8,986 research outputs found
Imaging nonequilibrium atomic vibrations with x-ray diffuse scattering
For over a century, x-ray scattering has been the most powerful tool for
determining the equilibrium structure of crystalline materials. Deviations from
perfect periodicity, for example due to thermal motion of the atoms, reduces
the intensity of the Bragg peaks as well as produces structure in the diffuse
scattering background. Analysis of the thermal diffuse scattering (TDS) had
been used to determine interatomic force constants and phonon dispersion in
relatively simple cases before inelastic neutron scattering became the
preferred technique to study lattice dynamics. With the advent of intense
synchrotron x-ray sources, there was a renewed interest in TDS for measuring
phonon dispersion. The relatively short x-ray pulses emanating from these
sources also enables the measurement of phonon dynamics in the time domain.
Prior experiments on nonequilibrium phonons were either limited by
time-resolution and/or to relatively long wavelength excitations. Here we
present the first images of nonequilibrium phonons throughout the Brillouin
zone in photoexcited III-V semiconductors, indium-phosphide and
indium-antimonide, using picosecond time-resolved diffuse scattering. In each
case, we find that the lattice remain out of equilibrium for several hundred
picoseconds up to nanoseconds after laser excitation. The non-equilibrium
population is dominated by transverse acoustic phonons which in InP are
directed along high-symmetry directions. The results have wide implications for
the detailed study of electron-phonon and phonon-phonon coupling in solids.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
SP-Sephadex equilibrium chromatography of bradykinin and related peptides: Application to trypsin-treated human plasma
An analytical method is deseribed for the separation of bradykinin, Lys-bradykinin, and Met-Lys-bradykinin by equilibrium chromatography on SP-Sephadex C-25 eluted in 0.02 Tris-HCl buffer, pH 8.10, 0.12 NaCl. A second elution buffer, 0.02 Tris-HCl buffer, pH 7.70, 0.06 NaCl, serves as a second parameter for the identification of bradykinin and also separates the hormone from plasma bradykinin-potentiating peptides. Ten to one-hundred nanomoles of each peptide can be recovered in high yields, identified by elution position, and measured by bioassay with the isolated guinea pig ileum. The identification of bradykinin as the peptide released by trypsin acting on acid-denatured plasma is documented as an illustration of the method
Dynamics of African swine fever virus shedding and excretion in domestic pigs infected by intramuscular inoculation and contact transmission
African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a highly virulent swine pathogen that has spread across Eastern Europe since 2007 and for which there is no effective vaccine or treatment available. The dynamics of shedding and excretion is not well known for this currently circulating ASFV strain. Therefore, susceptible pigs were exposed to pigs intramuscularly infected with the Georgia 2007/1 ASFV strain to measure those dynamics through within- and between-pen transmission scenarios. Blood, oral, nasal and rectal fluid samples were tested for the presence of ASFV by virus titration (VT) and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Serum was tested for the presence of ASFV-specific antibodies. Both intramuscular inoculation and contact transmission resulted in development of acute disease in all pigs although the experiments indicated that the pathogenesis of the disease might be different, depending on the route of infection. Infectious ASFV was first isolated in blood among the inoculated pigs by day 3, and then chronologically among the direct and indirect contact pigs, by day 10 and 13, respectively. Close to the onset of clinical signs, higher ASFV titres were found in blood compared with nasal and rectal fluid samples among all pigs. No infectious ASFV was isolated in oral fluid samples although ASFV genome copies were detected. Only one animal developed antibodies starting after 12 days post-inoculation. The results provide quantitative data on shedding and excretion of the Georgia 2007/1 ASFV strain among domestic pigs and suggest a limited potential of this isolate to cause persistent infection
Thermopower and thermal conductivity in the Weyl semimetal NbP
The Weyl semimetal NbP exhibits an extremely large magnetoresistance (MR) and
an ultra-high mobility. The large MR originates from a combination of the
nearly perfect compensation between electron- and hole-type charge carriers and
the high mobility, which is relevant to the topological band structure. In this
work we report on temperature- and field-dependent thermopower and thermal
conductivity experiments on NbP. Additionally, we carried out complementary
heat capacity, magnetization, and electrical resistivity measurements. We found
a giant adiabatic magnetothermopower with a maximum of 800 V/K at 50 K in
a field of 9 T. Such large effects have been observed rarely in bulk materials.
We suggest that the origin of this effect might be related to the high
charge-carrier mobility. We further observe pronounced quantum oscillations in
both thermal conductivity and thermopower. The obtained frequencies compare
well with our heat capacity and magnetization data.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Disorder Averaging and Finite Size Scaling
We propose a new picture of the renormalization group (RG) approach in the
presence of disorder, which considers the RG trajectories of each random sample
(realization) separately instead of the usual renormalization of the averaged
free energy. The main consequence of the theory is that the average over
randomness has to be taken after finding the critical point of each
realization. To demonstrate these concepts, we study the finite-size scaling
properties of the two-dimensional random-bond Ising model. We find that most of
the previously observed finite-size corrections are due to the sample-to-sample
fluctuation of the critical temperature and scaling is more adequate in terms
of the new scaling variables.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures include
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