens, including benzene and 1,3-butadiene

Ambient mixing ratios of nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) in two major urban centers of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region: Guangzhou and Dongguan

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) region can be considered one of the most economically developed areas of mainland China. In September 2005, a total of 96 whole air samples were collected in Guangzhou and Dongguan, two important urban centers of the PRD region. Guangzhou is considered the economic center of Guangdong province, and Dongguan is a rapidly expanding industrial city. Here, we report mixing ratios of 50 nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) that were quantified in the ambient air of these PRD centers. The discussion focuses on understanding the main sources responsible for NMHC emissions, and evaluating the role of the identified sources towards ozone formation. Propane was the most abundant species in Guangzhou, with an average mixing ratio of 6.8 ppbv (±0.7 ppbv S.E.), compared to 2.5±0.2 ppbv in Dongguan. Toluene was the most abundant hydrocarbon in Dongguan (6.1±0.8 ppbv, compared to 5.9±0.7 ppbv in Guangzhou). Based on an analysis of the correlation between vehicular-emitted compounds and the measured NMHCs, together with the benzene-to-toluene (B/T) ratio, vehicular emission appears to be the dominant source of NMHCs measured in Guangzhou. By contrast, selected species (including toluene) in many of the Dongguan samples were influenced by an additional source, most likely related to industrial activities. A specific B/T ratio (<0.20) is proposed here and used as indicator of samples strongly affected by industrial emissions. The ozone formation potential (OFP) is calculated, and the role of the different NMHCs associated with industrial and combustion sources is evaluated. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Cyclotrons as Drivers for Precision Neutrino Measurements

As we enter the age of precision measurement in neutrino physics, improved flux sources are required. These must have a well-defined flavor content with energies in ranges where backgrounds are low and cross section knowledge is high. Very few sources of neutrinos can meet these requirements. However, pion/muon and isotope decay-at-rest sources qualify. The ideal drivers for decay-at-rest sources are cyclotron accelerators, which are compact and relatively inexpensive. This paper describes a scheme to produce decay-at-rest sources driven by such cyclotrons, developed within the DAEdALUS program. Examples of the value of the high precision beams for pursuing Beyond Standard Model interactions are reviewed. New results on a combined DAEdALUS--Hyper-K search for CP-violation that achieve errors on the mixing matrix parameter of 4 degrees to 12 degrees are presented.Comment: This paper was invited by the journal Advances in High Energy Physics for their upcoming special issue on "Neutrino Masses and Oscillations," which will be published on the 100th anniversary of Pontecorvo's birt

Overweight and Underserved in Children: A Contemporary American Paradox

Childhood overweight and obesity trends are serious problems placing children at greater risks for adverse health outcomes and developmental issues. Between 2011 and 2014, obesity prevalence hovered near 17% for children 6-12 years. As of 2014, an estimated 14% of U.S. households were labeled food insecure, with 7.9 million children living within these underserved domains. In recent years, there has been growing concern that food insecurity and overweight and obesity conditions may be associated with each other, especially amongst children

Higher-order relativistic corrections to the vibration–rotation levels of H2S

Relativistic corrections beyond the simple one-electron mass–velocity–Darwin (MVD1) approximation to the ground-state electronic energy of H2S are determined at over 250 geometries. The corrections considered include the two-electron Darwin, the Gaunt and Breit corrections, and the one-electron Lamb shift. Fitted correction surfaces are constructed and used with an accurate ab initio nonrelativistic Born–Oppenheimer potential, determined previously (J. Chem. Phys. 115 (2001) 1229), to calculate vibrational and rotational levels for H232S. The calculations suggest that one- and two-electron relativistic corrections have a noticable influence on the levels of H2S. As for water, the effects considered have markedly different characteristics for the stretching and bending states