Tuning the emission wavelength of Si nanocrystals in SiO2 by oxidation

Si nanocrystals (diameter 2–5 nm) were formed by 35 keV Si + implantation at a fluence of 6 × 1016 Si/cm2 into a 100 nm thick thermally grown SiO2 film on Si (100), followed by thermal annealing at 1100 °C for 10 min. The nanocrystals show a broad photoluminescence spectrum, peaking at 880 nm, attributed to the recombination of quantum confined excitons. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and transmission electron microscopy show that annealing these samples in flowing O2 at 1000 °C for times up to 30 min results in oxidation of the Si nanocrystals, first close to the SiO2 film surface and later at greater depths. Upon oxidation for 30 min the photoluminescence peak wavelength blueshifts by more than 200 nm. This blueshift is attributed to a quantum size effect in which a reduction of the average nanocrystal size leads to emission at shorter wavelengths. The room temperature luminescence lifetime measured at 700 nm increases from 12 µs for the unoxidized film to 43 µs for the film that was oxidized for 29 min

SPEAR Far Ultraviolet Spectral Images of the Cygnus Loop

We present far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectral images, measured at C IV 1550, He II 1640, Si IV+O IV] 1400, and O III] 1664, of the entire Cygnus Loop, observed with the Spectroscopy of Plasma Evolution from Astrophysical Radiation (SPEAR) instrument, also known as FIMS. The spatial distribution of FUV emission generally corresponds with a limb-brightened shell, and is similar to optical, radio and X-ray images. The features found in the present work include a ``carrot'', diffuse interior, and breakout features, which have not been seen in previous FUV studies. Shock velocities of 140-160 km/s is found from a line ratio of O IV] to O III], which is insensitive not only to resonance scattering but also to elemental abundance. The estimated velocity indicates that the fast shocks are widespread across the remnant. By comparing various line ratios with steady-state shock models, it is also shown that the resonance scattering is widespread.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ

The Solar hep Process in Effective Field Theory

Using effective field theory, we calculate the S-factor for the hep process in a totally parameter-free formulation. The transition operators are organized according to chiral counting, and their matrix elements are evaluated using the realistic nuclear wave functions obtained in the correlated-hyperspherical-harmonics method. Terms of up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory are considered. Fixing the only parameter in the theory by fitting the tritium \beta-decay rate, we predict the hep S-factor with accuracy better than \sim 20 %.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex. Minor revision has been mad

Parameter-Free Calculation of the Solar Proton Fusion Rate in Effective Field Theory

Spurred by the recent complete determination of the weak currents in two-nucleon systems up to ${\cal O}(Q^3)$ in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, we carry out a parameter-free calculation of the solar proton fusion rate in an effective field theory that combines the merits of the standard nuclear physics method and systematic chiral expansion. Using the tritium beta-decay rate as an input to fix the only unknown parameter in the effective Lagrangian, we can evaluate with drastically improved precision the ratio of the two-body contribution to the well established one-body contribution; the ratio is determined to be (0.86\pm 0.05) %. This result is essentially independent of the cutoff parameter for a wide range of its variation (500 MeV \le \Lambda \le 800 MeV), a feature that substantiates the consistency of the calculation.Comment: 10 pages. The argument is considerably more sharpened with a reduced error ba

Special Issue on Information Dissemination and New Services in P2P Systems

Information dissemination is an important P2P application that has received considerable research attention in recent years. P2P information dissemination systems range from simple file sharing applications to more complex systems that allows users to securely and efficiently publish, organize, index, search, update and retrieve data in a distributed storage medium. For complex P2P information dissemination systems, there is a need for features which include security, anonymity, fairness, scalability, resource management, and organization capabilities. For effective information dissemination, following features of P2P systems and infrastructure need to be updated: distributed object location and routing mechanisms, novel approaches to content replication, caching and migration, encryption, authentication, access control, and resource trading and management schemes

Singlet superfield extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model with Peccei-Quinn symmetry and a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson at the LHC

Motivated by the mu-problem and the axion solution to the strong CP-problem, we extend the MSSM with one more chiral singlet field $X_e$. The underlying PQ-symmetry allows only one more term $X_e H_u H_d$ in the superpotential. The spectrum of the Higgs system includes a light pseudoscalar $a_X$ (in addition to the standard CP-even Higgs boson), predominantly decaying to two photons: $a_X \to \gamma \gamma$. Both Higgs bosons might be in the range accessible to current LHC experiments.Comment: 5 pages with 3 figure

Computational Relativistic Astrophysics With Adaptive Mesh Refinement: Testbeds

We have carried out numerical simulations of strongly gravitating systems based on the Einstein equations coupled to the relativistic hydrodynamic equations using adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) techniques. We show AMR simulations of NS binary inspiral and coalescence carried out on a workstation having an accuracy equivalent to that of a $1025^3$ regular unigrid simulation, which is, to the best of our knowledge, larger than all previous simulations of similar NS systems on supercomputers. We believe the capability opens new possibilities in general relativistic simulations.Comment: 7 pages, 16 figure