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Antihypertriton
1 April 2010
Antihypertritons — hypernuclei composed of antiprotons, antineutrons and
anti-Λ-hyperons — have for the first time been obtained in the
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in the Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Hypernuclei are nuclei that contain a hyperon (a baryon containing an s-quark).
Hypernuclei were for the first time obserbed in 1952 in cosmic rays. Two gold ion
beams with center-of-mass energy of 200 GeV per one nucleon collision were
collided in this RHIC experiment; this achieved temperature and density reached
in the Universe in the first microseconds of its life. As the quark--gluon
plasma cooled, quarks merged into hadrons and then into various nuclei that were
identified from the products of their decays. So far 70 ± 17 antihypertritons
as well as 157 ± 30 hypertritons were recorded at the confidence level
4.1 σ. The antihypertriton mass is about 3 GeV; its lifetime measured in
the RHIC, 182 ( + 89 - 45 ) ps, is close to the lifetime of the free
Λ-hyperon. This registration of antihypertritons expands the (N,Z,S) table
of nuclei observed so far to an octet with the number of neutrons N < 0
(antineutrons), nucleus charge Z < 0 and strangeness S < 0. Russian scientists
from the Russian Federation State scientific center ITEP, JINR, National Research Nuclear
University MEPhI and State scientific center IHEP
participated in the international collaboration STAR which conducted this experiment.
Source: Science 328 58 (2010), arXiv:1003.2030v1 [nucl-ex]
Superconductivity of picene
1 April 2010
A team of researchers in Japan led by Y. Kubozono (Okayama University) reported
the discovery of superconductivity in cyclic organic compound C22H14
(known as picene) doped with atoms of alkali metals. Superconducting transition
was identified by registering an abrupt jump in magnetic susceptibility of the
specimen as its temperature was lowered. Specimens with dopant concentration
from x = 2.6 to x = 3.3 potassium atoms per one molecule of C22H14
became second-kind superconductors and their critical temperature Tc
correspondingly grew from ≈ 6.5 K to 18 K. Superconductivity of picene with
Tc ≈ 6.9 K was also observed after doping with rubidium at x = 3.1.
Among organic superconductors known at the moment, the highest critical
temperature Tc = 38 K was found in fullerene C60 doped with cesium atoms.
Source: Nature 464 76 (2010)
Cryogenic electron emission
1 April 2010
Í.Î. Meyer (Indiana University, USA) carried out a new study of the effect of
emission of individual electrons in darkness from the surface of photomutiplier
cathodes. At high temperatures, ordinary thermoelectronic emission occurs and
obeys the Richardson law; as temperature decreases towards 220 K, the rate of
ejection of electrons decreases. However, it was noticed about 50 years ago that
on further cooling the rate of emission again starts to climb. This effect still
lacks theoretical explanation. In Í.Î. Meyer's experiment, different models of
photomultipliers with bi-alkaline cathodes were placed in a container which was
cooled from the outside with liquid nitrogen and helium from room temperature
down to 4 K. In contrast to thermoelectronic emission, the rate of cryogenic emission
per unit area of cathode was independent of the photomultiplier model and did not
correlate with electric field intensity at the cathode surface. It has been
established that even though electrons are emitted one by one, successive events
of emission often formed correlated groups, called bursts; burst lengths showed
power-law distribution and the mean rate of burst emergence at 81 K was 4.2 Hz.
Further cooling increased emission rate owing both to increased frequency of
bursts and to greater number of electrons in individual bursts. Í.Î. Meyer
hypothesizes that there exists some mechanism of capture and recombination of
electrons in the cathode material and suggests an empirical model which is in
good agreement with the obtained data. Various hypotheses concerning the
mechanism of cryogenic emission were proposed in the past, taking into account
thermionic emission, electric fields, radioactivity and cosmic rays but so far none
were able to provide a satisfactory explanation.
Source: Europhys. Lett. 89 58001 (2010)
Delocalization of electrons in metallic glasses under high pressure
1 April 2010
Metallic glasses are metallic alloys not having crystal structure. Their unique
mechanical and electromagnetic properties may find numerous useful technical
applications. In 2007 it has been discovered that the volume of metallic glasses
Ce55 Al45 and La32Ce32Al16Ni5Cu15 decreases
under high pressure. This has been a surprise since it was believed that the
compressibility of metallic glasses is very low in view of their maximum density
packing of atoms. The decrease in the volume was explained theoretically in
terms of changes in the structure of electron shells of cerium atoms: by
delocalization of 4f-electrons. A team of researchers in China and US led by
Qiao-shi Zeng conducted a new experiment which provided confirmation of
this theoretical model. Electronic properties of the metallic glass Ce75Al25
at pressures from 1.5 to 5 GPa produced on a diamond anvil were investigated
by absorption x-ray spectroscopy techniques. The synchrotron x-ray source
APS of the Argonne National Laboratory was used. As pressure rose from
1.5 to 5 GPa the specimen volume decreased gradually by 8.6%,
while the specific feature of the spectrum characteristic of 4f-electrons
grew in strength.
Source: Phys. Rev. Lett. 104 105702 (2010)
Gravitational lens and cosmological parameters
1 April 2010
S.H. Suyu and his colleagues in Germany, US and the Netherlands obtained from
their observtion of gravitational lensing of galaxies the values of cosmological
parameters whose accuracy approaches that of the best alternative methods. The lens
Â1608+656 (a pair of interacting galaxies) creates four images of a more remote
radiogalaxy lying on the line of sight. Relative delays of radio signal arriving
from the source galaxy along four paths have been mesured earlier with radio
telescopes. Knowing the distribution of mass in the lens, it is possible to
determine from this data the geometry and dynamics of expansion of the Universe.
The Hubble Space Telescope observations and a careful analysis of the structure
of the lens Â1608 + 656 and its surroundings made it possible to improve the
accuracy of this method of calculation of cosmological parameters by a factor of
nearly two. Taken together with the data of the WMAP satellite collected over five
years, these results allowed the authors to confine the curvature parameter of the
Universe (its deviation from the flat model) to the interval -0.031 < Ωk < 0.009,
which is close to the accuracy of measurements in supernovas of type Ia. Assuming
flat geometry, the result for the Hubble constant is
H0 = 69.7 ( + 4.9 - 5.0 ) km s-1 Mpc-1, and the parameter for the
equation of state of dark energy is w = p/ρ = - 0.94 ( + 0.17 - 0.19 ).
Source: Astrophysical Journal 711 201 (2010), arXiv:0910.2773v2 [astro-ph.CO]
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The Extracts from the Internet is a section of Uspekhi Fizicheskih Nauk (Physics Uspekhi) the monthly rewiew journal of the current state of the most topical problems in physics and in associated fields. The presented News is devoted to the fundamental discoveries of physics and astrophysics. Permanent editor is Yu.N. Eroshenko. It is compiled from a multitude of Internet sources.
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