Synthesis of neutral nickel catalysts for ethylene polymerization – the influence of ligand size on catalyst stability

A facile synthesis of nickel salicylaldimine complexes with labile dissociating ligands is described. In addition to producing highly active ethylene polymerization catalysts, important insights into the effect of ligand size on catalyst stability and information on the mechanism of polymerization are provided

Are Proxima and Alpha Centauri Gravitationally Bound?

Using the most recent kinematic and radial velocity data in the literature, we calculate the binding energy of Proxima Centauri relative to the center of mass of the Alpha Centauri system. When we adopt the centroids of the observed data, we find that the three stars constitute a bound system, albeit with a semi-major axis that is on order the same size as Alpha Centauri AB's Hill radius in the galactic potential. We carry out a Monte Carlo simulation under the assumption that the errors in the observed quantities are uncorrelated. In this simulation, 44% of the trial systems are bound, and systems on the 1-3 sigma tail of the radial velocity distribution can have Proxima currently located near the apastron position of its orbit. Our analysis shows that a further, very significant improvement in the characterization of the system can be gained by obtaining a more accurate measurement of the radial velocity of Proxima Centauri.Comment: 10 pages total, 4 pages of text, 1 page of references, 3 figures, and 2 tables This article will be published in The Astronomical Journa

Colloidal Electrostatic Interactions Near a Conducting Surface

Charge-stabilized colloidal spheres dispersed in deionized water are supposed to repel each other. Instead, artifact-corrected video microscopy measurements reveal an anomalous long-ranged like-charge attraction in the interparticle pair potential when the spheres are confined to a layer by even a single charged glass surface. These attractions can be masked by electrostatic repulsions at low ionic strengths. Coating the bounding surfaces with a conducting gold layer suppresses the attraction. These observations suggest a possible mechanism for confinement-induced attractions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

A quantum measure of coherence and incompatibility

The well-known two-slit interference is understood as a special relation between observable (localization at the slits) and state (being on both slits). Relation between an observable and a quantum state is investigated in the general case. It is assumed that the amount of ceherence equals that of incompatibility between observable and state. On ground of this, an argument is peresented that leads to a natural quantum measure of coherence, called "coherence or incompatibility information". Its properties are studied in detail making use of 'the mixing property of relative entropy' derived in this article. A precise relation between the measure of coherence of an observable and that of its coarsening is obtained and discussed from the intutitive point of view. Convexity of the measure is proved, and thus the fact that it is an information entity is established. A few more detailed properties of coherence information are derived with a view to investigate final-state entanglement in general repeatable measurement, and, more importantly, general bipartite entanglement in follow ups of this study.Comment: 19 GS pages; supercedes quant-ph/030921

Density Functional Theory of Inhomogeneous Liquids: II. A Fundamental Measure Approach

Previously, it has been shown that the direct correlation function for a Lennard-Jones fluid could be modeled by a sum of that for hard-spheres, a mean-field tail and a simple linear correction in the core region constructed so as to reproduce the (known) bulk equation of state of the fluid(Lutsko, JCP 127, 054701 (2007)). Here, this model is combined with ideas from Fundamental Measure Theory to construct a density functional theory for the free energy. The theory is shown to accurately describe a range of inhomogeneous conditions including the liquid-vapor interface, the fluid in contact with a hard wall and a fluid confined in a slit pore. The theory gives quantitatively accurate predictions for the surface tension, including its dependence on the potential cutoff. It also obeys two important exact conditions: that relating the direct correlation function to the functional derivative of the free energy with respect to density, and the wall theorem.Comment: to appear in J. Chem. Phy

Alpha-Relaxation Processes in Binary Hard-Sphere Mixtures

Molecular-dynamics simulations are presented for two correlation functions formed with the partial density fluctuations of binary hard-sphere mixtures in order to explore the effects of mixing on the evolution of glassy dynamics upon compressing the liquid into high-density states. Partial-density-fluctuation correlation functions for the two species are reported. Results for the alpha-relaxation process are quantified by parameters for the strength, the stretching, and the time scale, where the latter varies over almost four orders of magnitude upon compression. The parameters exhibit an appreciable dependence on the wave vector; and this dependence is different for the correlation function referring to the smaller and that for the larger species. These features are shown to be in semi-quantitative agreement with those calculated within the mode-coupling theory for ideal liquid-glass transitions.Comment: 14 pages, 20 figures, RevTe

Flow Induced Organization and Memory of a Vortex Lattice

We report on experiments probing the evolution of a vortex state in response to a driving current in 2H-NbSe$_2$ crystals. By following the vortex motion with fast transport measurements we find that the current enables the system to reorganize and access new configurations. During this process the system exhibits a long-term memory: if the current is turned off the vortices freeze in place remembering their prior motion. When the current is restored the motion resumes where it stopped. The experiments provide evidence for a dynamically driven structural change of the vortex lattice and a corresponding dynamic phase diagram that contains a previously unknown regime where the critical current can be either $increased$ or $decreased$ by applying an appropriate driving current.Comment: 5 pages, 4figure

Curvature Dependence of Surface Free Energy of Liquid Drops and Bubbles: A Simulation Study

We study the excess free energy due to phase coexistence of fluids by Monte Carlo simulations using successive umbrella sampling in finite LxLxL boxes with periodic boundary conditions. Both the vapor-liquid phase coexistence of a simple Lennard-Jones fluid and the coexistence between A-rich and B-rich phases of a symmetric binary (AB) Lennard-Jones mixture are studied, varying the density rho in the simple fluid or the relative concentration x_A of A in the binary mixture, respectively. The character of phase coexistence changes from a spherical droplet (or bubble) of the minority phase (near the coexistence curve) to a cylindrical droplet (or bubble) and finally (in the center of the miscibility gap) to a slab-like configuration of two parallel flat interfaces. Extending the analysis of M. Schrader, P. Virnau, and K. Binder [Phys. Rev. E 79, 061104 (2009)], we extract the surface free energy gamma (R) of both spherical and cylindrical droplets and bubbles in the vapor-liquid case, and present evidence that for R -> Infinity the leading order (Tolman) correction for droplets has sign opposite to the case of bubbles, consistent with the Tolman length being independent on the sign of curvature. For the symmetric binary mixture the expected non-existence of the Tolman length is confirmed. In all cases {and for a range of radii} R relevant for nucleation theory, gamma(R) deviates strongly from gamma (Infinity) which can be accounted for by a term of order gamma(Infinity)/gamma(R)-1 ~ 1/R^2. Our results for the simple Lennard-Jones fluid are also compared to results from density functional theory and we find qualitative agreement in the behavior of gamma(R) as well as in the sign and magnitude of the Tolman length.Comment: 25 pages, submitted to J. Chem. Phy

The Langley Annular Transonic Tunnel

Report describes the development of the Langley annular transonic tunnel, a facility in which test Mach numbers from 0.6 to slightly over 1.0 are achieved by rotating the test model in an annular passage between two concentric cylinders. Data obtained for two-dimensional airfoil models in the Langley annular transonic tunnel at subsonic and sonic speeds are shown to be in reasonable agreement with experimental data from other sources and with theory when comparisons are made for nonlifting conditions or for equal normal-force coefficients rather than for equal angles of attack. The trends of pressure distributions obtained from measurements in the Langley annular transonic tunnel are consistent with distributions calculated for Prandtl-Meyer flow