Hard core attraction in hadron scattering and the family of the Ds meson molecule

We study the discovered Ds(2317) at BABAR, CLEO and BELLE, and find that it belongs to a class of strange multiquarks, which is equivalent to the class of kaonic molecules bound by hard core attraction. In this class of hadrons a kaon is trapped by a s-wave meson or baryon. To describe this class of multiquarks we apply the Resonating Group Method, and extract the hard core kaon-meson(baryon)interactions. We derive a criterion to classify the attractive channels. We find that the mesons f0(980), Ds(2457), Bs scalar and axial, and also the baryons with the quantum numbers of Lambda, Xi_c, Xi_b and also Omega_cc, Omega_cb and Omega_bb belong to the new hadronic class of the Ds(2317).Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, contribution to the X International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy, HADRON 2003, August 31 - September 6, 2003, Aschaffenburg, German

The Theta+ (1540) as an overlap of a pion, a kaon and a nucleon

We study the very recently discovered $\Theta^+$ (1540) at SPring-8, at ITEP and at CLAS-Thomas Jefferson Lab. We apply the same RGM techniques that already explained with success the repulsive hard core of nucleon-nucleon, kaon-nucleon exotic scattering, and the attractive hard core present in pion-nucleon and pion-pion non-exotic scattering. We find that the K-N repulsion excludes the Theta+ as a K-N s-wave pentaquark. We explore the Theta+ as heptaquark, equivalent to a N+pi+K borromean boundstate, with positive parity and total isospin I=0. We find that the kaon-nucleon repulsion is cancelled by the attraction existing both in the pion-nucleon and pion-kaon channels. Although we are not yet able to bind the total three body system, we find that the Theta+ may still be a heptaquark state.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, contribution to the X International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy, HADRON 2003, August 31 - September 6, 2003, Aschaffenburg, German

Scale-dependent rigidity of polymer-ornamented membranes

We study the fluctuation spectrum of fluid membranes carrying grafted polymers. Contrary to usual descriptions, we find that the modifications induced by the polymers cannot be reduced to the renormalization of the membrane bending rigidity. Instead we show that the ornamented membrane exhibits a scale-dependent elastic modulus that we evaluate. In ornamented lamellar stacks, we further show that this leads to a modification of the Caille parameter characterizing the power-law singularities of the Bragg peaks.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Identification of fullerene-like CdSe nanoparticles from optical spectroscopy calculations

Semiconducting nanoparticles are the building blocks of optical nanodevices as their electronic states, and therefore light absorption and emission, can be controlled by modifying their size and shape. CdSe is perhaps the most studied of these nanoparticles, due to the efficiency of its synthesis, the high quality of the resulting samples, and the fact that the optical gap is in the visible range. In this article, we study light absorption of CdSe nanostructures with sizes up to 1.5 nm within density functional theory. We study both bulk fragments with wurtzite symmetry and novel fullerene-like core-cage structures. The comparison with recent experimental optical spectra allows us to confirm the synthesis of these fullerene-like CdSe clusters

Clustering and Correlations at the Neutron Dripline

Some recent experimental studies of clustering and correlations within very neutron-rich light nuclei are reviewed. In particular, the development of the novel probes of neutron-neutron interferometry and Dalitz-plot analyses is presented through the example of the dissociation of the two-neutron halo system $^{14}$Be. The utility of high-energy proton radiative capture is illustrated using a study of the $^{6}$He(p,$\gamma$) reaction. A new approach to the production and detection of bound neutron clusters is also described, and the observation of events with the characteristics expected for tetraneutrons ($^{4}$n) liberated in the breakup of $^{14}$Be is discussed. The prospects for future work, including systems beyond the neutron dripline, are briefly outlined.Comment: Invited contribution to a topical issue on Exotic Nuclei of Les Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences Paris, Serie IV. 29 pages,11 figures (format RevTex preprint