A comparative study of super- and highly-deformed bands in the A ~ 60 mass region

Super- and highly-deformed rotational bands in the A ~ 60 mass region are studied within cranked relativistic mean field theory and the configuration-dependent shell-correction approach based on the cranked Nilsson potential. Both approaches describe the experimental data well. Low values of the dynamic moments of inertia J^(2) compared with the kinematic moments of inertia J^(1) seen both in experiment and in calculations at high rotational frequencies indicate the high energy cost to build the states at high spin and reflect the limited angular momentum content in these configurations.Comment: 11 pages, 4 PostScript figures, Latex, uses 'epsf', submitted to Phys. Lett.

Identical Bands in Superdeformed Nuclei: A Relativistic Description

Relativistic Mean Field Theory in the rotating frame is used to describe superdeformed nuclei. Nuclear currents and the resulting spatial components of the vector meson fields are fully taken into account. Identical bands in neighboring Rare Earth nuclei are investigated and excellent agreement with recent experimental data is observed.Comment: 11 pages (Latex) and 4 figures (available upon request) TUM-ITP-Ko93/

Rifts in Spreading Wax Layers

We report experimental results on the rift formation between two freezing wax plates. The plates were pulled apart with constant velocity, while floating on the melt, in a way akin to the tectonic plates of the earth's crust. At slow spreading rates, a rift, initially perpendicular to the spreading direction, was found to be stable, while above a critical spreading rate a "spiky" rift with fracture zones almost parallel to the spreading direction developed. At yet higher spreading rates a second transition from the spiky rift to a zig-zag pattern occurred. In this regime the rift can be characterized by a single angle which was found to be dependent on the spreading rate. We show that the oblique spreading angles agree with a simple geometrical model. The coarsening of the zig-zag pattern over time and the three-dimensional structure of the solidified crust are also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, Postscript fil

Very high rotational frequencies and band termination in 73Br

Rotational bands in 73Br have been investigated up to spins of 65/2 using the EUROBALL III spectrometer. One of the negative-parity bands displays the highest rotational frequency 1.85 MeV reported to date in nuclei with mass number greater than 25. At high frequencies, the experimental dynamic moment of inertia for all bands decrease to very low values, indicating a loss of collectivity. The bands are described in the configuration-dependent cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky model. The calculations indicate that one of the negative-parity bands is observed up to its terminating single-particle state at spin 63/2. This result establishes the first band termination case in the A = 70 mass region.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. C as a Rapid Communicatio

Closed shells at drip-line nuclei

The shell structure of magic nuclei far from stability is discussed in terms of the self-consistent spherical Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory. In particular, the sensitivity of the shell-gap sizes and the two-neutron separation energies to the choice of particle-hole and particle-particle components of the effective interaction is investigated.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 8 uuencoded figures available upon reques

Synthesis, pharmacological and structural characterization of novel conopressins from Conus miliaris

Cone snails produce a fast-acting and often paralyzing venom, largely dominated by disulfide-rich conotoxins targeting ion channels. Although disulfide-poor conopeptides are usually minor components of cone snail venoms, their ability to target key membrane receptors such as GPCRs make them highly valuable as drug lead compounds. From the venom gland transcriptome of Conus miliaris, we report here on the discovery and characterization of two conopressins, which are nonapeptide ligands of the vasopressin/oxytocin receptor family. These novel sequence variants show unusual features, including a charge inversion at the critical position 8, with an aspartate instead of a highly conserved lysine or arginine residue. Both the amidated and acid C-terminal analogues were synthesized, followed by pharmacological characterization on human and zebrafish receptors and structural investigation by NMR. Whereas conopressin-M1 showed weak and only partial agonist activity at hV1bR (amidated form only) and ZFV1a1R (both amidated and acid form), both conopressin-M2 analogues acted as full agonists at the ZFV2 receptor with low micromolar a�nity. Together with the NMR structures of amidated conopressins-M1, -M2 and -G, this study provides novel structure-activity relationship information that may help in the design of more selective ligands

Microscopic Study of Superdeformed Rotational Bands in 151Tb

Structure of eight superdeformed bands in the nucleus 151Tb is analyzed using the results of the Hartree-Fock and Woods-Saxon cranking approaches. It is demonstrated that far going similarities between the two approaches exist and predictions related to the structure of rotational bands calculated within the two models are nearly parallel. An interpretation scenario for the structure of the superdeformed bands is presented and predictions related to the exit spins are made. Small but systematic discrepancies between experiment and theory, analyzed in terms of the dynamical moments, J(2), are shown to exist. The pairing correlations taken into account by using the particle-number-projection technique are shown to increase the disagreement. Sources of these systematic discrepancies are discussed -- they are most likely related to the yet not optimal parametrization of the nuclear interactions used.Comment: 32 RevTeX pages, 15 figures included, submitted to Physical Review