Isospin fractionation and isoscaling in dynamical nuclear collisions

Isoscaling is found to hold for fragment yields in the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) simulations for collisions of calcium isotopes at 35 MeV/nucleon. This suggests the applicability of statistical considerations to the dynamical fragment emission. The observed linear relationship between the isoscaling parameters and the isospin asymmetry of fragments supports the above suggestion. The slope of this linear function yields information about the symmetry energy in low density region where multifragmentation occurs.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Predicted Abundances of Carbon Compounds in Volcanic Gases on Io

We use chemical equilibrium calculations to model the speciation of carbon in volcanic gases on Io. The calculations cover wide temperature (500-2000 K), pressure (10^-8 to 10^+2 bars), and composition ranges (bulk O/S atomic ratios \~0 to 3), which overlap the nominal conditions at Pele (1760 K, 0.01 bar, O/S ~ 1.5). Bulk C/S atomic ratios ranging from 10^-6 to 10^-1 in volcanic gases are used with a nominal value of 10^-3 based upon upper limits from Voyager for carbon in the Loki plume on Io. Carbon monoxide and CO2 are the two major carbon gases under all conditions studied. Carbonyl sulfide and CS2 are orders of magnitude less abundant. Consideration of different loss processes (photolysis, condensation, kinetic reactions in the plume) indicates that photolysis is probably the major loss process for all gases. Both CO and CO2 should be observable in volcanic plumes and in Io's atmosphere at abundances of several hundred parts per million by volume for a bulk C/S ratio of 10^-3.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables; accepted by Astrophysical Journa

Neutron spectroscopic factors of Ni isotopes from transfer reactions

177 neutron spectroscopic factors for nickel isotopes have been extracted by performing a systematic analysis of the angular distributions measured from (d,p) transfer reactions. A subset of the extracted spectroscopic factors are compared to predictions of large-basis shell models in the full pf model space using the GXPF1A effective interaction, and the (f5/2, p3/2, p1/2, g9/2) model space using the JJ4PNA interaction. For ground states, the predicted spectroscopic factors using the GXPF1A effective interaction in the full pf model space agree very well with the experimental values, while predictions based on several other effective interactions and model spaces are about 30% higher than the experimental values. For low-energy excited states (<3.5 MeV), the agreement between the extracted spectroscopic factors and shell model calculations is not better than a factor of two.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. accepted for publication in PR

The Statistical Multifragmentation Model with Skyrme Effective Interactions

The Statistical Multifragmentation Model is modified to incorporate the Helmholtz free energies calculated in the finite temperature Thomas-Fermi approximation using Skyrme effective interactions. In this formulation, the density of the fragments at the freeze-out configuration corresponds to the equilibrium value obtained in the Thomas-Fermi approximation at the given temperature. The behavior of the nuclear caloric curve at constant volume is investigated in the micro-canonical ensemble and a plateau is observed for excitation energies between 8 and 10 MeV per nucleon. A kink in the caloric curve is found at the onset of this gas transition, indicating the existence of a small excitation energy region with negative heat capacity. In contrast to previous statistical calculations, this situation takes place even in this case in which the system is constrained to fixed volume. The observed phase transition takes place at approximately constant entropy. The charge distribution and other observables also turn out to be sensitive to the treatment employed in the calculation of the free energies and the fragments' volumes at finite temperature, specially at high excitation energies. The isotopic distribution is also affected by this treatment, which suggests that this prescription may help to obtain information on the nuclear equation of state

CD4+ T-cell responses to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) latent-cycle antigens and the recognition of EBV-transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines

There is considerable interest in the potential of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) latent antigen-specific CD4$^+$ T cells to act as direct effectors controlling EBV-induced B lymphoproliferations. Such activity would require direct CD4$^+$ T-cell recognition of latently infected cells through epitopes derived from endogenously expressed viral proteins and presented on the target cell surface in association with HLA class II molecules. It is therefore important to know how often these conditions are met. Here we provide CD4$^+$ epitope maps for four EBV nuclear antigens, EBNA1, -2, -3A, and -3C, and establish CD4$^+$ T-cell clones against 12 representative epitopes. For each epitope we identify the relevant HLA class II restricting allele and determine the efficiency with which epitope-specific effectors recognize the autologous EBV-transformed B-lymphoblastoid cell line (LCL). The level of recognition measured by gamma interferon release was consistent among clones to the same epitope but varied between epitopes, with values ranging from 0 to 35% of the maximum seen against the epitope peptide-loaded LCL. These epitope-specific differences, also apparent in short-term cytotoxicity and longer-term outgrowth assays on LCL targets, did not relate to the identity of the source antigen and could not be explained by the different functional avidities of the CD4$^+$ clones; rather, they appeared to reflect different levels of epitope display at the LCL surface. Thus, while CD4$^+$ T-cell responses are detectable against many epitopes in EBV latent proteins, only a minority of these responses are likely to have therapeutic potential as effectors directly recognizing latently infected target cells

Charge carrier induced barrier height reduction at organic heterojunctions

In order to provide an accurate theoretical description of current density voltage (J-V) characteristics of an organic heterojunction device over a wide range of electric fields at various temperatures, it is proposed that an accumulation of charge carriers at the heterojunction will lead to a reduction in the barrier height across the heterojunction. Two well-known hole transporting materials, 4,4,4-Tris(N-3-methylphenyl-N-phenyl-amino) triphenylamine (MTDATA) and N,N-diphenyl-N,N-bis(1-naphthyl)(1,1-biphenyl)-4,4diamine (NPB) were used to fabricate unipolar heterojunction devices. It is found that the J-V characteristics depends strongly on applied bias. The simulated J-V characteristics of the heterojunction device, with the modified injection model, are found to be in excellent agreement with the experimental data.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, published in Phys. Rev. B Vol. 78, No. 8, http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v78/e08130

A novel heavy-fermion state in CaCu_3Ru_4O12

We have measured susceptibility, specific heat, resistivity, and thermopower of CaCu$_3$Ti$_{4-x}$Ru$_x$O$_{12}$ and CaCu$_{3-y}$Mn$_y$Ru$_4$O$_{12}$, and have found that CaCu$_3$Ru$_4$O$_{12}$ can be regarded as a heavy-fermion oxide in d-electron systems. The Kondo temperature is near 200 K, and the susceptibility (1.4$\times10^{-3}$ emu/Cu mol) and the electron specific heat coefficient (28 mJ/Cu molK$^2$) are moderately enhanced. The resistivity is proportional to $T^2$ at low temperatures, and satisfies the Kadowaki-Woods relation. The heavy-fermion state comes from the interaction between the localized moment of Cu 3d and the conduction electron of Ru 4d. An insulator-metal transition occurs between $x=1.5$ and 4 in CaCu$_3$Ti$_{4-x}$Ru$_x$O$_{12}$, which can be regarded as a transition from magnetic insulator to heavy-fermion metal.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp

The Microscopic Approach to Nuclear Matter and Neutron Star Matter

We review a variety of theoretical and experimental investigations aimed at improving our knowledge of the nuclear matter equation of state. Of particular interest are nuclear matter extreme states in terms of density and/or isospin asymmetry. The equation of state of matter with unequal concentrations of protons and neutrons has numerous applications. These include heavy-ion collisions, the physics of rare, short-lived nuclei and, on a dramatically different scale, the physics of neutron stars. The "common denominator" among these (seemingly) very different systems is the symmetry energy, which plays a crucial role in both the formation of the neutron skin in neutron-rich nuclei and the radius of a neutron star (a system 18 orders of magnitude larger and 55 orders of magnitude heavier). The details of the density dependence of the symmetry energy are not yet sufficiently constrained. Throughout this article, our emphasis will be on the importance of adopting a microscopic approach to the many-body problem, which we believe to be the one with true predictive power.Comment: 56 pages, review article to appear in the International Journal of Modern Physics