Dusty plasmas, defined as plasmas of ions, electrons, neutrals, and charged micron to sub-micron dust particles, support a rich diversity of physical states. These states (ranging from solids to liquids to gas) are determined by the ratio of the Coulomb potential energy between dust particles to the particles kinetic energy and allow for a broad range of phenomena, from crystallization to dust acoustic waves. Due to various dusty plasma interactions, dust acoustic waves can be nonlinear and exhibit various wave phenomena, from topological wave defects to shock waves to structure formations. In this thesis, I investigate a spectrum of plasma and wave interactions in liquid-like dusty plasmas and focus on a range of dust acoustic wave phenomena observed experimentally in a dc discharge dusty plasma. By developing various experimental techniques, dust acoustic wave diffraction and topological wave defects, dust acoustic shock waves, temporal dust acoustic wave growth, and structure forming dust acoustic waves were observed. I begin in Chapter 2 with the diffraction of dust acoustic waves, which I investigated by introducing a glass rod into the dusty plasma. The resulting diffraction pattern was compared to acoustic wave diffraction in a neutral gas. In addition to the diffraction pattern, topological wave defects were observed to form. I continue Chapter 2 with a preliminary investigation into topological wave defects in dust acoustic waves. Chapter 3 follows with three nonlinear dust acoustic wave experiments. I created a shock tube like profile for dust acoustic waves using a single slit. The shock-tube like potential resulted in two sets of nonlinear dust acoustic waves, coalescing high and low amplitude waves and dust acoustic waves that developed into dust acoustic shock waves. The self-excited dust acoustic shock waves were compared to theoretical models. The third nonlinear dust acoustic wave phenomenon that I investigated was a reverse drift mode that appears in high amplitude dust acoustic waves. I propose a wave process based on dust particle dynamics in high amplitude dust acoustic waves to explain the observations. In Chapter 4, I describe an experimental technique that I developed to create a quiescent drifting dusty plasma. The drifting dusty plasma was used to observe dust acoustic wave growth from thermal density fluctuations. The observed growth rate and frequency were compared kinetic and fluid models. In Chapter 5, I describe experimental observations of a structure forming instability in dusty plasmas. By increasing the discharge current, transient and aperiodic dust density striations formed. I characterized the transient and stationary modes and compared the stationary mode to an ionization/ion-drag instability and a polarization instability.

No description available.

My dissertation is an investigation into the basic Physics of phase separation fronts. Such phase-separation fronts occur in many practical applications, like the formation of immersion precipitation membranes, Temperature induced phase-separation of polymeric blends, or the formation of steel. Despite the fact that these phenomena are ubiquitous no generally acceptable theory of phase-separation front exists. I believe the reason lies in the complexity of many of these material systems where a large number of physical effects (like phase-separation, crystallization, hydrodynamics, etc) cooperate to generate these structures. As a Physicist, I was driven to develop an understanding of these systems, and we choose to start our investigation with the simplest system that would incorporate a phase-separation front. So we initially limited our study to systems with a purely diffusive dynamics. The phase-separation front is induced by a control-parameter front that is a simple step function advancing with a prescribed velocity. We investigated these systems numerically using a lattice Boltzmann method and also investigated them analytically as much as possible. Starting from a one-dimensional front moving with a constant velocity we then extended the complexity of the systems by increasing the number of dimensions, examining a variable front velocity, and finally by including hydrodynamics.

<p> A phosphotriester synthesis for short deoxy oligomers was developed based on the RNA synthesis developed in Neilson's laboratory. This synthesis parallels that of Catlin and Cramer (1973) but differs significantly in a number of procedures and reagents used and represents an overall improvement in every aspect of the previous method. This synthetic procedure allows the synthesis of sufficient quantities of DNA for 1H-NMR analysis. The following sequences were successfully synthesized using this procedure: d(GCA) d(AGCT) d(ACGT) d(ACGTp) d (ACGTACGTp).</p> <p> It was found by variable temperature 1H-NMR that the trimer and the tetramer duplexes had a very low Tm (0-10°C) as compared to their RNA counter-parts which had Tms between 29-34°C. This demonstrates quantitatively that the short DNA duplex is significantly less stable than the short RNA duplex. Consequently, sequences of at least five or six bases in length will be required for model studies of DNA duplex stabilities using variable temperature NMR methods.</p> <p> A CD study of d(ACGTACGTp) in conditions of low salt (1M NaCl) and high salt (5M NaCl) demonstrated that a high salt B to Z-helix transition did not occur. Instead, the duplex remained in the right handed B form in both low and high salt.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Le mécanisme d'instabilité gravitationnelle d'un champ de Yang-Mills est étudié via l'intégration numérique de la formulation hamiltonienne du système Einstein-Yang-Mills décrivant le couplage d'un champ de jauge à la gravitation. Une évolution en deux temps est mise en évidence: une dilution des fluctuations, conséquence de l'invariance conforme du champ, apparaît en premier lieu ; elle est suivie d'un régime d'oscillations croissantes lorsque l'on s'éloigne suffisamment de la solution homogène. Une comparaison instructive avec le mécanisme d'instabilité gravitationnelle du champ scalaire est également envisagée. Enfin, nous avons étudié l'influence de champs scalaires de quintessence sur la formation d'amas de matière noire grâce à la modification d'un code à N particules. Ceux-ci inhibent la formation des amas, en privilégiant des structures moins nombreuses et de faible masse, tout en produisant des différences assez significatives que pour permettre de discerner non seulement un modèle avec quintessence d'un autre plus conventionnel (avec constante cosmologique) mais également les divers modèles de quintessence entre eux. / The gravitational instability of Yang-Mills fields is studied by means of a numerical integration of the hamiltonian formulation of Einstein-Yang-Mills equations, which describe the coupling between gravitation and a gauge field. A two-step evolution appears to rule this mechanism: the fluctuations first dilute, as a sequel of the conformal invariance of the gauge theory; then, the fluctuations undergo oscillations of increasing amplitude as the solution moves away from the homogeneous one. An interesting comparison with the gravitational instability of a scalar field has also been made. Finally, we have established that the quintessence scalar fields inhibit the formation of dark matter halos. By analysing the results of a modified N-body code, we show that those fields produce less structures and lighter halos, and lead to significative differences that allow to distinguish either a quintessence scenario from a more conventional one with a cosmological constant either different quintessence models.

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Orientador: Pedro Cunha de Holanda / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Fisica Gleb Wataghin / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T09:35:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Motta_MarieleKatherineFaria_M.pdf: 2935959 bytes, checksum: 36090b361909fca742a96d1606e1904d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: A formação das estruturas ao longo da história do universo depende crucialmente da competição entre efeitos de matéria não-relativística e relativística. Sabemos que existem mecanismos que convertem os conteúdos de uma em outra. Em particular, a explosão de uma supernova tipo colapso do núcleo converte uma energia correspondente a 99% da energia de ligação da estrela de nêutrons remanescente em neutrinos relativísticos. Nos baseamos neste processo para construir um modelo de conversão de matéria escura em matéria relativisstica que evolui com a história do universo e avaliamos os efeitos dessa conversao sobre a formação de estruturas em grandes escalas / Abstract: The structure formation through the history of the universe crucially depends on the competition between non-relativistic and relativistic matter effects. We know that there are mechanisms which convert the contents of one into the other. Particularly the explosion of a core-collapse supernova converts an energy corresponding to 99% of the gravitational binding energy of the remnant neutron star into relativistic neutrinos. Based on this process we have built a conversion model of dark matter into relativistic matter that evolves throughout the history of the universe and we evaluate the effects of this conversion over the large scale structure formation / Mestrado / Física / Mestra em Física

Amyloid β (Aβ) is a peptide known to form amyloid fibrils in the brain of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. A complete mechanistic understanding how Aβ peptides form neurotoxic assemblies and how they kill neurons has not yet been achieved. Previous analysis of various Aβ40 mutants could reveal the significant importance of the hydrophobic contact between the residues Phe19 and Leu34 for cell toxicity. For some mutations at Phe19, toxicity was completely abolished. In the current study, we assessed if perturbations introduced by mutations in the direct proximity of the Phe19/Leu34 contact would have similar relevance for the fibrillation kinetics, structure, dynamics and toxicity of the Aβ assemblies. To this end, we rationally modified positions Phe20 or Gly33. A small library of Aβ40 peptides with Phe20 mutated to Lys, Tyr or the non-proteinogenic cyclohexylalanine (Cha) or Gly33 mutated to Ala was synthesized. We used electron microscopy, circular dichroism, X-ray diffraction, solid-state NMR spectroscopy, ThT fluorescence and MTT cell toxicity assays to comprehensively investigate the physicochemical properties of the Aβ fibrils formed by the modified peptides as well as toxicity to a neuronal cell line. Single mutations of either Phe20 or Gly33 led to relatively drastic alterations in the Aβ fibrillation kinetics but left the global, as well as the local structure, of the fibrils largely unchanged. Furthermore, the introduced perturbations caused a severe decrease or loss of cell toxicity compared to wildtype Aβ40. We suggest that perturbations at position Phe20 and Gly33 affect the fibrillation pathway of Aβ40 and, thereby, influence the especially toxic oligomeric species manifesting so that the region around the Phe19/Leu34 hydrophobic contact provides a promising site for the design of small molecules interfering with the Aβ fibrillation pathway.

Les modèles et les observations actuels de l’Univers sont en accords aux grandes échelles. Néanmoins, cela ne permet pas d’expliquer la formation des structures baryoniques dans l’Univers. Afin de contraindre la formation des structures dans l’Univers, des observations sont nécessaires à différents redshifts pour observer les structures à différentes étapes d’évolutions. Le satellite Planck donne accès à des objets dont les redshifts sont compris entre z=2 et z=4. Ainsi environ 1200 objets extragalactiques susceptibles d’être à haut redshift sont détectés dans 26% du ciel, autour des pôles galactiques. Un sous échantillon de 228 sources est observé à plus grande sensibilité et résolution angulaire avec le satellite Herschel. Grâce à ces observations je peux résoudre les sources ponctuelles de Planck en plusieurs sources Herschel. J’identifie alors trois possibilités de type de sources, soit c’est une candidate de source amplifiée par lentillage gravitationnel, soit c’est un candidat d’amas de galaxies à haut redshift, soit c’est un alignement de sources fortuit le long de la ligne de visé. Après analyse, j’ai identifié dans cet échantillon 11 sources amplifiées par lentillage gravitationnel parmi les plus brillantes du ciel sub-millimétrique. Ces sources ont des redshifts compris entre z=2.2 et z=3.6 (Canameras et al., 2015) et permettent de sonder la formation stellaire dans l’Univers lointain. Il reste 217 surdensités de sources que j’ai étudié. En utilisant la couleur des sources Herschel, j’ai calculé une estimation de la densité des sources. 50% des champs Herschel de l’échantillon on une surdensité supérieur à 10sigma lorsque l’on sélectionne les sources rouges (S250/S350 < 1.4 et S500/S350 > 0.6). Cela montre que l’échantillon est principalement composé de surdensité de source rouge. En ajustant un corps noir modifié à 35K sur les données photométrique Herschel-SPIRE je montre que la distribution de redshift photométrique des sources piquent à z=2. Notre échantillon se compose donc de 11 sources lentillées et 217 potentiels amas de galaxies à redshift z~2. Ces potentiels amas de galaxies se compose d’en moyenne 9 sources dans 4.5’ de diamètre. Les sources individuelles ont des luminosités infrarouges d’environ 4.1012 Lsol ce qui correspond d’après Bell et al. 2003 à un taux de formation stellaire (SFR) de 700 Msol.yr-1. Cela mène pour les potentielles structures à une luminosité de 4.1013 Msol et un SFR de 7000 Msol.yr-1. Notre échantillon trace donc les structures denses du ciel à fort taux de formation stellaire. Cet échantillon sera donc clé dans la compréhension de la formation des structures et des étoiles à des redshifts autour de z=2. / Actual models and observations of the Universe agreed at large scale. But the formation of baryonic structures remains unknown. To constrain structure formation in the Universe, observatoins are needed at different redshift to see different evolution steps. Planck satellite gives an acces to objetcs in the redshift range z=2 to z=4. Thus we detect about 1200 extragalactic objects in 26% of the sky near galactic poles, candidates to be at high redshift. A sample of 228 sources is observed at higher sensibility and resolution than Planck with Herschel satellite. This lead to resolve ponctual Planck sources in several Herschel sources. So I identify three possible types of object : candidates sources of gravitationally amplified lenses, galaxy cluster candidates and alignement of sources along the line of sight. I find in the sample 11 sources amplified by gravitationnal lensing, some of the brightest of the submillimeter sky. Those have redshift between z=2.2 and z=3.6 (Canameras et al., 2015) and provide a zoom in the stellar formation of the far Universe. It let 217 overdensity of sources that I study. With their colour in Herschel data, I find an estimate of their density. 50% of Herschel fields have an overdensity greater than 10sigma using red sources colour selection (S250/S350 < 1.4 et S500/S350 > 0.6). This show that our ample is mainly composed of red overdensity. Fitting Herschel-SPIRE photometry with a modify black body at 35K, I show that the photmetric redshift distribution of Herschel sources peaks around z=2. Our sample is now composed of 11 lensed sources and 217 galaxy cluster candidates at z~2. These galaxy cluster candidates contain an average of 9 SPIRE sources in 4.5’ diameter beam. Individual sources have a luminosity distribution peaking at 4.1012 Lsun which leads to a star formation rate (SFR) of 700 Msun.yr-1 (Bell et al. 2003). This gives an estimate structure luminosity of 4.1013 Msun and an SFR of 7000 Msun.yr-1 assuming that sources are members of the same structure. Our sample traces dense structure at high star formation rate in the full sky. This sample will be a key in the comprehension of structure formation and star formation at redshift about z=2.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The growth of structure in the Universe proceeds via the collapse of dark matter and baryons. This process is retarded by dark energy which drives an accelerated expansion of the late Universe. In this thesis we use cosmological perturbation theory to investigate structure formation for a particular class of dark energy models, i.e. interacting dark energy models. In these models there is a non-gravitational interaction between dark energy and dark matter, which alters the standard evolution (with non-interacting dark energy) of the Universe. We consider a simple form of the interaction where the energy exchange in the background is proportional to the dark energy density. We analyse the background dynamics to uncover the e ect of the interaction. Then we develop the perturbation equations that govern the evolution of density perturbations, peculiar velocities and the gravitational potential. We carefully account for the complex nature of the perturbed interaction, in particular for the momentum transfer in the dark sector. This leads to two di erent types of model, where the momentum exchange vanishes either in the dark matter rest-frame or the dark energy rest-frame. The evolution equations for the perturbations are solved numerically, to show how structure formation is altered by the interaction.