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We describe a pulsed rotating supersonic beam source, evolved from an ancestral device [M. Gupta and D. Herschbach, J. Phys. Chem. A 105, 1626 (2001)]. The beam emerges from a nozzle near the tip of a hollow rotor which can be spun at high-speed to shift the molecular velocity distribution downward or upward over a wide range. Here we consider mostly the slowing mode. Introducing a pulsed gas inlet system, cryocooling, and a shutter gate eliminated the main handicap of the original device, in which continuous gas flow imposed high background pressure. The new version provides intense pulses, of duration 0.1-0.6 ms (depending on rotor speed) and containing ~10^12 molecules at lab speeds as low as 35 m/s and ~ 10^15 molecules at 400 m/s. Beams of any molecule available as a gas can be slowed (or speeded); e.g., we have produced slow and fast beams of rare gases, O2, Cl2, NO2, NH3, and SF6. For collision experiments, the ability to scan the beam speed by merely adjusting the rotor is especially advantageous when using two merged beams. By closely matching the beam speeds, very low relative collision energies can be attained without making either beam very slow., Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures

A new class of phenomena discussed in this review is based on interaction between spatially separated, but closely located ferromagnets and superconductors. They are called Ferromagnet-Superconductor Hybrids (FSH). These systems include coupled smooth and textured Ferromagnetic and Superconducting films, magnetic dots, wires etc.The interaction may be provided by the magnetic flux from magnetic textures and supercurrents. The magnetic flux from magnetic textures or topological defects can pin vortices or create them, changing drastically the properties of the superconductor. On the other hand, the magnetic field from supercurrents (vortices) strongly interacts with the magnetic subsystem leading to formation of coupled magnetic-superconducting topological defects. We discuss possible experimental realization of the FSH. The presence of ferromagnetic layer can change dramatically the properties of the superconducting film due to proximity effect. We discuss experimental and theoretical studies of the proximity effect in the FSH including transition temperature and order parameter oscillations and triplet superconductivity., Comment: 68 pages, submited to Advances of Physics

We consider a superconducting film, placed upon a magnetic dot array. Magnetic moments of the dots are normal to the film and randomly oriented. We determine how the concentration of the vortices in the film depends on the magnetic moment of a dot at low temperatures. The concentration of the vortices, bound to the dots, is proportional to the density of the dots and depends on the magnetization of a dot in a step-like way. The concentration of the unbound vortices oscillates about a value, proportional to the magnetic moment of the dots. The period of the oscillations is equal to the width of a step in the concentration of the bound vortices., Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages

The first order phase transitions between a two-dimensional (2d) gas and the 2d solid of the first monolayer have been studied for the noble gases Ar, Kr and Xe on a NaCl(100) surface in quasi-equilibrium with the three-dimensional gas phase. Using linear temperature ramps, we show that the widths of the hysteresis loops of these transitions as a function of the heating rate, r, scales with a power law r^alpha with alpha between 0.4 and 0.5 depending on the system. The hysteresis loops for different heating rates are similar. The island area of the condensed layer was found to grow initially with a t^4 time dependence. These results are in agreement with theory, which predicts alpha = 0.5 and hysteresis loop similarity., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Revtex