Search results for "Particles"
showing 10 items of 8085 documents
Precision Measurement of the First Ionization Potential of Nobelium
2018
One of the most important atomic properties governing an element's chemical behavior is the energy required to remove its least-bound electron, referred to as the first ionization potential. For the heaviest elements, this fundamental quantity is strongly influenced by relativistic effects which lead to unique chemical properties. Laser spectroscopy on an atom-at-a-time scale was developed and applied to probe the optical spectrum of neutral nobelium near the ionization threshold. The first ionization potential of nobelium is determined here with a very high precision from the convergence of measured Rydberg series to be 6.626 21±0.000 05 eV. This work provides a stringent benchmark for st…
Unveiling the strong interaction among hadrons at the LHC
2020
One of the key challenges for nuclear physics today is to understand from first principles the effective interaction between hadrons with different quark content. First successes have been achieved using techniques that solve the dynamics of quarks and gluons on discrete space-time lattices1,2. Experimentally, the dynamics of the strong interaction have been studied by scattering hadrons off each other. Such scattering experiments are difficult or impossible for unstable hadrons3–6 and so high-quality measurements exist only for hadrons containing up and down quarks7. Here we demonstrate that measuring correlations in the momentum space between hadron pairs8–12 produced in ultrarelativistic…
Small-amplitude collective modes of a finite-size unitary Fermi gas in deformed traps
2019
We have investigated collective breathing modes of a unitary Fermi gas in deformed harmonic traps. The ground state is studied by the Superfluid Local Density Approximation (SLDA) and small-amplitude collective modes are studied by the iterative Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation (QRPA). The results illustrate the evolutions of collective modes of a small system in traps from spherical to elongated or pancake deformations. For small spherical systems, the influences of different SLDA parameters are significant, and, in particular, a large pairing strength can shift up the oscillation frequency of collective mode. The transition currents from QRPA show that the compressional flow patte…
KIC 8462852: Will the Trojans return in 2021?
2017
KIC 8462852 stood out among more than 100,000 stars in the Kepler catalogue because of the strange features of its light curve: a wide, asymmetric dimming taking up to 15 per cent of the light at D793 and a period of multiple, narrow dimmings happening approximately 700 days later. Several models have been proposed to account for this abnormal behaviour, most of which require either unlikely causes or a finely-tuned timing. We aim at offering a relatively natural solution, invoking only phenomena that have been previously observed, although perhaps in larger or more massive versions. We model the system using a large, ringed body whose transit produces the first dimming and a swarm of Troja…
Earth Construction: The Mechanical Properties of Adobe with the Addition of Laponite
2015
The contribution describes testing of compression strength, flexural strength and abrasion resistance of adobe made up of soil, water and sand (AS), soil, water, sand and straw (ASP), soil, water, sand and laponite nanoparticles (ASN). Embodied energy in materials presents an increasingly high percentage of the energy spent in the whole life cycle of a building. The same applies for carbon dioxide (CO2). Therefore, the development of new sustainable construction materi- als with lower embodied energy and lower CO2 emissions is needed. The use in construction of the brick made from soil, water and sand or straw, called adobe, boasts a millenary tradition and in recent years there has been re…
Site-specific targeting of enterovirus capsid by functionalized monodisperse gold nanoclusters
2014
Development of precise protocols for accurate site-specific conjugation of monodisperse inorganic nanoparticles to biological material is one of the challenges in contemporary bionanoscience and nanomedicine. We report here a successful site-specific covalent conjugation of functionalized atomically monodisperse gold clusters with 1.5-nm metal cores to viral surfaces. Water-soluble Au102(para-mercaptobenzoic acid)44 clusters, functionalized by maleimide linkers to target cysteines of viral capsid proteins, were synthesized and conjugated to enteroviruses echovirus 1 and coxsackievirus B3. Quantitative analysis of transmission electron microscopy images and the known virus structures showed …
Fungi and Bacteria in Indoor Cultural Heritage Environments: Microbial-related Risks for Artworks and Human Health
2016
Cultural heritage constitutive materials can provide excellent substrates for microbial colonization, highly influenced by thermo-hygrometric parameters. In cultural heritage-related environments, a detrimental microbial load may be present both on manufacts surface and in the aerosol. In this study, bacterial and fungal colonisation has been investigated in three Sicilian confined environments (archive, cave and hypogea), each with peculiar structures and different thermo-hygrometric parameters. Particular attention has been paid to microorganisms able to induce artifacts biodeterioration and to release biological particles in the aerosol (spores, cellular debrides, toxins and allergens) p…
Grain legume seed filling in relation to nitrogen acquisition: A review and prospects with particular reference to pea
2001
International audience; Seed filling depends not only on the instantaneous supply of C and N, but also on their remobilisation from vegetative organs. C supply during seed filling depends mostly on current photosynthesis, but N assimilation and N$_2$ fixation decline during seed filling, with newly acquired N generally insufficient for the high seed demand. As seeds are strong sinks for mobilised nutrients, seed growth becomes metabolically closely associated with N remobilisation. N remobilisation from vegetative tissues to filling seeds interacts with photosynthesis since it induces senescence, which reduces the seed filling period. Hence improved grain legume seed filling requires either…
Beam-normal single-spin asymmetry in elastic scattering of electrons from a spin-0 nucleus
2021
We study the beam-normal single-spin asymmetry (BNSSA) in high-energy elastic electron scattering from several spin-0 nuclei. Existing theoretical approaches work in the plane-wave formalism and predict the BNSSA to scale as $\ensuremath{\sim}A/Z$ with the atomic number $Z$ and nuclear mass number $A$. While this prediction holds for light and intermediate nuclei, a striking disagreement in both the sign and the magnitude of BNSSA was observed by the PREX collaboration for $^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$, coined the ``PREX puzzle.'' To shed light on this disagreement, we go beyond the plane-wave approach which neglects Coulomb distortions known to be significant for heavy nuclei. We explicitly investig…
Elastic scattering cross sections for 6Li and 7Li scattering by aluminum, silicon and titanium below 12 MeV at angles of 140∘ and 170∘
1999
Abstract Elastic scattering cross sections for 6Li and 7Li scattering by natural aluminum, silicon and titanium have been measured in the energy range of 4–11 MeV. Scattering angles were 140∘ and 170∘ for 6Li and 140∘ for 7Li. The threshold energies above which Rutherford backscattering becomes invalid have been determined. Above this threshold the cross sections decrease rapidly, rendering backscattering analysis impractical. For 7Li scattering by Al and Si the observed threshold values were higher than for 6Li scattering. This behavior was reversed for scattering by Ti. The findings were systematic for both scattering angles. The present cross section and threshold data have been compared…