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Das Feld der Hochenergie-Schwerionenforschung hat sich der Untersuchung des Quark-Gluon-Plasmas (QGP) gewidmet. Ein QGP ist ein sehr heißer und dichter Materiezustand, der kurz nach dem Urknall für einige Mikrosekunden das Universum füllte. Unter diesen extremen Bedingungen sind die fundamentalen Bausteine der Materie, die Quarks und Gluonen, quasi frei, also nicht in Hadronen eingeschlossen, wie es unter normalen Bedingungen der Fall ist. Hadronen sind Teilchen, die aus Quarks und Gluonen bestehen. Die bekanntesten Hadronen sind Protonen und Neutronen, die Bestandteile von Atomkernen, aus denen, zusammen mit Elektronen, die gesamte bekannte Materie aufgebaut ist.
Um ein QGP im Labor zu erzeugen, lässt man ultrarelativistische schwere Ionen, wie zum Beispiel Pb-208-Kerne, aufeinander prallen. Dies geschieht am CERN, dem größten Kernforschungszentrum der Welt. Der Teilchenbeschleuniger, welcher Protonen und Pb-Kerne beschleunigt und zur Kollision bringt, heißt Large Hadron Collider (LHC) und ist mit 27 km Umfang der größte der Welt. Bei einer einzigen Pb-Pb Kollision am LHC werden mehrere Tausend Teilchen und Antiteilchen erzeugt. Das dedizierte Experiment zur Untersuchung von Schwerionenkollisionen am LHC ist ALICE. ALICE ist mit mehreren Teilchendetektoren ausgerüstet, die es ermöglichen, tausende Teilchen gleichzeitig zu messen und zu identifizieren.
Unter den produzierten Teilchen befinden sich auch leichte Atomkerne, wenngleich diese nur sehr selten erzeugt werden. Die Anzahl der produzierten Teilchen pro Teilchensorte hängt nämlich von deren Masse ab. In Pb-Pb Kollisionen am LHC sinkt die Anzahl der produzierten (Anti)kerne exponentiell um einen Faktor 1/330 bei Hinzufügen jedes weiteren Nukleons. Die Menge an produzierten Teilchen pro Spezies stellt Informationen über den Produktionsmechanismus beim Übergang vom QGP zum Hadrongas zur Verfügung. Hierbei sind leichte (Anti)kerne von besonderem Interesse, da sie vergleichsweise groß sind und ihre Bindungsenergie bis zu zwei Größenordnungen kleiner ist als die Temperaturen, die bei der Erzeugung der Hadronen vorherrschen. Es ist bis heute noch nicht verstanden, wie leichte (Anti)kerne bei diesen Bedingungen erzeugt werden und überleben können.
Für diese Arbeit wurden ca. 270 Millionen Pb-Pb Kollisionen bei einer Schwerpunktsenergie von 5,02 TeV, die von ALICE im November 2018 aufgezeichnet wurden, analysiert. Es wurde die Produktion von (Anti)triton und (Anti)alpha untersucht. Wegen ihrer großen Masse werden beide Kerne sehr selten produziert, bei weitem nicht bei jeder Kollision. Antialpha ist der schwerste Antikern, der jemals gemessen wurde. Aufgrund dieser Seltenheit ist die Größe des zur Verfügung stehenden Datensatzes entscheidend. Es war möglich, das erste jemals gemessene Antialpha-Transversalimpulsspektrum zu extrahieren. Auch für (Anti)triton und Alpha wurden Transversalimpulsspektren bestimmt.
Die Ergebnisse wurden mit theoretischen Modellen und anderen ALICE Messungen verglichen.
Am Ende wird in einem Ausblick auf das kürzlich durchgeführte Upgrade der ALICE Spurendriftkammer (TPC) eingegangen. In der nächsten, bald startenden Datennahmeperiode wird der LHC seine Kollisionsrate erheblich erhöhen, was es ermöglichen wird, mehr als 100 mal so viele Daten wie bisher aufzuzeichnen. Hiervon werden die in dieser Arbeit beschriebenen (Anti)triton- und (Anti)alpha-Analysen beachtlich profitieren. Um mit den erheblich höheren Kollisionsraten zurecht zu kommen, mussten einige Detektoren, unter anderem die TPC, maßgeblich erneuert werden. In den ersten beiden Datennahmeperioden wurde die TPC mit Vieldrahtproportionalkammern betrieben. Diese sind allerdings viel zu langsam für die geplanten Kollisionsraten. Deshalb wurden sie im Jahr 2019, während einer langen Betriebspause des LHC, durch Quadrupel-GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier) Folien basierte Auslesekammern ersetzt, welche eine kontinuierliche Auslese der TPC ermöglichen. Da es sich um die erste jemals gebaute GEM TPC im Großformat handelt, war ein umfangreiches Forschungs- und Entwicklungs- (F&E) Programm notwendig, um die GEM Auslesekammern zu charakterisieren und zu testen. Im Rahmen dieses F&E Programms wurden am Anfang dieser Promotion systematische Messungen an einer kleinen Test TPC mit Quadrupel-GEM Auslese, die extra zu diesem Zweck gebaut worden war, durchgeführt. Hierbei wurde der Rückfluss der bei der Gasverstärkung erzeugten Ionen in das Driftvolumen der TPC und die Energieauflösung mit verschiedenen GEM Folien Typen und unterschiedlicher Anordnung gemessen. Das Ziel war, möglichst kleine Ionenrückflüsse bei möglichst guter Energieauflösung zu erreichen. Hierbei musste ein Kompromiss gefunden werden, da die beiden Größen sich gegenläufig verhalten. Es war jedoch möglich, mit mehreren GEM Konfigurationen Spannungseinstellungen zu identifizieren, bei denen beide Größen den gewünschten Anforderungen entsprachen.
The QCD phase-diagram is studied, at finite magnetic field. Our calculations are based on the QCD effective model, the SU(3) Polyakov linear-sigma model (PLSM), in which the chiral symmetry is integrated in the hadron phase and in the parton phase, the up-, down- and strange-quark degrees of freedom are incorporated besides the inclusion of Polyakov loop potentials in the pure gauge limit, which are motivated by various underlying QCD symmetries. The Landau quantization and the magnetic catalysis are implemented. The response of the QCD matter to an external magnetic field such as magnetization, magnetic susceptibility and permeability has been estimated. We conclude that the parton phase has higher values of magnetization, magnetic susceptibility, and permeability relative to the hadron phase. Depending on the contributions to the Landau levels, we conclude that the chiral magnetic field enhances the chiral quark condensates and hence the chiral QCD phase-diagram, i.e. the hadron-parton phase-transition likely takes place, at lower critical temperatures and chemical potentials.
Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Wasserkühlung einer normalleitenden CH-Kavität. Insbesondere stellt sich die Frage, ob die im CST Thermal Steady State Solver simulierten Temperaturen mit Messungen während High Power Tests übereinstimmen. Zusätzlich interessiert, inwiefern die Temperatur über die dissipierte Leistung aus dem CST Eigenmode Solver und dem gemessenen Volumenstrom im Kanal abgeschätzt werden kann. In dem Kontext wird auch geklärt, ob die Reihenschaltung der Mantelkanäle den Kühlanforderungen genügt.
Neben Volumenstrom- und Druckmessungen an den in Reihe und parallelgeschalteten Kanälen werden die Leistungs- und Temperaturwerte der Konditionierung in sämtlichen Simulationen aufgegriffen. Indem die Kavität in einzelne Sektionen unterteilt wird und in diesen die dissipierte Leistung mit dem Eigenmode Solver simuliert wird, die ein Kühlkanal abführt, werden die Temperaturerhöhungen direkt berechnet und verglichen.
Zusammengefasst hat sich der Durchfluss in kritischen Bauteilen wie den Stützen durch die Reihenschaltung der Mantelkanäle erhöht und wird damit empfohlen. Es werden die simulierten Temperaturverteilungen gezeigt. Die Näherung über den Eigenmode Solver liefert erneut für die thermisch belasteten Bauteile wie die Stützen präzise Vorhersagen.
Abschließend werden Erfahrungen aus dem Institut in dieser Arbeit zusammengetragen und die Verwendung des Steady State Solver freigegeben.
Topological phases set themselves apart from other phases since they cannot be understood in terms of the usual Landau theory of phase transitions. This fact, which is a consequence of the property that topological phase transitions can occur without breaking symmetries, is reflected in the complicated form of topological order parameters. While the mathematical classification of phases through homotopy theory is known, an intuition for the relation between phase transitions and changes to the physical system is largely inhibited by the general complexity.
In this thesis we aim to get back some of this intuition by studying the properties of the Chern number (a topological order parameter) in two scenarios. First, we investigate the effect of electronic correlations on topological phases in the Green's function formalism. By developing a statistical method that averages over all possible solutions of the manybody problem, we extract general statements about the shape of the phase diagram and investigate the stability of topological phases with respect to interactions. In addition, we find that in many topological models the local approximation, which is part of many standard methods for solving the manybody lattice model, is able to produce qualitatively correct phase transitions at low to intermediate correlations.
We then extend the statistical method to study the effect of the lattice, where we evaluate possible applications of standard machine learning techniques against our information theoretical approach. We define a measure for the information about particular topological phases encoded in individual lattice parameters, which allows us to construct a qualitative phase diagram that gives a more intuitive understanding of the topological phase.
Finally, we discuss possible applications of our method that could facilitate the discovery of new materials with topological properties.
The COLTRIMS Reaction Microscope C-REMI can image the momentum vectors of all emitted charged fragments in an atomic or molecular reactions similar to the bubble chamber in high energy particle physics. C-REMI can detect fragments with “zero” kinetic energy in an ultrahigh vacuum environment by projecting them with weak electromagnetic fields onto position-sensitive detectors. Geometrically a nearly 4π collection solid angle and a nearly 50% efficiency for a fivefold multi-coincidence can be achieved. Measuring time-of-flight and detector position the momenta of the fragments can be measured with excellent resolution (<0.01 a.u.; see A1 in the Appendix). Thus, multivector correlations in momentum space are measured, which provide insight into the entangled dynamics of atomic and molecular quantum systems. From these vector-correlations phases and energies can be deduced which allow for relative time measurements even in the zeptosecond range. C-REMI provides a “spyhole” into the secrets of ultrafast dynamics of atomic and molecular processes. It is applied today around the globe in numerous research projects in physics and chemistry. The purpose for writing this article is to demonstrate the universal application possibilities of C-REMI, and its high multi-coincidence efficiency and high momentum resolution. This paper will not give a review on all milestone experiments performed with C-REMI.
The recent discovery of binary neutron star mergers has opened a new and exciting venue of research into hot and dense strongly interacting matter. For the first time, this elusive state of matter, described by the theory of quantum chromo dynamics, can be studied in two very different environments. On the macroscopic scale, in the collisions of neutron stars; and on the microscopic scale, in collisions of heavy ions at particle collider facilities. We will discuss the conditions that are created in these mergers and the corresponding high energy nuclear collisions. This includes the properties of quantum chromo dynamics matter, that is, the expected equation of state as well as expected chemical and thermodynamic properties of this exotic matter. To explore this matter in the laboratory, a new research prospect is available at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research, FAIR. The new facility is being constructed adjacent to the existing accelerator complex of the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research at Darmstadt/Germany, expanding the research goals and technical possibilities substantially. The worldwide unique accelerator and experimental facilities of FAIR will open the way for a broad spectrum of unprecedented research supplying a variety of experiments in hadron, nuclear, atomic, and plasma physics as well as biomedical and material science, which will be briefly described.
This work aims at radar sensors in the frequency band from 57 to 64 GHz that can be embedded in wind turbine blades during manufacturing, enabling non-destructive quality inspection directly after production and structural health monitoring (SHM) during the complete service life of the blade. In this paper, we show the fundamental damage detection capability of this sensor technology during fatigue testing of typical rotor blade materials. Therefore, a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar sensor is used for damage diagnostics, and the results are validated by simultaneous camera recordings. Here, we focus on the failure modes delamination, fiber waviness (ondulation), and inter-fiber failure. For each failure mode, three samples have been designed and experimentally investigated during fatigue testing. A damage index has been proposed based on residual, that is, differential, signals exploiting measurements from pristine structural conditions. This study shows that the proposed innovative radar approach is able to detect continuous structural degradation for all failure modes by means of gradual signal changes.
This study presents an ultra-wideband, elliptical slot, planar monopole antenna for early breast cancer microwave imaging. The on-body antenna's operation is optimised by direct contact with the patient's skin. With a compact size of 9 × 7 mm, the antenna covers a wide bandwidth from 16 to 24 GHz for reflection coefficients lower than –10 dB. Besides, it also features an electrode for electrical impedance tomography applications. Verification on a volunteer's breast gives an excellent agreement with the simulation for the defined bandwidth. Furthermore, as the first stage of the system's characterisation, pork fat is also used to demonstrate the possibility to enhance the transmission between the antennas within the high loss environment. Those results propose the feasibility of implementing a high-frequency radar system for breast cancer detection.
The cosmological implications of the Covariant Canonical Gauge Theory of Gravity (CCGG) are investigated. CCGG is a Palatini theory derived from first principles using the canonical transformation formalism in the covariant Hamiltonian formulation. The Einstein-Hilbert theory is thereby extended by a quadratic Riemann-Cartan term in the Lagrangian. Moreover, the requirement of covariant conservation of the stress-energy tensor leads to necessary presence of torsion. In the Friedman universe that promotes the cosmological constant to a time-dependent function, and gives rise to a geometrical correction with the EOS of dark radiation. The resulting cosmology, compatible with the ΛCDM parameter set, encompasses bounce and bang scenarios with graceful exits into the late dark energy era. Testing those scenarios against low-z observations shows that CCGG is a viable theory.
Consequences of minimal length discretization on line element, metric tensor, and geodesic equation
(2021)
When minimal length uncertainty emerging from a generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) is thoughtfully implemented, it is of great interest to consider its impacts on gravitational Einstein field equations (gEFEs) and to try to assess consequential modifications in metric manifesting properties of quantum geometry due to quantum gravity. GUP takes into account the gravitational impacts on the noncommutation relations of length (distance) and momentum operators or time and energy operators and so on. On the other hand, gEFE relates classical geometry or general relativity gravity to the energy–momentum tensors, that is, proposing quantum equations of state. Despite the technical difficulties, we intend to insert GUP into the metric tensor so that the line element and the geodesic equation in flat and curved space are accordingly modified. The latter apparently encompasses acceleration, jerk, and snap (jounce) of a particle in the quasi-quantized gravitational field. Finite higher orders of acceleration apparently manifest phenomena such as accelerating expansion and transitions between different radii of curvature and so on.
One of the most challenging problems in solid state systems is the microscopic analysis of electronic correlations. A paramount minimal model that encodes correlation effects is the Hubbard Hamiltonian, which—regardless of its simplicity—is exactly solvable only in a few limiting cases and approximate many-body methods are required for its solution. In this review, an overview on the non-perturbative two-particle self-consistent method (TPSC), which was originally introduced to describe the electronic properties of the single-band Hubbard model, is presented. A detailed derivation of the multi-orbital generalization of TPSC is introduced here and particular features of the method on exemplary interacting models in comparison to dynamical mean-field theory results are discussed.
An investigation of photoelectron angular distributions and circular dichroism of chiral molecules
(2021)
The present work demonstrates the capability of several type of molecular frame photoelectron angular distributions (MFPADs) and their linked chiroptical phenomenon the photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD) to map in great detail the molecular geometry of polyatomic chiral molecules as a function of photoelectron energy. To investigate the influence of the molecular potential on the MFPADs, two chiral molecules were selected, namely 2-(methyl)oxirane (C3H6O, MOx, m = 58,08 uma) and 2-(trifluoromethyl)oxirane (C3H3F3O, TFMOx, m = 112,03 uma). The two molecules differs in one substitutional group and share an oxirane group where the O(1s) electron was directly photoionized with the use of synchrotron radiation in the soft X-ray regime. The direct photoionization of the K-shell electron is well localized in the molecule and it induces the ejection of two or more electrons; the excited system separates into several charged (and eventually neutral) fragments which undergo Coulomb explosion due to their charges. The electrons and the fragments were detected using the COLd Target Recoil Ion Momentum Spectroscopy (COLTRIMS) and the momentum vectors calculated for each fragment belonging from a single ionization. The former method gives the possibility to post-orient molecules in space, giving access to the molecular frame, thus the MFPAD and its related PECD for multiple light propagation direction.
Stereochemistry (from the Greek στερεο- stereo- meaning solid) refers to chemistry in three dimensions. Since most molecules show a three-dimensional structure (3D), stereochemistry pervades all fields of chemistry and biology, and it is an essential point of view for the understanding of chemical structure, molecular dynamics and molecular reactions. The understanding of the chemistry of life is tightly bounded with major discoveries in stereochemistry, which triggered tremendous technical advancements, making it a flourishing field of research since its revolutionary introduction in late 18th century. In chemistry, chirality is a brunch of stereochemistry which focuses on objects with the peculiar geometrical property of not being superimposable to their mirror-images. The word chirality is derived from the Greek χειρ for “hand”, and the first use of this term in chemistry is usually attributed to Lord Kelvin who called during a lecture at the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club in 1893 “any geometrical figure, or group of points, “chiral”, and say that it has chirality if its image in a plane mirror, ideally realized, cannot be brought to coincide with itself.”. Although the latter is usually considered as the birth of the word chirality, the concept underlying it was already present in several fields of science (above all mathematics), already proving the already multidisciplinary relevance of chirality across many field of science and beyond. Nature shows great examples of chiral symmetry on all scales. Empirically, it is possible to observe it at macroscopic scale (e.g. distribution of rotations of galaxies), down to the microscopic scale (e.g. structure of some plankton species), but it is at the molecular level where the number gets remarkable: most of the pharmaceutical drugs, food fragrances, pheromones, enzymes, amino acids and DNA molecules, in fact, are chiral. Moreover, the concept of chirality goes far beyond the mere spatial symmetry of objects being crucially entangled with the fundamental properties of physical forces in nature. The symmetry breaking, namely the different physical behaviour of a two chiral systems upon the same stimuli, is considered to be one of the best explanation for the long standing questions of homochirality in biological life, and ultimately to the chemical origin of life on Earth as we know it. Our organism shows high enantio-selectivity towards specific compounds ranging from drugs, to fragrances. Over 800 odour molecules commonly used in food and fragrance industries have been identified as chiral and their enantiomeric forms are perceived to have very different smells, as the well-know example of D- and L- limonene. Similarly, responses to pharmaceuticals drugs can be enantiomer specific, and in fact about 60 % the drugs currently on the market are chiral compounds, and nearly 90 % of them are sold as racemates. The same degree of enantio-selectivity is observed in the communications systems of plants and insects. Plants produce lipophilic liquids with high vapour pressure called plant volatiles (PVs) which are synthesized via different enzymes called tarpene synthases that are usually chiral. Chiral molecules and chiral effects have a strong impact on all the fields of science with exciting developments ranging from stereo-selective synthesis based on heterogeneous enantioselective catalysis, to optoelctronics, to photochemical asymmetric synthesis, and chiral surface science, just to cite a few.
Chiral molecules come in two forms called enantiomers. Their almost identical chemical and physical properties continue to pose technical challenges concerning the resolution of racemic mixtures, the determination of the enantiomeric excess, and the direct determination of the absolute configuration of an enantiomer. ...
Nano-granular metals are materials that fall into the general class of granular electronic systems in which the interplay of electronic correlations, disorder and finite size effects can be studied. The charge transport in nano-granular metals is dominated by thermally-assisted, sequential and correlated tunneling over a temperature-dependent number of metallic grains. Here we study the frequency-dependent conductivity (AC conductivity) of nano-granular Platinum with Pt nano-grains embedded into amorphous carbon (C). We focus on the transport regime on the insulating side of the insulator metal transition reflected by a set of samples covering a range of tunnel-coupling strengths. In this transport regime polarization contributions to the AC conductivity are small and correlation effects in the transport of free charges are expected to be particularly pronounced. We find a universal behavior in the frequency dependence that can be traced back to the temperature-dependent zero-frequency conductivity (DC conductivity) of Pt/C within a simple lumped-circuit analysis. Our results are in contradistinction to previous work on nano-granular Pd/ZrO2ZrO2 in the very weak coupling regime where polarization contributions to the AC conductivity dominated. We describe possible future applications of nano-granular metals in proximity impedance spectroscopy of dielectric materials.
In this thesis we investigate the thermodynamic and dynamic properties of the D-dimensional quantum Heisenberg ferromagnet within the spin functional renormalization group (FRG); a
formalism describing the evolution of the system’s observables as the magnetic exchange inter-action is artificially deformed. Following an introduction providing a self contained summary of the conceptual and mathematical background, we present the spin FRG as developed by Krieg and Kopietz in references [1] and [2] in chapter two. Thereto, the generating functional of the imaginary time-spin correlation functions and its exact flow equation describing the deformation process of the exchange interaction are introduced. In addition, it is highlighted that - in contrast to conventional field-theoretic FRG approaches - the related Legendre trans-formed functional cannot be defined if the exchange interaction is initially switched off. Next, we show that this limitation can be circumvented within an alternativ hybrid approach, which treats transverse and longitudinal spin fluctuations differently. The relevant functionals are introduced and the relations of the corresponding functional Taylor coefficients with the spin correlation functions are discussed. Lastly, the associated flow equations are derived and the possibility of explicit or spontaneous symmetry breaking is taken into account.
In chapter three, we benchmark the hybrid formalism against a calculation of the thermo-dynamic properties of the one and two-dimensional Heisenberg model at low temperatures T and finite magnetic field H. For this purpose, we devise an anisotropic deformation scheme of the exchange interaction which allows for a controlled truncation of the infinite hierarchy of FRG flow equations. Thereby, contact with mean-field and spin-wave theory is made and the violation of the Mermin-Wagner theorem is discussed. To fulfill the latter, the truncation scheme is then complemented by a Ward identity relating the transverse self-energy and the magnetization. The resulting magnetization M (H, T ) and isothermal susceptibility χ(H, T ) are in quantitative agreement with the literature and the established behavior of the transverse correlation length and the zero-field susceptibility close to the critical point is qualitatively reproduced in the limit H → 0.
Finally, we investigate the longitudinal dynamics at low temperatures. To this end, the hierarchy of flow equations is solved within the same anisotropic deformation scheme complemented by an expansion in the inverse interaction range, and the resulting longitudinal dynamic structure factor is calculated within a low-momentum expansion. In D = 3, the large phase space accessible for the decay into transverse magnons yields only a broad hump centered at zero frequency whose width scales linearly in momentum. In contrast, at low temperatures and in a certain range of magnetic fields, a well-defined quasiparticle peak with linear dispersion emerges in D ≤ 2, which we identify as zero-magnon sound. Sound velocity and damping are discussed as a function of temperature and magnetic field, and the relevant momentum-frequency window is estimated and compared to the hydrodynamic
second-magnon regime.
When a nanoparticle is irradiated by an intense laser pulse, it turns into a nanoplasma, a transition that is accompanied by many interesting nonequilibrium dynamics. So far, most experiments on nanoplasmas use ion measurements, reflecting the outside dynamics in the nanoparticle. Recently, the direct observation of the ultrafast structural dynamics on the inside of the nanoparticle also became possible with the advent of x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs). Here, we report on combined measurements of structural dynamics and speeds of ions ejected from nanoplasmas produced by intense near-infrared laser irradiations, with the control of the initial plasma conditions accomplished by widely varying the laser intensity (9×1014 W/cm2 to 3×1016 W/cm2). The structural change of nanoplasmas is examined by time-resolved x-ray diffraction using an XFEL, while the kinetic energies of ejected ions are measured by an ion time-of-fight method under the same experimental conditions. We find that the timescale of crystalline disordering in nanoplasmas strongly depends on the laser intensity and scales with the inverse of the average speed of ions ejected from the nanoplasma. The observations support a recently suggested scenario for nanoplasma dynamics in the wide intensity range, in which crystalline disorder in nanoplasmas is caused by a rarefaction wave propagating at a speed comparable with the average ion speed from the surface toward the inner crystalline core. We demonstrate that the scenario is also applicable to nanoplasma dynamics in the hard x-ray regime. Our results connect the outside nanoplasma dynamics to the loss of structure inside the sample on the femtosecond timescale.
Destruction of the cosmic γ-ray emitter 26Al in massive stars: study of the key 26Al(n,p) reaction
(2021)
The 26Al(n,p)26Mg reaction is the key reaction impacting on the abundances of the cosmic γ-ray emitter 26Al produced in massive stars and impacts on the potential pollution of the early solar system with 26Al by asymptotic giant branch stars. We performed a measurement of the 26Al(n,p)26Mg cross section at the high-flux beam line EAR-2 at the n_TOF facility (CERN). We report resonance strengths for eleven resonances, nine being measured for the first time, while there is only one previous measurement for the other two. Our resonance strengths are significantly lower than the only previous values available. Our cross-section data range to 150 keV neutron energy, which is sufficient for a reliable determination of astrophysical reactivities up to 0.5 GK stellar temperature.
We present the first holographic simulations of non-equilibrium steady state formation in strongly coupled N=4 SYM theory in 3+1 dimensions. We initially join together two thermal baths at different temperatures and chemical potentials and compare the subsequent evolution of the combined system to analytic solutions of the corresponding Riemann problem and to numeric solutions of ideal and viscous hydrodynamics. The time evolution of the energy density that we obtain holographically is consistent with the combination of a shock and a rarefaction wave: A shock wave moves towards the cold bath, and a smooth broadening wave towards the hot bath. Between the two waves emerges a steady state with constant temperature and flow velocity, both of which are accurately described by a shock+rarefaction wave solution of the Riemann problem. In the steady state region, a smooth crossover develops between two regions of different charge density. This is reminiscent of a contact discontinuity in the Riemann problem. We also obtain results for the entanglement entropy of regions crossed by shock and rarefaction waves and find both of them to closely follow the evolution of the energy density.
New drugs are urgently needed to combat the global TB epidemic. Targeting simultaneously multiple respiratory enzyme complexes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is regarded as one of the most effective treatment options to shorten drug administration regimes, and reduce the opportunity for the emergence of drug resistance. During infection and proliferation, the cytochrome bd oxidase plays a crucial role for mycobacterial pathophysiology by maintaining aerobic respiration at limited oxygen concentrations. Here, we present the cryo-EM structure of the cytochrome bd oxidase from M. tuberculosis at 2.5 Å. In conjunction with atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulation studies we discovered a previously unknown MK-9-binding site, as well as a unique disulfide bond within the Q-loop domain that defines an inactive conformation of the canonical quinol oxidation site in Actinobacteria. Our detailed insights into the long-sought atomic framework of the cytochrome bd oxidase from M. tuberculosis will form the basis for the design of highly specific drugs to act on this enzyme.
As a first step towards a realistic phenomenological description of vector and axial-vector mesons in nuclear matter, we calculate the spectral functions of the ρ and the a1 meson in a chiral baryon-meson model as a low-energy effective realization of QCD, taking into account the effects of fluctuations from scalar mesons, nucleons, and vector mesons within the functional renormalization group (FRG) approach. The phase diagram of the effective hadronic theory exhibits a nuclear liquid-gas phase transition as well as a chiral phase transition at a higher baryon-chemical potential. The in-medium ρ and a1 spectral functions are calculated by using the previously introduced analytically-continued FRG (aFRG) method. Our results show strong modifications of the spectral functions—in particular near the critical endpoints of both phase transitions—which may well be of relevance for electromagnetic rates in heavy-ion collisions or neutrino emissivities in neutron-star merger events.
In two-dimensional (2D) NbSe2 crystal, which lacks inversion symmetry, strong spin-orbit coupling aligns the spins of Cooper pairs to the orbital valleys, forming Ising Cooper pairs (ICPs). The unusual spin texture of ICPs can be further modulated by introducing magnetic exchange. Here, we report unconventional supercurrent phase in van der Waals heterostructure Josephson junctions (JJs) that couples NbSe2 ICPs across an atomically thin magnetic insulator (MI) Cr2Ge2Te6. By constructing a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), we measure the phase of the transferred Cooper pairs in the MI JJ. We demonstrate a doubly degenerate nontrivial JJ phase (ϕ), formed by momentum-conserving tunneling of ICPs across magnetic domains in the barrier. The doubly degenerate ground states in MI JJs provide a two-level quantum system that can be utilized as a new dissipationless component for superconducting quantum devices. Our work boosts the study of various superconducting states with spin-orbit coupling, opening up an avenue to designing new superconducting phase-controlled quantum electronic devices.