Lattice Model for water-solute mixtures

A lattice model for the study of mixtures of associating liquids is proposed. Solvent and solute are modeled by adapting the associating lattice gas (ALG) model. The nature of interaction solute/solvent is controlled by tuning the energy interactions between the patches of ALG model. We have studied three set of parameters, resulting on, hydrophilic, inert and hydrophobic interactions. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations were carried out and the behavior of pure components and the excess properties of the mixtures have been studied. The pure components: water (solvent) and solute, have quite similar phase diagrams, presenting: gas, low density liquid, and high density liquid phases. In the case of solute, the regions of coexistence are substantially reduced when compared with both the water and the standard ALG models. A numerical procedure has been developed in order to attain series of results at constant pressure from simulations of the lattice gas model in the grand canonical ensemble. The excess properties of the mixtures: volume and enthalpy as the function of the solute fraction have been studied for different interaction parameters of the model. Our model is able to reproduce qualitatively well the excess volume and enthalpy for different aqueous solutions. For the hydrophilic case, we show that the model is able to reproduce the excess volume and enthalpy of mixtures of small alcohols and amines. The inert case reproduces the behavior of large alcohols such as, propanol, butanol and pentanol. For last case (hydrophobic), the excess properties reproduce the behavior of ionic liquids in aqueous solution.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figure

Nematic Twist-Bend Phase with Nanoscale Modulation of Molecular Orientation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Zeno and anti-Zeno effects for photon polarization dephasing

We discuss a simple, experimentally feasible scheme, which elucidates the principles of controlling ("engineering") the reservoir spectrum and the spectral broadening incurred by repeated measurements. This control can yield either the inhibition (Zeno effect) or the acceleration (anti-Zeno effect) of the quasi-exponential decay of the observed state by means of frequent measurements. In the discussed scheme, a photon is bouncing back and forth between two perfect mirrors, each time passing a polarization rotator. The horizontal and vertical polarizations can be viewed as analogs of an excited and a ground state of a two level system (TLS). A polarization beam splitter and an absorber for the vertically polarized photon are inserted between the mirrors, and effect measurements of the polarization. The polarization angle acquired in the electrooptic polarization rotator can fluctuate randomly, e.g., via noisy modulation. In the absence of an absorber the polarization randomization corresponds to TLS decay into an infinite-temperature reservoir. The non-Markovian nature of the decay stems from the many round-trips required for the randomization. We consider the influence of the polarization measurements by the absorber on this non-Markovian decay, and develop a theory of the Zeno and anti-Zeno effects in this system.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Energy dependence of Ti/Fe ratio in the Galactic cosmic rays measured by the ATIC-2 experiment

Titanium is a rare, secondary nucleus among Galactic cosmic rays. Using the Silicon matrix in the ATIC experiment, Titanium has been separated. The energy dependence of the Ti to Fe flux ratio in the energy region from 5 GeV per nucleon to about 500 GeV per nucleon is presented.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy Letter

A theory of L1L^1-dissipative solvers for scalar conservation laws with discontinuous flux

We propose a general framework for the study of $L^1$ contractive semigroups of solutions to conservation laws with discontinuous flux. Developing the ideas of a number of preceding works we claim that the whole admissibility issue is reduced to the selection of a family of "elementary solutions", which are certain piecewise constant stationary weak solutions. We refer to such a family as a "germ". It is well known that (CL) admits many different $L^1$ contractive semigroups, some of which reflects different physical applications. We revisit a number of the existing admissibility (or entropy) conditions and identify the germs that underly these conditions. We devote specific attention to the anishing viscosity" germ, which is a way to express the "$\Gamma$-condition" of Diehl. For any given germ, we formulate "germ-based" admissibility conditions in the form of a trace condition on the flux discontinuity line $x=0$ (in the spirit of Vol'pert) and in the form of a family of global entropy inequalities (following Kruzhkov and Carrillo). We characterize those germs that lead to the $L^1$-contraction property for the associated admissible solutions. Our approach offers a streamlined and unifying perspective on many of the known entropy conditions, making it possible to recover earlier uniqueness results under weaker conditions than before, and to provide new results for other less studied problems. Several strategies for proving the existence of admissible solutions are discussed, and existence results are given for fluxes satisfying some additional conditions. These are based on convergence results either for the vanishing viscosity method (with standard viscosity or with specific viscosities "adapted" to the choice of a germ), or for specific germ-adapted finite volume schemes

Nematic twist-bend phase with nanoscale modulation of molecular orientation

A state of matter in which molecules show a long-range orientational order and no positional order is called a nematic liquid crystal. The best known and most widely used (for example, in modern displays) is the uniaxial nematic, with the rod-like molecules aligned along a single axis, called the director. When the molecules are chiral, the director twists in space, drawing a right-angle helicoid and remaining perpendicular to the helix axis; the structure is called a chiral nematic. Here using transmission electron and optical microscopy, we experimentally demonstrate a new nematic order, formed by achiral molecules, in which the director follows an oblique helicoid, maintaining a constant oblique angle with the helix axis and experiencing twist and bend. The oblique helicoids have a nanoscale pitch. The new twist-bend nematic represents a structural link between the uniaxial nematic (no tilt) and a chiral nematic (helicoids with right-angle tilt)

Coulomb singularity effects in tunnelling spectroscopy of individual impurities

Non-equilibrium Coulomb effects in resonant tunnelling processes through deep impurity states are analyzed. It is shown that Coulomb vertex corrections to the tunnelling transfer amplitude lead to a power-law singularity in current- voltage characteristicsComment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Non-thermal high-energy emission from colliding winds of massive stars

Colliding winds of massive star binary systems are considered as potential sites of non-thermal high-energy photon production. This is motivated merely by the detection of synchrotron radio emission from the expected colliding wind location. Here we investigate the properties of high-energy photon production in colliding winds of long-period WR+OB-systems. We found that in the dominating leptonic radiation process anisotropy and Klein-Nishina effects may yield spectral and variability signatures in the gamma-ray domain at or above the sensitivity of current or upcoming gamma-ray telescopes. Analytical formulae for the steady-state particle spectra are derived assuming diffusive particle acceleration out of a pool of thermal wind particles, and taking into account adiabatic and all relevant radiative losses. For the first time we include their advection/convection in the wind collision zone, and distinguish two regions within this extended region: the acceleration region where spatial diffusion is superior to convective/advective motion, and the convection region defined by the convection time shorter than the diffusion time scale. The calculation of the Inverse Compton radiation uses the full Klein-Nishina cross section, and takes into account the anisotropic nature of the scattering process. This leads to orbital flux variations by up to several orders of magnitude which may, however, be blurred by the geometry of the system. The calculations are applied to the typical WR+OB-systems WR 140 and WR 147 to yield predictions of their expected spectral and temporal characteristica and to evaluate chances to detect high-energy emission with the current and upcoming gamma-ray experiments. (abridged)Comment: 67 pages, 24 figures, submitted to Ap