Dynamical and thermodynamic properties of water at room temperature in Ca- and hexade-cyltrimethylammonium- (HDTMA) exchanged bentonite were determined for 4 different water contents (~0.03–0.55 g water g-1 clay). Incoherent quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) was used to measure the translational and rotational mobility of water in the clays, while chilled mirror dewpoint psychrometry measured water activity of the samples, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) provided information about the temperature of dehydration and X-ray diffraction (XRD) quantified layer spacings for the clays. The neutron scattering data were fit to a jump diffusion model that yielded mean jump lengths, jump diffusion residence times and rotational relaxation times for water in the clays. Mean jump lengths were quite similar for the 2 different cation saturations at equivalent water contents, and decreased with increasing water content. The fitted jump lengths ranged from 0.27–0.5 nm and were 2–4 times larger than that found for bulk water (0.13 nm). Jump diffusion residence times were 3–30 times longer than that for bulk water (1.2 ps) and also decreased with increasing water content. The residence times were somewhat shorter for HDTMA-clay as compared with Ca-clay at equivalent water contents. Rotational motion was less strongly influenced than translational motion by the presence of the clay surface. The energy state of water in the 2 cation saturations were quite different; dehydration temperatures for the HDTMA-clay were approximately 30 °C lower than the Ca-clay at equal water contents, while water activities, as P/P0, were up to 0.6 units higher. A linear relationship was found between water activity and the translational diffusion coefficient, although at the highest water content, the diffusion coefficient of water for the HDTMA-clay was approximately 30% higher than that measured for bulk water.

Study of the behavior of landfill lining materials (clays) in organic solvents is important because, in waste management, lining prevents groundwater contamination by the adsorption of various pollutants such as chemicals and organic solvents. Although scaling behavior and the self-association property of clays in water-alcohol binary solvents have been studied by many researchers, the anomalous behavior of Laponite XLG in binary solvents requires investigation as suggested by previous studies. In the present study, Laponite® RD, which is structurally similar to Laponite XLG, was used to gain further insight into the reasons for the anomalous viscosity, aggregation, and non-ergodic behavior of clay in a water–methanol binary solvent. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) revealed the emergence of the non-ergodic phase of 3% w/v Laponite® RD in the water–methanol binary solvent, which increased in the presence of a large methanol content as well as with aging time in the binary solvent. Viscosity measurements further indicated that aggregation was responsible for the non-ergodic behavior, and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) revealed that a large methanol content enhanced the aggregation. Moreover, SAXS data also revealed that the surface charge was responsible for anomalous viscosity fluctuations in the binary solvent due to interparticle repulsion within aggregates. Rheological studies showed that the large methanol content in the binary solvent led to frequency-independent behavior of the storage modulus of Laponite® RD.

We present a catalogue of over 7000 sources from the GLEAM survey which have significant structure on sub-arcsecond scales at 162 MHz. The compact nature of these sources was detected and quantified via their Interplanetary Scintillation (IPS) signature, measured in interferometric images from the Murchison Widefield Array. The advantage of this approach is that all sufficiently compact sources across the survey area are included down to a well-defined flux density limit. The survey is based on ${\sim}250\times 10\hbox{-}\mathrm{min}$ observations, and the area covered is somewhat irregular, but the area within $1\,\mathrm{h}<\mathrm{RA}<11\,\mathrm{h}$ ; $-10^\circ<\mathrm{Decl.}<+20^\circ$ is covered entirely, and over 85% of this area has a detection limit for compact structure below 0.2 Jy. 7839 sources clearly showing IPS were detected ( ${>}5\sigma$ confidence), with a further 5550 tentative ( ${>}2\sigma$ confidence) detections. Normalised Scintillation Indices (NSI; a measure of the fraction of flux density coming from a compact component) are reported for these sources. Robust and informative upper limits on the NSI are reported for a further 31081 sources. This represents the largest survey of compact sources at radio frequencies ever undertaken.

In the interstellar medium, inelastic collisions are so rare that they cannot maintain a local thermodynamical equilibrium (LTE). Atomic and molecular populations therefore do not follow a simple Boltzmann distribution and non-LTE spectra are the rule rather than the exception. In such conditions, accurate state-to-state collisional data are crucial for a quantitative interpretation of spectra. In recent years, considerable progress has been made in quantum calculations of inelastic cross sections for a variety of targets, types of transitions and projectiles. For a few benchmark species, detailed comparisons between theory and experiment were also carried out at the state-to-state level and in the quantum regime. In this article, we highlight such comparisons for three important molecules: CO, H2O and CH+. We also describe current computational efforts to extend these advances to ever larger targets, new transition types, and new environments (e.g. stellar envelopes or cometary atmospheres).

In the research of the natural ecological environment, environmental scattering is an important research content whose results are widely used. In order to fully study the relevant characteristics of the natural grassland environment, this paper established a grassland broadband clutter model, summarized the dominant and recessive laws of the grassland environment broadband clutter, and provided a new perspective for related environmental monitoring which would be helpful to solve the problem of target detection in complex environments. The main work of this paper is as follows: The dielectric constant model of the grass was established, and the curve of the dielectric constant with frequency was obtained. The Monte Carlo method combined with the Gaussian spectrum function was used to generate a two-dimensional Gaussian surface to simulate the actual grass surface. A broadband clutter model was established, and, considering the calculation efficiency and accuracy, the Sparse Matrix/Canonical Grid (SMCG) was used to calculate the surface scattering coefficient. Then, the environmental clutter amplitude with different radar bandwidth (10, 40, 80 MHz), surface roughness (h = 0.1 m, h = 0.2 m, h = 0.4 m) and grazing angle (30°, 60°) were calculated and the probability density function (PDF) was obtained. The results show that the higher the radar resolution, the larger the incident angle, and the rougher the interface, all of which will cause the tail of the PDF to become longer which will not only reduce the detection probability of the radar, but also the tracking accuracy. The research results can be used for civilian and military field.

The scattering by the perfectly electric conducting (PEC) half-plane and PEC zero thickness disk placed on parallel planes is considered. The fields are represented in the spectral domain, i.e. in the domain of Fourier transform. The operator equations with respect to the Fourier amplitudes of the scattered field are obtained. The kernel functions of these equations contain poles. After regularization procedure, which is connected with the elimination of the poles, operator equations are converted to the system of singular integral equations. The convergence of the solution is based on the corresponding theorems. The scattered field consists of the plane wave, reflected by the infinite part of the half-plane, cylindrical waves, which appear as a result of scattering by the edge of the half-plane, and spherical waves, which appear as a result of scattering by the disk and multiple re-scattering by the disk-half-plane. The total near-field distribution and far-field patterns of cylindrical waves are presented.

We prove that solutions to the quintic semilinear wave equation with variable coefficients in ${{\mathbb {R}}}^{1+3}$ scatter to a solution to the corresponding linear wave equation. The coefficients are small and decay as $|x|\to \infty$, but are allowed to be time dependent. The proof uses local energy decay estimates to establish the decay of the $L^{6}$ norm of the solution as $t\to \infty$.