Iron(III) Porphyrin Covalently Supported onto Magnetic Amino-Functionalized Nanospheres as Catalyst for Hydrocarbon and Herbicide Oxidations

This work describes the covalent immobilization of an ironporphyrin, 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)porphyrin iron(III) chloride (FeTFPP), onto maghemite/silica magnetic nanospheres covered with aminofunctionalized silica. The resulting material (gamma-Fe2O3/SiO2-NHFeP) was characterized by diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy (DRIFTS) and UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy. The catalytic activity of this magnetic ironporphyrin was investigated in the oxidation of hydrocarbons (styrene, (Z)-cyclooctene and R-(+)-limonene) and an herbicide (simazine) by hydrogen peroxide or 3-chloroperoxybenzoic acid. Hydrocarbon and simazine oxidation reaction products were analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), respectively. This catalytic system proved to be efficient and selective for hydrocarbon oxidation, leading to high product yields from styrene (89%), cyclooctene (71%) and R-(+) -limonene (86%). Simazine oxidation was attained with 100% selectivity for a dechlorinated product (OEAT), while several oxidation products were obtained for the same catalyst in homogeneous media. The catalyst can be easily recovered through application of an external magnetic field and washed after reaction. Catalyst reuse experiments for R-(+)-limonene oxidation have shown that the catalytic activity is kept at 90% after 10 consecutive reactions.

Alfven eigenmode properties and dynamics in the TJ-II stellarator

Alfven eigenmodes (AEs) were studied in neutral beam injection (NBI) heated plasmas in the TJ-II stellarator using a heavy ion beam probe (HIBP) in the core, and by Langmuir (LP) and Mirnov probes (MP) at the edge. AEs were detected over the whole plasma radius by the HIBP with a spatial resolution of about 1 cm. AE-induced oscillations were detected in the plasma density n(e), electric potential phi and poloidal magnetic field B-pol with frequencies 50 kHz < f(AE) < 300 kHz. The LP, MP and HIBP data showed a high level of coherency for specific branches of AEs. Poloidal mode wave-vectors k(theta), mode numbers m (m < 8) and propagation velocities V-theta similar to 30 km s(-1) were detected for various branches of AEs, having different radial locations. When the density rose due to NBI fuelling, the AE frequency decreased as predicted by the Alfven law f(AE) similar to n(e)(-1/2). During the AE frequency decay the following new AE features were observed: (i) the poloidal wave-vector k(theta) and mode number m remained constant, (ii) the cross-phases between the oscillations in B-pol, n(e) and electric potential remained constant, having an individual value for each AE branch, (iii) V-theta decreased proportional to the AE frequency. The interaction of the AEs with the bulk (thermal) plasma resulted in clearly pronounced quasi-coherent peaks in the electrostatic turbulent particle flux spectra. Various AE branches exhibited different contributions to the particle flux: outward, inward and also zero, depending on the phase relations between the oscillations in E-pol and n(e), which are specific for each branch. A comparison with MHD mode modelling indicated that some of the more prominent frequency branches can be identified as radially extended helical AEs.

Optical third harmonic generation in the magnetic semiconductor EuSe

Third harmonic generation (THG) has been studied in europium selenide EuSe in the vicinity of the band gap at 2.1-2.6 eV and at higher energies up to 3.7 eV. EuSe is amagnetic semiconductor crystalizing in centrosymmetric structure of rock-salt type with the point group m3m. For this symmetry the crystallographic and magnetic-field-induced THG nonlinearities are allowed in the electric-dipole approximation. Using temperature, magnetic field, and rotational anisotropy measurements, the crystallographic and magnetic-field-induced contributions to THG were unambiguously separated. Strong resonant magnetic-field-induced THG signals were measured at energies in the range of 2.1-2.6 eV and 3.1-3.6 eV for which we assign to transitions from 4 f(7) to 4 f(6)5d(1) bands, namely involving 5d(t(2g)) and 5d(e(g)) states.

Biocompatible Magnetic Microspheres for Use in PDT and Hyperthermia

Loaded microspheres with a silicon (IV) phthalocyanine derivative (NzPC) acting as a photosensitizer were prepared from polyhydroxybutyrate-co-valerate (PHBHV) and poly(ecaprolactone) (PCL) polymers using the emulsification solvent evaporation method (EE). The aim of our study was to prepare two systems of these biodegradable PHBHV/PCL microspheres. The first one containing only photosensitizer previously incorporated in the PHBHV and poly(ecaprolactone) (PCL) microspheres and the second one with the post magnetization of the DDS with magnetic nanoparticles. Magnetic fluid is successfully used for controlled incorporation of nanosized magnetic particles within the micron-sized template. This is the first time that we could get a successful pos incorporation of nanosized magnetic particles in a previously-prepared polymeric template. This procedure opens a great number of possibilities of post-functionalization of polymeric micro or nanoparticles with different bioactive materials. The NzPC release profile of the systems is ideal for PDT, the zeta potential and the size particle are stable upon aging in time. In vitro studies were evaluated using gingival fibroblastic cell line. The dark citotoxicity, the phototoxicity and the AC magnetic field assays of the as-prepared nanomagnetic composite were evaluated and the cellular viability analyzed by the classical test of MU.

Schrodinger and Dirac operators with the Aharonov-Bohm and magnetic-solenoid fields

We construct all self-adjoint Schrodinger and Dirac operators (Hamiltonians) with both the pure Aharonov-Bohm (AB) field and the so-called magnetic-solenoid field (a collinear superposition of the AB field and a constant magnetic field). We perform a spectral analysis for these operators, which includes finding spectra and spectral decompositions, or inversion formulae. In constructing the Hamiltonians and performing their spectral analysis, we follow, respectively, the von Neumann theory of self-adjoint extensions of symmetric operators and the Krein method of guiding functionals.

Flux-Line-Lattice Melting and Upper Critical Field of Bi1.65Pb0.35Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+delta Ceramic Samples

We have conducted magnetoresistance measurements rho(T,H) in applied magnetic fields up to 18 T in Bi1.65Pb0.35Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+delta ceramic samples which were subjected to different uniaxial compacting pressures. The anisotropic upper critical fields H (c2)(T) were extracted from the rho(T,H) data, yielding and the out-of-plane superconducting coherence length xi (c) (0)similar to 3 . We have also estimated and xi (ab) (0) similar to 90 . In addition to this, a flux-line-lattice (FLL) melting temperature T (m) has been identified as a second peak in the derivative of the magnetoresistance d rho/dT data close to the superconducting transition temperature. An H (m) vs. T phase diagram was constructed and the FLL boundary lines were found to obey a temperature dependence H (m) ae(T (c) /T-1) (alpha) , where alpha similar to 2 for the sample subjected to the higher compacting pressure. A reasonable value of the Lindemann parameter c (L) similar to 0.29 has been found for all samples studied.

Co-nanoencapsulation of magnetic nanoparticles and selol for breast tumor treatment: in vitro evaluation of cytotoxicity and magnetohyperthermia efficacy

Antitumor activities have been described in selol, a hydrophobic mixture of molecules containing selenium in their structure, and also in maghemite magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). Both selol and MNPs were co-encapsulated within poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanocapsules for therapeutic purposes. The PLGA-nanocapsules loaded with MNPs and selol were labeled MSE-NC and characterized by transmission and scanning electron microscopy, electrophoretic mobility, photon correlation spectroscopy, presenting a monodisperse profile, and positive charge. The antitumor effect of MSE-NC was evaluated using normal (MCF-10A) and neoplastic (4T1 and MCF-7) breast cell lines. Nanocapsules containing only MNPs or selol were used as control. MTT assay showed that the cytotoxicity induced by MSE-NC was dose and time dependent. Normal cells were less affected than tumor cells. Cell death occurred mainly by apoptosis. Further exposure of MSE-NC treated neoplastic breast cells to an alternating magnetic field increased the antitumor effect of MSE-NC. It was concluded that selol-loaded magnetic PLGA-nanocapsules (MSE-NC) represent an effective magnetic material platform to promote magnetohyperthermia and thus a potential system for antitumor therapy.

Magnetic hyperthermia investigation of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles: Comparison between experiment, linear response theory, and dynamic hysteresis simulations

Considerable effort has been made in recent years to optimize materials properties for magnetic hyperthermia applications. However, due to the complexity of the problem, several aspects pertaining to the combined influence of the different parameters involved still remain unclear. In this paper, we discuss in detail the role of the magnetic anisotropy on the specific absorption rate of cobalt-ferrite nanoparticles with diameters ranging from 3 to 14 nm. The structural characterization was carried out using x-ray diffraction and Rietveld analysis and all relevant magnetic parameters were extracted from vibrating sample magnetometry. Hyperthermia investigations were performed at 500 kHz with a sinusoidal magnetic field amplitude of up to 68 Oe. The specific absorption rate was investigated as a function of the coercive field, saturation magnetization, particle size, and magnetic anisotropy. The experimental results were also compared with theoretical predictions from the linear response theory and dynamic hysteresis simulations, where exceptional agreement was found in both cases. Our results show that the specific absorption rate has a narrow and pronounced maxima for intermediate anisotropy values. This not only highlights the importance of this parameter but also shows that in order to obtain optimum efficiency in hyperthermia applications, it is necessary to carefully tailor the materials properties during the synthesis process. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4729271]

STRUCTURE OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD ALLOWING EXACT SOLUTION OF THE SCHRODINGER EQUATION IN SUPERPOSITION WITH AN AHARONOV-BOHM FIELD

A charged particle is considered in a complex external electromagnetic field. The field is a superposition of an Aharonov-Bohm field and some additional field. Here we describe all additional fields known up to the present time that allow exact solution of the Schrodinger equation in a complex field.

THE ROLE OF TURBULENT MAGNETIC RECONNECTION IN THE FORMATION OF ROTATIONALLY SUPPORTED PROTOSTELLAR DISKS

The formation of protostellar disks out of molecular cloud cores is still not fully understood. Under ideal MHD conditions, the removal of angular momentum from the disk progenitor by the typically embedded magnetic field may prevent the formation of a rotationally supported disk during the main protostellar accretion phase of low-mass stars. This has been known as the magnetic braking problem and the most investigated mechanism to alleviate this problem and help remove the excess of magnetic flux during the star formation process, the so-called ambipolar diffusion (AD), has been shown to be not sufficient to weaken the magnetic braking at least at this stage of the disk formation. In this work, motivated by recent progress in the understanding of magnetic reconnection in turbulent environments, we appeal to the diffusion of magnetic field mediated by magnetic reconnection as an alternative mechanism for removing magnetic flux. We investigate numerically this mechanism during the later phases of the protostellar disk formation and show its high efficiency. By means of fully three-dimensional MHD simulations, we show that the diffusivity arising from turbulent magnetic reconnection is able to transport magnetic flux to the outskirts of the disk progenitor at timescales compatible with the collapse, allowing the formation of a rotationally supported disk around the protostar of dimensions similar to 100 AU, with a nearly Keplerian profile in the early accretion phase. Since MHD turbulence is expected to be present in protostellar disks, this is a natural mechanism for removing magnetic flux excess and allowing the formation of these disks. This mechanism dismisses the necessity of postulating a hypothetical increase of the ohmic resistivity as discussed in the literature. Together with our earlier work which showed that magnetic flux removal from molecular cloud cores is very efficient, this work calls for reconsidering the relative role of AD in the processes of star and planet formation.

Iron(III) porphyrin covalently supported onto magnetic amino-functionalized nanospheres as catalyst for hydrocarbon and herbicide oxidations

This work describes the covalent immobilization of an ironporphyrin, 5,10,15,20- tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)porphyrin iron(III) chloride (FeTFPP), onto maghemite/silica magnetic nanospheres covered with aminofunctionalized silica. The resulting material (γ-Fe2O3/SiO2-NHFeP) was characterized by diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy (DRIFTS) and UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy. The catalytic activity of this magnetic ironporphyrin was investigated in the oxidation of hydrocarbons (styrene, (Z)-cyclooctene and R-(+)-limonene) and an herbicide (simazine) by hydrogen peroxide or 3-chloroperoxybenzoic acid. Hydrocarbon and simazine oxidation reaction products were analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), respectively. This catalytic system proved to be efficient and selective for hydrocarbon oxidation, leading to high product yields from styrene (89%), cyclooctene (71%) and R-(+)-limonene (86%). Simazine oxidation was attained with 100% selectivity for a dechlorinated product (OEAT), while several oxidation products were obtained for the same catalyst in homogeneous media. The catalyst can be easily recovered through application of an external magnetic field and washed after reaction. Catalyst reuse experiments for R-(+)-limonene oxidation have shown that the catalytic activity is kept at 90% after 10 consecutive reactions.

Magnetic color-flavor-locked stars

Using the solutions of the gap equations of the magnetic-color-flavor-locked (MCFL) phase of paired quark matter in a magnetic field, and taking into consideration the separation between the longitudinal and transverse pressures due to the field-induced breaking of the spatial rotational symmetry, the equation of state (EoS) of the MCFL phase is self-consistently determined. Implications for stellar models of magnetized (self-bound) strange stars and hybrid (MCFL core) stars are discussed.

Magnetic topology and current channels in plasmas with toroidal current density inversions

The equilibrium magnetic field inside axisymmetric plasmas with inversions on the toroidal current density is studied. Structurally stable non-nested magnetic surfaces are considered. For any inversion in the internal current density the magnetic families define several positive current channels about a central negative one. A general expression relating the positive and negative currents is derived in terms of a topological anisotropy parameter. Next, an analytical local solution for the poloidal magnetic flux is derived and shown compatible with current hollow magnetic pitch measurements shown in the literature. Finally, the analytical solution exhibits non-nested magnetic families with positive anisotropy, indicating that the current inside the positive channels have at least twice the magnitude of the central one.

Magnetic fields around radio galaxies from Faraday rotation measure analysis

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the strength and structure of the magnetized medium surrounding radio galaxies via observations of the Faraday effect. This study is based on an analysis of the polarization properties of radio galaxies selected to have a range of morphologies (elongated tails, or lobes with small axial ratios) and to be located in a variety of environments (from rich cluster core to small group). The targets include famous objects like M84 and M87. A key aspect of this work is the combination of accurate radio imaging with high-quality X-ray data for the gas surrounding the sources. Although the focus of this thesis is primarily observational, I developed analytical models and performed two- and three-dimensional numerical simulations of magnetic fields. The steps of the thesis are: (a) to analyze new and archival observations of Faraday rotation measure (RM) across radio galaxies and (b) to interpret these and existing RM images using sophisticated two and three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations. The approach has been to select a few bright, very extended and highly polarized radio galaxies. This is essential to have high signal-to-noise in polarization over large enough areas to allow computation of spatial statistics such as the structure function (and hence the power spectrum) of rotation measure, which requires a large number of independent measurements. New and archival Very Large Array observations of the target sources have been analyzed in combination with high-quality X-ray data from the Chandra, XMM-Newton and ROSAT satellites. The work has been carried out by making use of: 1) Analytical predictions of the RM structure functions to quantify the RM statistics and to constrain the power spectra of the RM and magnetic field. 2) Two-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations to address the effect of an incomplete sampling of RM distribution and so to determine errors for the power spectra. 3) Methods to combine measurements of RM and depolarization in order to constrain the magnetic-field power spectrum on small scales. 4) Three-dimensional models of the group/cluster environments, including different magnetic field power spectra and gas density distributions. This thesis has shown that the magnetized medium surrounding radio galaxies appears more complicated than was apparent from earlier work. Three distinct types of magnetic-field structure are identified: an isotropic component with large-scale fluctuations, plausibly associated with the intergalactic medium not affected by the presence of a radio source; a well-ordered field draped around the front ends of the radio lobes and a field with small-scale fluctuations in rims of compressed gas surrounding the inner lobes, perhaps associated with a mixing layer.

Messung der CP-verletzenden Asymmetrie von K + - pi + - pi 0 pi 0 mit dem NA48-Detektor

Bis heute ist die Frage nicht geklärt, warum bei der Entstehung des Universums Materie gegenüber der Antimaterie bevorzugt war und das heutige Materieuniversum entstanden ist. Eine Voraussetzung für die Entstehung dieser Materie-Antimaterie-Asymmetrie ist die Verletzung der Kombination von Ladungs- (C) und Punktsymmetrie (P), die CP-Verletzung. CP-Verletzung kann sich unter anderem in den Zerfällen K+- -> pi+- pi0 pi0 zeigen. Die NA48/2"=Kollaboration zeichnete während den Jahren 2003 und 2004 über 200~TB Daten von Zerfällen geladener Kaonen auf. In dieser Arbeit wurde die CP"=verletzende Asymmetrie der Zerfälle K+- -> pi+- pi0 pi0 mit über 90~Millionen ausgewählten Ereignissen aus diesem Datensatz gemessen. Vorhersagen im Standardmodell der Teilchenphysik sagen hier eine CP"=verletzende Asymmetrie in der Größenordnung zwischen $10^{-6}$ und $10^{-5}$ voraus. In Modellen außerhalb des Standardmodells kann es aber auch größere Asymmetrien geben. Das NA48/2"=Experiment war darauf ausgelegt, mögliche systematische Unsicherheiten zu begrenzen. Um dies zu erreichen, wurden positive und negative Kaonen simultan an einem Target erzeugt und ihr Impuls durch ein Strahlsystem mit zwei Strahlengängen auf ca. $60~GeV/c$ begrenzt. Die Strahlen wurden auf wenige Millimeter genau überlagert in die Zerfallsregion geleitet. Die Strahlengänge von positiven und negativen Kaonen sowie die Polarität des Magneten des Impulsspektrometers wurden regelmäßig gewechselt. Dies erlaubte eine Symmetrisierung von Strahlführung und Detektor für positive und negative Kaonen während der Analyse. Durch ein Vierfachverhältnis der vier Datensätze mit den unterschiedlichen Konfigurationen konnte sichergestellt werden, dass alle durch Strahlführung oder Detektor erzeugten Asymmetrien sich in erster Ordnung aufheben. Um die unterschiedlichen Produktionsspektren von positiven und negativen Kaonen auszugleichen wurde in dieser Arbeit eine Ereignisgewichtung durchgeführt. Die Analyse wurde auf mögliche systematische Unsicherheiten untersucht. Dabei zeigte sich, dass die systematischen Unsicherheiten in der Analyse deutlich kleiner als der statistischer Fehler sind. Das Ergebnis der Messung des die CP-verletzende Asymmetrie beschreibenden Parameters $A_g$ ist: begin{equation} A_g= (1,2 pm 1,7_{mathrm{(stat)}} pm 0,7_{mathrm{(sys)}}) cdot 10^{-4}. end{equation} Diese Messung ist fast zehnmal genauer als bisherige Messungen und stimmt innerhalb ihrer Unsicherheit mit dem Standardmodell überein. Modelle, die eine größere CP-Verletzung in diesem Zerfall vorhersagen, können ausgeschlossen werden.