No abstract

A high voltage electric pulse was applied to DNA cleavage. The DNA cleavage reaction was dependent on the voltage amplitude, pulse number and pulse width. Radical scavengers and ESR data indicated the possibility that active species such as OH radical were strongly related to DNA cleavage.

To obtain the radial profile of the ion velocity u i( r) of a pure ion cloud, for the first time, we successfully captured images of the shadow of a thin rotating metal wire by scanning the pure ion cloud using a combination of a micro-channel plate attached to a phosphor screen and a high-speed camera. It appears that the rotation angle of the measured metal wire agrees with the estimated value based on the theory of two-dimensional equilibria of non-neutral plasmas, rather than the magnetron motion of a single ion confined in a Penning trap. This method may be utilized as a tool to experimentally investigate u i( r, t) in electrically non-neutral two-fluid plasmas, which is an unexplored topic in advanced plasma physics.

We derive the two-dimensional counter-differential rotation equilibria of two-component plasmas, composed of both ion and electron ( $e^-$ ) clouds with finite temperatures, for the first time. In the equilibrium found in this study, as the density of the $e^{-}$ cloud is always larger than that of the ion cloud, the entire system is a type of non-neutral plasma. Consequently, a bell-shaped negative potential well is formed in the two-component plasma. The self-electric field is also non-uniform along the $r$ -axis. Moreover, the radii of the ion and $e^{-}$ plasmas are different. Nonetheless, the pure ion as well as $e^{-}$ plasmas exhibit corresponding rigid rotations around the plasma axis with different fluid velocities, as in a two-fluid plasma. Furthermore, the $e^{-}$ plasma rotates in the same direction as that of $\boldsymbol {E \times B}$ , whereas the ion plasma counter-rotates overall. This counter-rotation is attributed to the contribution of the diamagnetic drift of the ion plasma because of its finite pressure.

An energy loss of 240 MeV argon ions in a Z-pinch helium plasma has been for the first time observed throughout the entire pinching process. Standard Stark broadening analysis gives an electron density ranging from 4 to 6 × 1017 cm−3 during the pinch. To deduce stopping power from the energy loss, the target thickness of the helium plasma has been evaluated assuming the mean charge of helium based on thermal equilibrium. The observed electron density and the mean charge of helium give a target thickness of 30 ± 3 μg cm−2 from 1 μs to 1.8 μs after the discharge ignition. The measured stopping power exceeds a tabulated value for cold helium gas by a factor of 2 to 3 around the time of the first pinch. The experimental stopping power is compared with theoretical values calculated using an equation of stopping power for a partially ionized plasma.