Improved magnesia for thermal control coatings

Formation of radiation-generated color centers using single crystals of magnesium oxide is discussed. Crystal structure of magnesium oxide is described. Chemical processes used to produce magnesium oxide with desired color center kinetics are presented. Proton irradiation of magnesium oxide crystals was conducted to determine lattice defects

Ion specificity and the theory of stability of colloidal suspensions

A theory is presented which allow us to accurately calculate the critical coagulation concentration (CCC) of hydrophobic colloidal suspensions. For positively charged particles the CCC's follow the Hofmeister (lyotropic) series. For negatively charged particles the series is reversed. We find that strongly polarizable chaotropic anions are driven towards the colloidal surface by electrostatic and hydrophobic forces. Within approximately one ionic radius from the surface, the chaotropic anions loose part of their hydration sheath and become strongly adsorbed. The kosmotropic anions, on the other hand, are repelled from the hydrophobic surface. The theory is quantitatively accurate without any adjustable parameters. We speculate that the same mechanism is responsible for the Hofmeister series that governs stability of protein solutions.Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett. (in press

Interfacial Tension of Electrolyte Solutions

A theory is presented to account for the increase in surface tension of water in the presence of electrolyte. Unlike the original ``grand-canonical'' calculation of Onsager and Samaras, which relied on the Gibbs adsorption isotherm and lead to a result which could only be expressed as an infinite series, our approach is ``canonical'' and produces an analytic formula for the excess surface tension. For small concentrations of electrolyte, our result reduces to the Onsager-Samaras limiting law.Comment: contains two figures. Journal of Chemical Physics, in pres

Charge reversal of colloidal particles

A theory is presented for the effective charge of colloidal particles in suspensions containing multivalent counterions. It is shown that if colloids are sufficiently strongly charged, the number of condensed multivalent counterion can exceed the bare colloidal charge leading to charge reversal. Charge renormalization in suspensions with multivalent counterions depends on a subtle interplay between the solvation energies of the multivalent counterions in the bulk and near the colloidal surface. We find that the effective charge is {\it not} a monotonically decreasing function of the multivalent salt concentration. Furthermore, contrary to the previous theories, it is found that except at very low concentrations, monovalent salt hinders the charge reversal. This conclusion is in agreement with the recent experiments and simulations

Orbital roulette: a new method of gravity estimation from observed motions

The traditional way of estimating the gravitational field from observed motions of test objects is based on the virial relation between their kinetic and potential energy. We find a more efficient method. It is based on the natural presumption that the objects are observed at a random moment of time and therefore have random orbital time phases. The proposed estimator, which we call "orbital roulette", checks the randomness of the phases. The method has the following advantages: (1) It estimates accurately Keplerian (point-mass) potentials as well as non-Keplerian potentials where the unknown gravitating mass is distributed in space. (2) It is a complete statistical estimator: it checks a trial potential and accepts it or rules it out with a certain significance level; the best-fit measurement is thus supplemented with error bars at any confidence level. (3) It needs no a priori assumptions about the distribution of orbital parameters of the test bodies. We test our estimator with Monte-Carlo-generated motions and demonstrate its efficiency. Useful applications include the Galactic Center, dark-matter halo of the Galaxy, and clusters of stars or galaxies.Comment: 30 pages, accepted to Ap