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It is well known that when a short laser pulse propagates in an underdense plasma, it induces longitudinal plasma oscillations at the plasma frequency after the pulse, typically referred to as the wakefield. However, for plasma densities approaching the critical density, wakefield generation is suppressed, and instead the EM-pulse (electromagnetic pulse) undergoes nonlinear self-modulation. In this article we have studied the transition from the wakefield generation to formation of quasi-solitons as the plasma density is increased. For this purpose we have applied a one-dimensional relativistic cold fluid model, which has also been compared with particle-in-cell simulations. A key result is that the energy loss of the EM-pulse due to wakefield generation has its maximum for a plasma density of the order 10% of the critical density, but that wakefield generation is sharply suppressed when the density is increased further.

We report on the temperature, pressure, and time (T, p, and t)-dependent features of thermal conductivity, kappa, of partially ordered, non-equilibrium state of C-60-OG, the orientational glass of Buckminsterfullerene (at T below the orientational freezing temperature T-og) made more unstable (i) by partially depressurizing its high-p formed state to elastically expand it and (ii) by further pressurizing that state to elastically contract it. The sub-T-og effects observed on heating of C-60-OG differ from those of glasses because phonon propagation depends on the ratio of two well-defined orientational states of C-60 molecules and the density of the solid. A broad peak-like feature appears at T near T-og in the kappa-T plots of C-60-OG formed at 0.7 GPa, depressurized to 0.2 GPa and heated at 0.2 GPa, which we attribute to partial overlap of the sub-T-og and T-og features. A sub-T-og local minimum appears in the kappa-T plots at T well below T-og of C-60-OG formed at 0.1 GPa, pressurized to 0.5 GPa and heated at 0.5 GPa and it corresponds to the state of maximum disorder. Although Buckminsterfullerene is regarded as an orientationally disordered crystal, variation of its properties with T and p is qualitatively different from other such crystals. We discuss the findings in terms of the nature of its disorder, sensitivity of its rotational dynamics to temperature, and the absence of the Johari-Goldstein relaxation. All seem to affect the phenomenology of its glass-like transition. 

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There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.