338 research outputs found
Low temperature processing of solution-derived ceria deposits on flat surfaces of 3D-printed polyamide
Doped ceria deposits have been prepared on 3D-printed polyamide-12 components starting from inkjet-compatible solutions in an attempt to functionalize the surface of the plastic part, followed by a low temperature decomposition process at 160¿°C in air. The non-continuous deposits were characterized by simultaneous thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry and evolved gas analysis, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and electron diffraction. After thermal treatment, the deposits are still clearly visible at the surface of the polymer. However, no crystallinity of the ceria is observed, in contrast to identical low temperature processing on inert substrates such as glass where nanoparticle ceria aggregates were produced. This is tentatively explained by the chemically-reducing character of the polyamide, and in particular to CO and hydrocarbon gases released during the heating process, which would continuously induce the reduction of Ce4+ to Ce3+ at the low temperature of 160¿°C, influencing the non-detection of crystalline ceria.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
Insights into the internal structures of nanogels using a versatile asymmetric-flow field-flow fractionation method
Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) nanogels are a highly researched type of colloidal material. In this work, we establish a versatile asymmetric-flow field-flow fractionation (AF4) method that can provide high resolution particle sizing and also structural information on nanogel samples from 65–310 nm in hydrodynamic diameter and so different chemical compositions. To achieve this online multi-angle light scattering and dynamic light scattering detectors were used to provide measurement of the radius of gyration (Rg) and hydrodynamic radius (Rh) respectively. Two different eluents and a range of cross-flows were evaluated in order to provide effective fractionation and high recovery for the different nanogel samples. We found that using 0.1 M NaNO3 as the eluent and an initial cross-flow of 1 mL min−1 provided optimal separation conditions for all samples tested. Using this method, we analysed two types of samples, pNIPAM nanogels prepared by free radical dispersion polymerisation with increasing diameters and analysed poly(acrylic acid)-b-pNIPAM crosslinked nanogels prepared by reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer dispersion polymerisation. We could determine that the differently sized free radical nanogels possessed differing internal structures; shape factors (Rg/Rh) ranged from 0.58–0.73 and revealed that the smallest nanogel had a homogeneous internal crosslinking density, while the larger nanogels had a more densely crosslinked core compared to the shell. The poly(acrylic acid)-b-pNIPAM crosslinked nanogels displayed clear core–shell structures due to all the crosslinking being contained in the core of the nanogel
Spin-orbit induced backflow in neutron matter with auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo
The energy per particle of zero-temperature neutron matter is investigated,
with particular emphasis on the role of the interaction. An
analysis of the importance of explicit spin--orbit correlations in the
description of the system is carried out by the auxiliary field diffusion Monte
Carlo method. The improved nodal structure of the guiding function, constructed
by explicitly considering these correlations, lowers the energy. The proposed
spin--backflow orbitals can conveniently be used also in Green's Function Monte
Carlo calculations of light nuclei.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
Quenching of Weak Interactions in Nucleon Matter
We have calculated the one-body Fermi and Gamow-Teller charge-current, and
vector and axial-vector neutral-current nuclear matrix elements in nucleon
matter at densities of 0.08, 0.16 and 0.24 fm and proton fractions
ranging from 0.2 to 0.5. The correlated states for nucleon matter are obtained
by operating on Fermi-gas states by a symmetrized product of pair correlation
operators determined from variational calculations with the Argonne v18 and
Urbana IX two- and three-nucleon interactions. The squares of the charge
current matrix elements are found to be quenched by 20 to 25 % by the
short-range correlations in nucleon matter. Most of the quenching is due to
spin-isospin correlations induced by the pion exchange interactions which
change the isospins and spins of the nucleons. A large part of it can be
related to the probability for a spin up proton quasi-particle to be a bare
spin up/down proton/neutron. We also calculate the matrix elements of the
nuclear Hamiltonian in the same correlated basis. These provide relatively mild
effective interactions which give the variational energies in the Hartree-Fock
approximation. The calculated two-nucleon effective interaction describes the
spin-isospin susceptibilities of nuclear and neutron matter fairly accurately.
However 3-body terms are necessary to reproduce the compressibility. All
presented results use the simple 2-body cluster approximation to calculate the
correlated basis matrix elements.Comment: submitted to PR
Neutron matter at zero temperature with auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo
The recently developed auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo method is
applied to compute the equation of state and the compressibility of neutron
matter. By combining diffusion Monte Carlo for the spatial degrees of freedom
and auxiliary field Monte Carlo to separate the spin-isospin operators, quantum
Monte Carlo can be used to simulate the ground state of many nucleon systems
(A\alt 100). We use a path constraint to control the fermion sign problem. We
have made simulations for realistic interactions, which include tensor and
spin--orbit two--body potentials as well as three-nucleon forces. The Argonne
and two nucleon potentials plus the Urbana or Illinois
three-nucleon potentials have been used in our calculations. We compare with
fermion hypernetted chain results. We report results of a Periodic Box--FHNC
calculation, which is also used to estimate the finite size corrections to our
quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Our AFDMC results for models of pure
neutron matter are in reasonably good agreement with equivalent Correlated
Basis Function (CBF) calculations, providing energies per particle which are
slightly lower than the CBF ones. However, the inclusion of the spin--orbit
force leads to quite different results particularly at relatively high
densities. The resulting equation of state from AFDMC calculations is harder
than the one from previous Fermi hypernetted chain studies commonly used to
determine the neutron star structure.Comment: 15 pages, 15 tables and 5 figure
Effect of halo modelling on WIMP exclusion limits
WIMP direct detection experiments are just reaching the sensitivity required
to detect galactic dark matter in the form of neutralinos. Data from these
experiments are usually analysed under the simplifying assumption that the
Milky Way halo is an isothermal sphere with maxwellian velocity distribution.
Observations and numerical simulations indicate that galaxy halos are in fact
triaxial and anisotropic. Furthermore, in the cold dark matter paradigm
galactic halos form via the merger of smaller subhalos, and at least some
residual substructure survives. We examine the effect of halo modelling on WIMP
exclusion limits, taking into account the detector response. Triaxial and
anisotropic halo models, with parameters motivated by observations and
numerical simulations, lead to significant changes which are different for
different experiments, while if the local WIMP distribution is dominated by
small scale clumps then the exclusion limits are changed dramatically.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, version to appear in Phys. Rev. D, minor change
Anisotropic flow of charged hadrons, pions and (anti-)protons measured at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The elliptic, , triangular, , and quadrangular, , azimuthal
anisotropic flow coefficients are measured for unidentified charged particles,
pions and (anti-)protons in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Results obtained with the
event plane and four-particle cumulant methods are reported for the
pseudo-rapidity range at different collision centralities and as a
function of transverse momentum, , out to GeV/.
The observed non-zero elliptic and triangular flow depends only weakly on
transverse momentum for GeV/. The small dependence
of the difference between elliptic flow results obtained from the event plane
and four-particle cumulant methods suggests a common origin of flow
fluctuations up to GeV/. The magnitude of the (anti-)proton
elliptic and triangular flow is larger than that of pions out to at least
GeV/ indicating that the particle type dependence persists out
to high .Comment: 16 pages, 5 captioned figures, authors from page 11, published
version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/186
Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The inclusive transverse momentum () distributions of primary
charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range as a
function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at
TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the range
GeV/ for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%.
The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor
using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision
energy. We observe that the suppression of high- particles strongly
depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most
suppressed with at -7 GeV/. Above
GeV/, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification
factor, which reaches for GeV/. In
peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with almost independently of . The measured nuclear
modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284
Two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV
The first measurement of two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb
collisions at TeV at the Large Hadron Collider is
presented. We observe a growing trend with energy now not only for the
longitudinal and the outward but also for the sideward pion source radius. The
pion homogeneity volume and the decoupling time are significantly larger than
those measured at RHIC.Comment: 17 pages, 5 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 12,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/388
Suppression of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in central Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of primary charged particles in Pb-Pb
collisions at = 2.76 TeV have been measured by the ALICE
Collaboration at the LHC. The data are presented for central and peripheral
collisions, corresponding to 0-5% and 70-80% of the hadronic Pb-Pb cross
section. The measured charged particle spectra in and GeV/ are compared to the expectation in pp collisions at the same
, scaled by the number of underlying nucleon-nucleon
collisions. The comparison is expressed in terms of the nuclear modification
factor . The result indicates only weak medium effects ( 0.7) in peripheral collisions. In central collisions,
reaches a minimum of about 0.14 at -7GeV/ and increases
significantly at larger . The measured suppression of high- particles is stronger than that observed at lower collision energies,
indicating that a very dense medium is formed in central Pb-Pb collisions at
the LHC.Comment: 15 pages, 5 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 10,
published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/98
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