Scientific, institutional and personal rivalries among Soviet geographers in the late Stalin era

Scientific, institutional and personal rivalries between three key centres of geographical research and scholarship (the Academy of Sciences Institute of Geography and the Faculties of Geography at Moscow and Leningrad State Universities) are surveyed for the period from 1945 to the early 1950s. It is argued that the debates and rivalries between members of the three institutions appear to have been motivated by a variety of scientific, ideological, institutional and personal factors, but that genuine scientific disagreements were at least as important as political and ideological factors in influencing the course of the debates and in determining their final outcome

Apparatus for a Search for T-violating Muon Polarization in Stopped-Kaon Decays

The detector built at KEK to search for T-violating transverse muon polarization in K+ --> pi0 mu+ nu (Kmu3) decay of stopped kaons is described. Sensitivity to the transverse polarization component is obtained from reconstruction of the decay plane by tracking the mu+ through a toroidal spectrometer and detecting the pi0 in a segmented CsI(Tl) photon calorimeter. The muon polarization was obtained from the decay positron asymmetry of muons stopped in a polarimeter. The detector included features which minimized systematic errors while maintaining high acceptance.Comment: 56 pages, 30 figures, submitted to NI

Solid 4He and the Supersolid Phase: from Theoretical Speculation to the Discovery of a New State of Matter? A Review of the Past and Present Status of Research

The possibility of a supersolid state of matter, i.e., a crystalline solid exhibiting superfluid properties, first appeared in theoretical studies about forty years ago. After a long period of little interest due to the lack of experimental evidence, it has attracted strong experimental and theoretical attention in the last few years since Kim and Chan (Penn State, USA) reported evidence for nonclassical rotational inertia effects, a typical signature of superfluidity, in samples of solid 4He. Since this "first observation", other experimental groups have observed such effects in the response to the rotation of samples of crystalline helium, and it has become clear that the response of the solid is extremely sensitive to growth conditions, annealing processes, and 3He impurities. A peak in the specific heat in the same range of temperatures has been reported as well as anomalies in the elastic behaviour of solid 4He with a strong resemblance to the phenomena revealed by torsional oscillator experiments. Very recently, the observation of unusual mass transport in hcp solid 4He has also been reported, suggesting superflow. From the theoretical point of view, powerful simulation methods have been used to study solid 4He, but the interpretation of the data is still rather difficult; dealing with the question of supersolidity means that one has to face not only the problem of the coexistence of quantum coherence phenomena and crystalline order, exploring the realm of spontaneous symmetry breaking and quantum field theory, but also the problem of the role of disorder, i.e., how defects, such as vacancies, impurities, dislocations, and grain boundaries, participate in the phase transition mechanism.Comment: Published on J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., Vol.77, No.11, p.11101

Modern Conception of the Control over the Abundance of Carriers and Vectors of Plague in the Territory of the Russian Federation

Disinfestation and deratization remain the main ways of non-specific disease prophylaxis in natural plague foci. Modern strategies, tactics, methods and means of control over carriers and vectors of plague and associated infectious diseases are selected with due consideration to epidemiological potential of territories, epizootic activity of a foci, peculiarities of population ecology of animals that are of a medical significance, preservation of biodiversity in natural ecosystems, and the requirements for human and natural environments protection from pollutants

Observation of a new excitation in bcc solid 4He by inelastic neutron scattering

We report neutron scattering measurements of the phonons in bcc solid 4He. In general, only 3 accoustic phonon branches should exist in a monoatomic cubic crystal. In addition to these phonon branches, we found a new ''optic-like'' mode along the [110] direction. One possible interpretation of this new mode is in terms of localized excitations unique to a quantum solid.Comment: Text and 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Bound states of an electron and a macroscopic cluster at a liquid helium surface

In a strong electric field, there are bound states of an electron at the surface of liquid helium, interacting with a large cluster of atoms in the bulk of liquid. This phenomenon is related to long-range interaction between the electron and the dipole moment of the cluster. The electron, holding the cluster under the liquid surface, is localized at this surface. One electron is capable of binding a cluster of up to 10(6) atoms. The value of the binding energy may reach up to several kelvins. (C) 2004 MAN "Nauka/Interperiodica"