Cross Second Virial Coefficient of the H2O–CO System from a New Ab Initio Pair Potential

The cross second virial coefficient $$B_{12}$$ B 12 for the interaction between water (H2O) and carbon monoxide (CO) was obtained with low uncertainty at temperatures from 200 K to 2000 K employing a new intermolecular potential energy surface (PES) for the H2O–CO system. This PES was fitted to interaction energies determined for about 58 000 H2O–CO configurations using high-level quantum-chemical ab initio methods up to coupled cluster with single, double, and perturbative triple excitations [CCSD(T)]. The cross second virial coefficient $$B_{12}$$ B 12 was extracted from the PES using a semiclassical approach. An accurate correlation of the calculated $$B_{12}$$ B 12 values was used to determine the dilute gas cross isothermal Joule–Thomson coefficient, $$\phi _{12}=B_{12}-T(\mathrm {d}B_{12}/\mathrm {d}T)$$ ϕ 12 = B 12 - T ( d B 12 / d T ) . The predicted values for both $$B_{12}$$ B 12 and $$\phi _{12}$$ ϕ 12 agree reasonably well with the few existing experimental data and older calculated values and should be the most accurate estimates of these quantities to date.

Equation of state for holographic nuclear matter as instanton gas

In a holographic model, which was used to investigate the color superconducting phase of QCD, a dilute gas of instantons is introduced to study the nuclear matter. The free energy of the nuclear matter is computed as a function of the baryon chemical potential in the probe approximation. Then the equation of state is obtained at low temperature. Using the equation of state for the nuclear matter, the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov equations for a cold compact star are solved. We find the mass-radius relation of the star, which is similar to the one for quark star. This similarity implies that the instanton gas given here is a kind of self-bound matter.

Exciton Condensation in an Atomically-thin MoS2 Semiconductor

Condensation of a dilute Bose gas of excitons (coupled electron-hole pairs) in a direct bandgap semiconductor was first theoretically predicted in 19681. This exotic state of matter is expected to exhibit spectacular non-linear properties, such as superradiance and superfluidity. However, direct experimental observation of condensation of optically active excitons in conventional semiconductors has been hindered by their short lifetimes and weak collective excitonic interactions. Here, we have experimentally realized the condensation of short-lived excitons in a direct-bandgap, atomically-thin MoS2 semiconductor. The signature is the anomalous transport of the fast-expanding exciton density, originating from a thermalized dilute gas generated under the laser spot. Below the critical temperature Tc~150 K, the exciton liquid propagates over ultra-long distances (at least 60 micrometers) with record speed in a solid-state system of 1.8*10^7 m/s (~6% the speed of light), fuelled by the unconventionally strong repulsions among excitons. The condensation is controlled by many-body interactions in the gas mixture of excitons (bosons) and free-carriers (fermions) via an electrical backgate. Our results demonstrate electrostatic doping as a simple approach for the investigation of correlated states of matter at high-temperatures, excitonic circuitry and spin-valley Hall devices mediated by exciton superfluids in semiconducting monolayers.