Solar models and electron screening

We investigate the sensitivity of the solar model to changes in the nuclear reaction screening factors. We show that the sound speed profile as determined by helioseismology certainly rules out changes in the screening factors exceeding more than 10%. A slightly improved solar model could be obtained by enhancing screening by about 5% over the Salpeter value. We also discuss how envelope properties of the Sun depend on screening, too. We conclude that the solar model can be used to help settling the on-going dispute about the ``correct'' screening factors.Comment: accepted for publication by Astron. Astrophy

The thermal conductivity of steam in the zero density limit as a function of temperature

An equation for the thermal conductivity of steam at pressures of 1 atmosphere and below is presented. Sources of the experimental data and the actual data used in the analysis are presented. Also included is low density data below 100 C

A Unified Treatment of the Characters of SU(2) and SU(1,1)

The character problems of SU(2) and SU(1,1) are reexamined from the standpoint of a physicist by employing the Hilbert space method which is shown to yield a completely unified treatment for SU(2) and the discrete series of representations of SU(1,1). For both the groups the problem is reduced to the evaluation of an integral which is invariant under rotation for SU(2) and Lorentz transformation for SU(1,1). The integrals are accordingly evaluated by applying a rotation to a unit position vector in SU(2) and a Lorentz transformation to a unit SO(2,1) vector which is time-like for the elliptic elements and space-like for the hyperbolic elements in SU(1,1). The details of the procedure for the principal series of representations of SU(1,1) differ substantially from those of the discrete series.Comment: 31 pages, RevTeX, typos corrected. To be published in Journal of Mathematical Physic