Russian Academy of Sciences

About: Russian Academy of Sciences is a government organization based out in Moscow, Russia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Laser. The organization has 272615 authors who have published 417512 publications receiving 4538835 citations. The organization is also known as: RAS & RAN.

Controlling attosecond electron dynamics by phase-stabilized polarization gating

Abstract: Attosecond electron wavepackets are produced when an intense laser field ionizes an atom or a molecule1. When the laser field drives the wavepackets back to the parent ion, they interfere with the bound wavefunction, producing coherent subfemtosecond extreme-ultraviolet light bursts. When only a single return is possible2,3, an isolated attosecond pulse is generated. Here we demonstrate that by modulating the polarization of a carrier-envelope phase-stabilized short laser pulse4, we can finely control the electron-wavepacket dynamics. We use high-order harmonic generation to probe these dynamics. Under optimized conditions, we observe the signature of a single return of the electron wavepacket over a large range of energies. This temporally confines the extreme-ultraviolet emission to an isolated attosecond pulse with a broad and tunable bandwidth. Our approach is very general, and extends the bandwidth of attosecond isolated pulses in such a way that pulses of a few attoseconds seem achievable. Similar temporal resolution could also be achieved by directly using the broadband electron wavepacket. This opens up a new regime for time-resolved tomography of atomic or molecular wavefunctions5,6 and ultrafast dynamics.

The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris

Abstract: Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem. However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste estimated to have entered the ocean from land is unaccounted for. Better understanding of how plastic debris is transported from coastal and marine sources is crucial to quantify and close the global inventory of marine plastics, which in turn represents critical information for mitigation or policy strategies. At the same time, plastic is a unique tracer that provides an opportunity to learn more about the physics and dynamics of our ocean across multiple scales, from the Ekman convergence in basin-scale gyres to individual waves in the surfzone. In this review, we comprehensively discuss what is known about the different processes that govern the transport of floating marine plastic debris in both the open ocean and the coastal zones, based on the published literature and referring to insights from neighbouring fields such as oil spill dispersion, marine safety recovery, plankton connectivity, and others. We discuss how measurements of marine plastics (both in situ and in the laboratory), remote sensing, and numerical simulations can elucidate these processes and their interactions across spatio-temporal scales.

Common features of protein unfolding and dissolution of hydrophobic compounds

Abstract: Protein unfolding and the dissolution of hydrophobic compounds (including solids, liquids, and gases) in water are characterized by a linear relation between entropy change and heat capacity change. The same slope is found for various classes of compounds, whereas the intercept depends on the particular class. The feature common to these processes is exposure of hydrophobic groups to water. These observations make possible the assignment of the heat capacity change to hydrophobic solvation and lead to the description of protein stability in terms of a hydrophobic and a nonhydrophobic contribution. A general representation of protein stability is given by the heat capacity change and the temperature.