High pressure-temperature proton migration in P-3 brucite [Mg(OH)2]: Implication for electrical conductivity in deep mantle

Hydrous minerals contribute largely to the transport and distribution of water into the mantle of earth to regulate the process of deep-water cycle. Brucite is one of the simplest layered dense hydrous mineral belonging to MgO-SiO2-H2O ternary system, which contains significant amount of water in the form of OH- groups, spanning a wide range of pressure stability. Simultaneously, the pressure (p) and temperature (T) induced mobility of protons within the layered structure of brucite is crucial for consequences on electrical conductivity of the mantle. Using ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations, we investigate the diffusion of H in high-pressure trigonal P-3 polymorph of brucite in a combined p-T range of 10-85 GPa and 1250-2000K, relevant to the mantle of earth. The AIMD simulations reveal an unusual pressure-dependence of the proton migration in brucite characterized by maximum H-diffusion in the pressure range of 72-76 GPa along different isotherms. We predict that in the P-3 brucite the H mobility is onset only when a critical hydrostatic pressure is attained. The onset pressure is observed to drop with increasing temperature. The H-diffusion in brucite phase at elevated p-T takes place in such a manner that the process results in the amorphization of the H-sublattice, without disturbing the Mg- and O-sublattices. This selective amorphization yields a pool of highly mobile protons causing a subsequent increment in the electrical conductivity in P-3 brucite. Our calculated values of conductivity are compared with ex-situ geophysical magnetic satellite data indicating that brucite can be present in larger quantities in the lower mantle than previously observed. This hydroxide phase can occur as segregated patches between the dominant constituents e.g., silicates and oxides of the lower mantle and thus can explain the origin of high electrical conductivity therein.Comment: Preliminary draft, 6 figures, presented in Goldschimdt 2023 Conference (Lyon, France), comments are welcom

Excited-state proton transfer from pyranine to acetate in methanol

Excited-state proton transfer (ESPT) of pyranine (8-hydroxypyrene-1,3,6-trisulphonate, HPTS) to acetate in methanol has been studied by steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. The rate constant of direct proton transfer from pyranine to acetate (k1) is calculated to be ~1 × 109 M-1 s-1. This is slower by about two orders of magnitude than that in bulk water (8 × 1010 M-1 s-1) at 4 M acetate

From disabling shoulder pain to full functional gain: A hectic approach for higher yield

Idiopathic brachial neuritis also known as Parsonage-Turner syndrome is a well-defined but relatively uncommon clinical entity affecting young adults. It presents with acute-onset severe shoulder pain persisting from days to weeks along with associated weakness and subsequent atrophy of muscles of the shoulder girdle, leading to marked impairment of activities of daily living. Often, the diagnosis is late and sometimes missed in the vast ocean of its mimics. We report a case of idiopathic brachial plexus neuritis in a child, who was aggressively  investigated and promptly treated very early in the course of the disease, and subsequently, muscle atrophy was prevented. This case highlights the importance of picking up the disease amid its diagnostic dilemmas and managing proactively before it evolves along its natural course which may take months to years for complete, sometimes partial recovery

Cellulosic fibre drying: fundamental understanding and process modeling

[EN] Process modeling of conveyer dryer for cellulosic fibre drying demands many fundamental insights. Present study highlights detailed cellulosic fibre drying aspects like mass transfer correlation relating mass transfer rate with process conditions, normalized drying curve and critical moisture content. Cellulosic fibre drying follows falling rate period, where rate of mass transfer decreases with moisture content. Conveyer dryer process model for commercial cellulosic fibre drying was developed and validated successfully. Moderate drying strategy derived based on developed process model and drying fundamentals was deployed at commercial scale which helped in reducing the moisture variability.This work is supported by Grasim Industries, Aditya Birla Group. Authors are thankful to ABSTCPL leadership and other team members for their valuable inputs during this project.Mondal, S.; Agarwala, P.; Dutta, S.; Naik-Nimbalkar, V.; Pande, P.; Dhumal, S. (2018). Cellulosic fibre drying: fundamental understanding and process modeling. En IDS 2018. 21st International Drying Symposium Proceedings. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 627-634. https://doi.org/10.4995/IDS2018.2018.7384OCS62763

Interplay Between Mixed and Pure Exciton States Controls Singlet Fission in Rubrene Single Crystals

Singlet fission (SF) is a multielectron process in which one singlet exciton S converts into a pair of triplet excitons T+T. SF is widely studied as it may help overcome the Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit for semiconductor photovoltaic cells. To elucidate and control the SF mechanism, great attention has been given to the identification of intermediate states in SF materials, which often appear elusive due to the complexity and fast timescales of the SF process. Here, we apply 10fs-1ms transient absorption techniques to high-purity rubrene single crystals to disentangle the intrinsic fission dynamics from the effects of defects and grain boundaries and to identify reliably the fission intermediates. We show that above-gap excitation directly generates a hybrid vibronically assisted mixture of singlet state and triplet-pair multiexciton [S:TT], which rapidly (<100fs) and coherently branches into pure singlet or triplet excitations. The relaxation of [S:TT] to S is followed by a relatively slow and temperature-activated (48 meV activation energy) incoherent fission process. The SF competing pathways and intermediates revealed here unify the observations and models presented in previous studies of SF in rubrene and propose alternative strategies for the development of SF-enhanced photovoltaic materials

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

Design of coplanar waveguide band-pass filter for S-band application

Coplanar waveguide (CPW) has a huge demand for designing band-pass filter (BPF). In this study, the filter designed by open-ended CPW series stub which acts as a resonant circuit thus giving a band-pass response. As the number of open stub discontinuity is increased, the frequency response and roll-off rate of the proposed BPF has improved gradually. Electromagnetic simulated and measured results show a very good agreement with each other. The proposed filter is designed to obtain a frequency range of 1.97–4 GHz (S-band) having rising edge and falling edge selectivities of 35.9 and 45.7 dB/GHz, respectively