10,979 research outputs found
Molecular abundances and low-mass star formation. I: Si- and S-bearing species toward IRAS 16293-2422
Results from millimeter and submillimeter spectral line surveys of the protobinary source IRAS 16293-2422 are presented. Here we outline the abundances of silicon- and sulfur-containing species. A combination of rotation diagram and full statistical equilibrium/radiative transfer calculations is used to constrain the physical conditions toward IRAS 16293 and to construct its beam-averaged chemical composition over a 10-20" (1600-3200 AU) scale. The chemical complexity as judged by species such as SiO, OCS, and H_2S, is mtermedtate between that of dark molecular clouds such as Ll34N and hot molecular cloud cores such as Orion KL. From the richness of the spectra compared to other young stellar objects of similar luminosity, it is clear that molecular abundances do not scale simply with mass; rather, the chemistry is a strong function of evolutionary state, i.e., age
Multi-scale strain-stiffening of semiflexible bundle networks
Bundles of polymer filaments are responsible for the rich and unique
mechanical behaviors of many biomaterials, including cells and extracellular
matrices. In fibrin biopolymers, whose nonlinear elastic properties are crucial
for normal blood clotting, protofibrils self-assemble and bundle to form
networks of semiflexible fibers. Here we show that the extraordinary
strain-stiffening response of fibrin networks is a direct reflection of the
hierarchical architecture of the fibrin fibers. We measure the rheology of
networks of unbundled protofibrils and find excellent agreement with an affine
model of extensible wormlike polymers. By direct comparison with these data, we
show that physiological fibrin networks composed of thick fibers can be modeled
as networks of tight protofibril bundles. We demonstrate that the tightness of
coupling between protofibrils in the fibers can be tuned by the degree of
enzymatic intermolecular crosslinking by the coagulation Factor XIII.
Furthermore, at high stress, the protofibrils contribute independently to the
network elasticity, which may reflect a decoupling of the tight bundle
structure. The hierarchical architecture of fibrin fibers can thus account for
the nonlinearity and enormous elastic resilience characteristic of blood clots.Comment: 27 pages including 8 figures and Supplementary Dat
Van der Waals forces in density functional theory: perturbational long-range electron interaction corrections
Long-range exchange and correlation effects, responsible for the failure of
currently used approximate density functionals in describing van der Waals
forces, are taken into account explicitly after a separation of the
electron-electron interaction in the Hamiltonian into short- and long-range
components. We propose a "range-separated hybrid" functional based on a local
density approximation for the short-range exchange-correlation energy, combined
with a long-range exact exchange energy. Long-range correlation effects are
added by a second-order perturbational treatment. The resulting scheme is
general and is particularly well-adapted to describe van der Waals complexes,
like rare gas dimers.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Optical modulation spectroscopy of hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon
The properties of microcrystalline silicon thin films prepared by RF sputtering
were investigated by optical modulation spectroscopy at room temperature and the
results were correlated with Raman and conductivity measurements. For comparative
purposes, a number of good quality PECVD microc-Si:H samples were also investigated.
For PECVD samples the OMS signal is very weak, and only measurable for
probe beam energies comparable to the gap of amorphous silicon. This indicates the
absence of gap states and therefore a very high crystalline fraction, as confirmed by
Raman and TEM measurements.
In what concerns RF-sputtered samples, different behaviors can be
distinguished: Some samples show a low OMS signal which can be attributed either to
a high crystallinity (low density of gap states) or to high recombination rates. These
two cases can be distinguished by electrical conductivity values and analysis of the
Raman spectra. Other samples exhibit a OMS signal similar to a-Si:H and have low
conductivity values, consistent with a Raman spectrum typical of a-Si:H.FCT-grant from PRAXIS XX
On the expressive power of read-once determinants
We introduce and study the notion of read- projections of the determinant:
a polynomial is called a {\it read-
projection of determinant} if , where entries of matrix are
either field elements or variables such that each variable appears at most
times in . A monomial set is said to be expressible as read-
projection of determinant if there is a read- projection of determinant
such that the monomial set of is equal to . We obtain basic results
relating read- determinantal projections to the well-studied notion of
determinantal complexity. We show that for sufficiently large , the permanent polynomial and the elementary symmetric
polynomials of degree on variables for are
not expressible as read-once projection of determinant, whereas
and are expressible as read-once projections of determinant. We
also give examples of monomial sets which are not expressible as read-once
projections of determinant
Detection of interstellar CH_3
Observations with the Short Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) onboard the {\it
Infrared Space Observatory} (ISO) have led to the first detection of the methyl
radical in the interstellar medium. The branch at 16.5
m and the (0) line at 16.0 m have been unambiguously detected
toward the Galactic center SgrA. The analysis of the measured bands gives a
column density of (8.02.4) cm and an excitation
temperature of K. Gaseous at a similarly low excitation
temperature and are detected for the same line of sight. Using
constraints on the column density obtained from and
visual extinction, the inferred abundance is
. The chemically related
molecule is not detected, but the pure rotational lines of are seen
with the Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS). The absolute abundances and the
and ratios are inconsistent with published
pure gas-phase models of dense clouds. The data require a mix of diffuse and
translucent clouds with different densities and extinctions, and/or the
development of translucent models in which gas-grain chemistry, freeze-out and
reactions of with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and solid
aliphatic material are included.Comment: 2 figures. ApJL, Accepte
Exploring the phase structure of lattice QCD with twisted mass quarks
The phase structure of zero temperature twisted mass lattice QCD is
investigated. We find strong metastabilities in the plaquette observable when
the untwisted quark mass sweeps across zero.Comment: Talks presented at Lattice2004(spectrum), 6 pages, 6 figure
Structural stability of Fe5Si3 and Ni2Si studied by high-pressure x-ray diffraction and ab initio total-energy calculations
We performed high-pressure angle dispersive x-ray diffraction measurements on
Fe5Si3 and Ni2Si up to 75 GPa. Both materials were synthesized in bulk
quantities via a solid-state reaction. In the pressure range covered by the
experiments, no evidence of the occurrence of phase transitions was observed.
On top of that, Fe5Si3 was found to compress isotropically, whereas an
anisotropic compression was observed in Ni2Si. The linear incompressibility of
Ni2Si along the c-axis is similar in magnitude to the linear incompressibility
of diamond. This fact is related to the higher valence-electron charge density
of Ni2Si along the c-axis. The observed anisotropic compression of Ni2Si is
also related to the layered structure of Ni2Si where hexagonal layers of Ni2+
cations alternate with graphite-like layers formed by (NiSi)2- entities. The
experimental results are supported by ab initio total-energy calculations
carried out using density functional theory and the pseudopotential method. For
Fe5Si3, the calculations also predicted a phase transition at 283 GPa from the
hexagonal P63/mcm phase to the cubic structure adopted by Fe and Si in the
garnet Fe5Si3O12. The room-temperature equations of state for Fe5Si3 and Ni2Si
are also reported and a possible correlation between the bulk modulus of iron
silicides and the coordination number of their minority element is discussed.
Finally, we report novel descriptions of these structures, in particular of the
predicted high-pressure phase of Fe5Si3 (the cation subarray in the garnet
Fe5Si3O12), which can be derived from spinel Fe2SiO4 (Fe6Si3O12).Comment: 44 pages, 13 figures, 3 Table
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