Activity of Ions in and Structure of Concentrated Solutions of Electrolytes

In a review of recent work done in the author\u27s laboratory certain aspects of activity coefficients and of structure of concentrated solutions of electrolytes are discussed. The theses presented in the introductory part are corroborated by experimental results and thermodynamic interpretation

Autowaves in a dc complex plasma confined behind a de Laval nozzle

Experiments to explore stability conditions and topology of a dense microparticle cloud supported against gravity by a gas flow were carried out. By using a nozzle shaped glass insert within the glass tube of a dc discharge plasma chamber a weakly ionized gas flow through a de Laval nozzle was produced. The experiments were performed using neon gas at a pressure of 100 Pa and melamine-formaldehyde particles with a diameter of 3.43 {\mu}m. The capturing and stable global confining of the particles behind the nozzle in the plasma were demonstrated. The particles inside the cloud behaved as a single convection cell inhomogeneously structured along the nozzle axis in a tube-like manner. The pulsed acceleration localized in the very head of the cloud mediated by collective plasma-particle interactions and the resulting wave pattern were studied in detail.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Application of an event-based camera for real-time velocity resolved kinetics

We describe here the application of an inexpensive event-based/neuromorphic camera in an ion imaging experiment operated at 1 kHz detection rate to study real-time velocity-resolved kinetics of thermal desorption. Such measurements involve a single gas pulse to initiate a time-dependent desorption process and a high repetition rate laser, where each pulse of the laser is used to produce an ion image. The sequence of ion images allows the time dependence of the desorption flux to be followed in real time. In previous work where a conventional framing camera was used, the large number of megapixel-sized images required data transfer and storage rates of up to 16 GB/s. This necessitated a large onboard memory that was quickly filled and limited continuous measurement to only a few seconds. Read-out of the memory became the bottleneck to the rate of data acquisition. We show here that since most pixels in each ion image contain no data, the data rate can be dramatically reduced by using an event-based/neuromorphic camera. The data stream is thus reduced to the intensity and location information on the pixels that are lit up by each ion event together with a time-stamp indicating the arrival time of an ion at the detector. This dramatically increases the duty cycle of the method and provides insights for the execution of other high rep-rate ion imaging experiments

Dynamical mean-field theory of indirect magnetic exchange

To analyze the physical properties arising from indirect magnetic exchange between several magnetic adatoms and between complex magnetic nanostructures on metallic surfaces, the real-space extension of dynamical mean-field theory (R-DMFT) appears attractive as it can be applied to systems of almost arbitrary geometry and complexity. While R-DMFT describes the Kondo effect of a single adatom exactly, indirect magnetic (RKKY) exchange is taken into account on an approximate level only. Here, we consider a simplified model system consisting of two magnetic Hubbard sites ("adatoms") hybridizing with a non-interacting tight-binding chain ("substrate surface"). This two-impurity Anderson model incorporates the competition between the Kondo effect and indirect exchange but is amenable to an exact numerical solution via the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG). The particle-hole symmetric model at half-filling and zero temperature is used to benchmark R-DMFT results for the magnetic coupling between the two adatoms and for the magnetic properties induced in the substrate. In particular, the dependence of the local adatom and the nonlocal adatom-adatom static susceptibilities as well as the magnetic response of the substrate on the distance between the adatoms and on the strength of their coupling with the substrate is studied. We find both, excellent agreement with the DMRG data even on subtle details of the competition between RKKY exchange and the Kondo effect but also complete failure of the R-DMFT, depending on the parameter regime considered. R-DMFT calculations are performed using the Lanczos method as impurity solver. With the real-space extension of the two-site DMFT, we also benchmark a simplified R-DMFT variant.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Velocity‐resolved laser‐induced desorption for kinetics on surface adsorbates

Most experimental methods for studying the kinetics of surface reactions – for example, temperature programmed desorption (TPD), molecular beam relaxation spectrometry (MBRS) and velocity-resolved kinetics (VRK) – employ detection schemes that require thermal desorption. However, many adsorbates – for example reaction intermediates – never leave the surface under reaction conditions. In this paper, we present a new method to measure adsorbate concentrations on catalytic surfaces and demonstrate its utility for studying thermal desorption kinetics. After a short-pulsed molecular beam deposits CO or NH3 on Pt (111), the surface is irradiated with an ultrashort laser pulse that induces desorption. Another tightly focused ultrashort laser pulse ionizes the gas-phase molecules by a non-resonant multiphoton process and the ions are detected. This two-laser signal is then recorded as a function of time after the dosing molecular beam pulse and decays exponentially. First-order thermal desorption rate constants are obtained over a range of temperatures and found to be in good agreement with past reports. Ion detection is done mass selectively with ion-imaging, dispersing the gas phase molecules by their velocities. Since laser-induced desorption (LID) produces hyperthermal gas phase molecules, they can be detected with little or no background. This approach is highly surface-specific and exhibits sensitivity below 10−4 ML coverage. Because the signals are linearly proportional to adsorbate concentration, the method can be employed at lower temperatures than VRK, whose signal is proportional to reaction rate

Characterization of [3H][^3H]Phenobarbital Binding to Rat Brain Membranes

The binding of $[^3H]$phenobarbital to rat brain membranes was studied in order to determine its characteristics and specificity. The binding reaction was rapid and occurred at sites of low affinity. $(K_d = 700 μM)$ and very high density $(B_{max} = 2.7 nmoll/mg protein)$. It was unaffected by temperature changes from O°C to 95°C and was maximal at pH 5. Detergents in low concentrations markedly decreased the binding, apparently without solubilizing the binding sites. It is concluded that the binding of $[^3H]$ phenobarbital is a rather non-specific interaction with the plasma membrane

Cosmological simulations of mixed ultralight dark matter

The era of precision cosmology allows us to test the composition of the dark matter. Mixed ultralight or fuzzy dark matter (FDM) is a cosmological model with dark matter composed of a combination of particles of mass $m\leq 10^{-20}\;\mathrm{eV}$, with an astrophysical de Broglie wavelength, and particles with a negligible wavelength sharing the properties of cold dark matter (CDM). In this work, we simulate cosmological volumes with a dark matter wave function for the ultralight component coupled gravitationally to CDM particles. We investigate the impact of a mixture of CDM and FDM in various proportions $(0\%,\;1\%,\;10\%,\;50\%,\;100\%)$ and for ultralight particle masses ranging over five orders of magnitude $(2.5\times 10^{-25}\;\mathrm{eV}-2.5\times 10^{-21}\;\mathrm{eV})$. To track the evolution of density perturbations in the non-linear regime, we adapt the simulation code AxioNyx to solve the CDM dynamics coupled to a FDM wave function obeying the Schr\"odinger-Poisson equations. We obtain the non-linear power spectrum and study the impact of the wave effects on the growth of structure on different scales. We confirm that the steady-state solution of the Schr\"odinger-Poisson system holds at the center of halos in the presence of a CDM component when it composes $50\%$ or less of the dark matter but find no stable density core when the FDM accounts for $10\%$ or less of the dark matter. We implement a modified friends-of-friends halo finder and find good agreement between the observed halo abundance and the predictions from the adapted halo model axionHMCode.Comment: Added reference

Stress impairs intentional memory control through altered theta oscillations in lateral parietal cortex

Accumulating evidence suggests that forgetting is not necessarily a passive process but that we can, to some extent, actively control what we remember and what we forget. Although this intentional control of memory has potentially far-reaching implications, the factors that influence our capacity to intentionally control our memory are largely unknown. Here, we tested whether acute stress may disrupt the intentional control of memory and, if so, through which neural mechanism. We exposed healthy men and women to a stress (n=27) or control (n=26) procedure before they aimed repeatedly to retrieve some previously learned cue-target pairs and to actively suppress others. While control participants showed reduced memory for supressed compared to baseline pairs in a subsequent memory test, this suppression-induced forgetting was completely abolished after stress. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we show that the reduced ability to suppress memories after stress is associated with altered theta activity in the inferior temporal cortex when the control process (retrieval or suppression) is triggered and in the lateral parietal cortex when control is exerted, with the latter being directly correlated with the stress hormone cortisol. Moreover, the suppression-induced forgetting was linked to altered connectivity between the hippocampus and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which in turn was negatively correlated to stress-induced cortisol increases. These findings provide novel insights into conditions under which our capacity to actively control our memory breaks down and may have considerable implications for stress-related psychopathologies, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, that are characterized by unwanted memories of distressing events.Significance Statement: It is typically assumed that forgetting is a passive process that can hardly be controlled. There is, however, evidence that we may actively control, to some extent, what we remember and what we forget. This intentional memory control has considerable implications for mental disorders in which patients suffer from unwanted (e.g., traumatic) memories. Here, we demonstrate that the capacity to intentionally control our memory breaks down after stress. Using magnetoencephalography, we show that this stress-induced memory control deficit is linked to altered activity in the lateral parietal cortex and the connectivity between the hippocampus and right prefrontal cortex. These findings provide novel insights into conditions under which memory control fails and are highly relevant in the context of stress-related psychopathologies