Since the last successful RHIC Au+Au run in 2007 (Run-7), the RHIC experiments have made numerous detector improvements and upgrades. In order to benefit from the enhanced detector capabilities and to increase the yield of rare events in the acquired heavy ion data a significant increase in luminosity is essential. In Run-7 RHIC achieved an average store luminosity of <L> = 12 x 10{sup 26} cm{sup -2} s{sup -1} by operating with 103 bunches (out of 111 possible), and by squeezing to {beta}* = 0.85 m. This year, Run-10, we achieved <L> = 20 x 10{sup 26} cm{sup -2} s{sup -1}, which put us an order of magnitude above the RHIC design luminosity. To reach these luminosity levels we decreased {beta}* to 0.75 m, operated with 111 bunches per ring, and reduced longitudinal and transverse emittances by means of bunched-beam stochastic cooling. In addition we introduced a lattice to suppress intra-beam scattering (IBS) in both RHIC rings, upgraded the RF control system, and separated transition crossing times in the two rings. We present an overview of the changes and the results of Run-10 performance.

During the second half of Run-9, the Relativisitc Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) provided polarized proton collisions at two interaction points. The spin orientation of both beams at these collision points was controlled by helical spin rotators, and physics data were taken with different orientations of the beam polarization. Recent developments and improvements will be presented, as well as luminosity and polarization performance achieved during Run-9.

We apply ultrafast single shot interferometry to determine the pressure and density of argon shocked from up to 7.8 GPa static initial pressure in a diamond anvil cell. This method enables the observation of thermodynamic states distinct from those observed in either single shock or isothermal compression experiments, and the observation of ultrafast dynamics in shocked materials. We also present a straightforward method for interpreting ultrafast shock wave data which determines the index of refraction at the shock front, and the particle and shock velocities for shock waves in transparent materials. Based on these methods, we observe shocked thermodynamic states between the room temperature isotherm of argon and the shock adiabat of cryogenic argon at final shock pressures up to 28 GPa.

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Gas generation by plutonium-bearing materials in sealed containers has been studied. The gas composition and pressure are determined over periods from months to years. The Pu-bearing materials studied represent those produced by all of the major processes used by DOE in the processing of plutonium and include the maximum amount of water (0.5% by weight) allowed by DOE's 3013 Standard. Hydrogen generation is of high interest and the Pu-bearing materials can be classed according to how much hydrogen is generated. Hydrogen generation by high-purity plutonium oxides packaged under conditions typical for actual 3013 materials is minimal, with very low generation rates and low equilibrium pressures. Materials with chloride salt impurities have much higher hydrogen gas generation rates and result in the highest observed equilibrium hydrogen pressures. Other materials such as those with high metal oxide impurities generate hydrogen at rates in between these extremes. The fraction of water that is converted to hydrogen gas as equilibrium is approached ranges from 0% to 25% under conditions typical of materials packaged to the 3013 Standard. Generation of both hydrogen and oxygen occurs when liquid water is present. The material and moisture conditions that result in hydrogen and oxygen generation for high-purity plutonium …

Double pulse laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (DP-LIBS) has been shown to enhance LIBS spectra. Several researches have reported significant increases in signal-to-noise and or spectral intensity [1-4]. In addition to DP-LIBS, atmospheric conditions can also increase spectra intensity. For example, Iida [5] found that He and Ar both increase LIBS intensity compared to air at one 1 atm. It was also found that as the pressure was decreased to 100 Torr, LIBS intensity increased in Ar and air for single pulse (SP) LIBS. In this study, a collinear DP-LIBS scheme is used along with manipulation of the atmospheric conditions. The DP-LIBS scheme consists of a 355 nm ablative pulse fired into a sample contained in a vacuum chamber. A second analytical 1064 nm pulse is then fired 100 ns to 10 µs after and along the same path of the first pulse. Ar, He and air at pressures ranging from atmospheric pressure (630 Torr at elevation) to 10-5 Torr are introduced during DP-LIBS and SP-LIBS experiments. For a brass sample, a significant increase in spectral intensity of Cu and Zn lines were observed in DP-LIBS under Ar compared to DP-LIBS in air (Figure 1). It was also found that Cu …

Laboratory tests to investigate the corrosivity of moist plutonium oxide/chloride salt mixtures on 304L and 316L stainless steel coupons showed that corrosion occurred in selected samples. The tests exposed flat coupons for pitting evaluation and 'teardrop' stressed coupons for stress corrosion cracking (SCC) evaluation at room temperature to various mixtures of PuO{sub 2} and chloride-bearing salts for periods up to 500 days. The exposures were conducted in sealed containers in which the oxide-salt mixtures were loaded with about 0.6 wt % water from a humidified helium atmosphere. Observations of corrosion ranged from superficial staining to pitting and SCC. The extent of corrosion depended on the total salt concentration, the composition of the salt and the moisture present in the test environment. The most significant corrosion was found in coupons that were exposed to 98 wt % PuO{sub 2}, 2 wt % chloride salt mixtures that contained calcium chloride and 0.6 wt% water. SCC was observed in two 304L stainless steel teardrop coupons exposed in solid contact to a mixture of 98 wt % PuO{sub 2}, 0.9 wt % NaCl, 0.9 wt % KCl, and 0.2 wt % CaCl{sub 2}. The cracking was associated with the heat-affected zone of an autogenous …

The Siberian snakes are powerful tools in preserving polarization in high energy accelerators has been demonstrated at the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Equipped with two full Siberian snakes in each ring, polarization is preserved during acceleration from injection to 100 GeV. However, the Siberian snakes also introduce a new set of depolarization resonances, i.e. snake resonances as first discovered by Lee and Tepikian. The intrinsic spin resonances above 100 GeV are about a factor of two stronger than those below 100 GeV which raises the challenge to preserve the polarization up to 250 GeV. In 2009, polarized protons collided for the first time at the RHIC design store energy of 250 GeV. This paper presents the experimental measurements of snake resonances at RHIC. The plan for avoiding these resonances is also presented.

The effect of geometrical frustration on the development of the heavy-fermion state and quantum criticality is studied in UAuCu{sub 4}, UAuPt{sub 4}, UAu{sub 3}Ni{sub 2} samples through measurements of their magnetic susceptibility, heat capacity, and electrical resistivity. In addition, since lattice disorder can play a large role in defining magnetic properties in frustrated systems, extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) data have also been obtained. The local structure results show a strong correlation with the magnetic properties in these samples.

Isotope effects in the non-dissociative photoionization of molecular nitrogen (N2 + h nu -> N2+ + e-) may play a role in determining the relative abundances of isotopic species containing nitrogen in interstellar clouds and planetary atmospheres but have not been previously measured. Measurements of the photoionization efficiency spectra of 14N2, 15N14N, and 15N2 from 15.5 to 18.9 eV (65.6-80.0 nm) using the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory show large differences in peak energies and intensities, with the ratio of the energy-dependent photoionization cross-sections, sigma(14N2)/sigma(15N14N), ranging from 0.4 to 3.5. Convolving the cross-sections with the solar flux and integrating over the energies measured, the ratios of photoionization rate coefficients are J(15N14N)/J(14N2)=1.00+-0.02 and J(15N2)/J(14N2)=1.00+-0.02, suggesting that isotopic fractionation between N2 and N2+ should be small under such conditions. In contrast, in a one-dimensional model of Titan's atmosphere, isotopic self-shielding of 14N2 leads to values of J(15N14N)/J(14N2) as large as ~;;1.17, larger than under optically thin conditions but still much smaller than values as high as ~;;29 predicted for N2 photodissociation. Since modeled photodissociation isotope effects overpredict the HC15N/HC14N ratio in Titan's atmosphere, and since both N atoms and N2+ ions may ultimately lead to the formation of HCN, …

In the past decade, one of the major challenges of particle physics has been to gain an in-depth understanding of the role of quark flavor. In this time frame, measurements and the theoretical interpretation of their results have advanced tremendously. A much broader understanding of flavor particles has been achieved, apart from their masses and quantum numbers, there now exist detailed measurements of the characteristics of their interactions allowing stringent tests of Standard Model predictions. Among the most interesting phenomena of flavor physics is the violation of the CP symmetry that has been subtle and difficult to explore. In the past, observations of CP violation were confined to neutral K mesons, but since the early 1990s, a large number of CP-violating processes have been studied in detail in neutral B mesons. In parallel, measurements of the couplings of the heavy quarks and the dynamics for their decays in large samples of K,D, and B mesons have been greatly improved in accuracy and the results are being used as probes in the search for deviations from the Standard Model. In the near future, there will be a transition from the current to a new generation of experiments, thus a review of …

We study the impact of theoretical uncertainty in the dark matter halo mass function and halo bias on dark energy constraints from imminent galaxy cluster surveys. We find that for an optical cluster survey like the Dark Energy Survey, the accuracy required on the predicted halo mass function to make it an insignificant source of error on dark energy parameters is {approx}1%. The analogous requirement on the predicted halo bias is less stringent ({approx}5%), particularly if the observable-mass distribution can be well constrained by other means. These requirements depend upon survey area but are relatively insensitive to survey depth. The most stringent requirements are likely to come from a survey over a significant fraction of the sky that aims to observe clusters down to relatively low mass, M{sub th}{approx} 10{sup 13.7} h{sup -1} M{sub sun}; for such a survey, the mass function and halo bias must be predicted to accuracies of {approx}0.5% and {approx}1%, respectively. These accuracies represent a limit on the practical need to calibrate ever more accurate halo mass and bias functions. We find that improving predictions for the mass function in the low-redshift and low-mass regimes is the most effective way to improve dark energy constraints.

Notes and Documents column including "Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame," an article honoring the individuals who were inducted into the annual Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame in 2010. The honorees included Currie Ballard, Bob Burke, General Thomas P. Stafford, and Dr. Lewis Stiles. It also includes "Alva, Oklahoma: What's in a Name?" an article examining the naming of the town of Alva, Oklahoma, to determine whether it was named for the railroad attorney Alva Adams. Finally, it includes "Oklahoma Newspaper Project," which details the Oklahoma Historical Society's partnership with the University of North Texas and the Oklahoma Press Association to digitize newspapers that reflect Oklahoma's history.

Article on a study of the frequency and nature of remarks about indexes found in reviews of reference books.

RegPredict web server is designed to provide comparative genomics tools for reconstruction and analysis of microbial regulons using comparative genomics approach. The server allows the user to rapidly generate reference sets of regulons and regulatory motif profiles in a group of prokaryotic genomes. The new concept of a cluster of co-regulated orthologous operons allows the user to distribute the analysis of large regulons and to perform the comparative analysis of multiple clusters independently. Two major workflows currently implemented in RegPredict are: (i) regulon reconstruction for a known regulatory motif and (ii) ab initio inference of a novel regulon using several scenarios for the generation of starting gene sets. RegPredict provides a comprehensive collection of manually curated positional weight matrices of regulatory motifs. It is based on genomic sequences, ortholog and operon predictions from the MicrobesOnline. An interactive web interface of RegPredict integrates and presents diverse genomic and functional information about the candidate regulon members from several web resources. RegPredict is freely accessible at http://regpredict.lbl.gov.

Corrosion and pitting have been observed in headspace regions of stainless steel containers enclosing plutonium oxide/salt mixtures. These observations are consistent with the formation of a corrosive gas, probably HCl, and transport of that gas to the headspace regions of sealed containers. The NH{sub 4}Cl films found on the walls of the sealed containers is also indicative of the presence of HCl gas. Radiolysis of hydrated alkaline earth salts is the probable source of HCl.

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) are well established techniques to image surfaces and to probe material properties at the atomic and molecular scale. In this review, we show hybrid combinations of AFM and STM that bring together the best of two worlds: the simultaneous detection of atomic scale forces and conduction properties. We illustrate with several examples how the detection of forces during STM and the detection of currents during AFM can give valuable additional information of the nanoscale material properties.

We present scanning SQUID microscopy data on the superconductors Sr{sub 2}RuO{sub 4} (T{sub c} = 1.5 K) and PrOs{sub 4}Sb{sub 12} (T{sub c} = 1.8 K). In both of these materials, superconductivity-related time-reversal symmetry-breaking fields have been observed by muon spin rotation; our aim was to visualize the structure of these fields. However in neither Sr{sub 2}RuO{sub 4} nor PrOs{sub 4}Sb{sub 12} do we observe spontaneous superconductivity-related magnetization. In Sr{sub 2}RuO{sub 4}, many experimental results have been interpreted on the basis of a p{sub x} {+-} ip{sub y} superconducting order parameter. This order parameter is expected to give spontaneous magnetic induction at sample edges and order parameter domain walls. Supposing large domains, our data restrict domain wall and edge fields to no more than {approx}0.1% and {approx}0.2% of the expected magnitude, respectively. Alternatively, if the magnetization is of the expected order, the typical domain size is limited to {approx}30 nm for random domains, or {approx} 500 nm for periodic domains.

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The search for broken time reversal symmetry (TRSB) in unconventional superconductors intensified in the past year as more systems have been predicted to possess such a state. Following our pioneering study of TRSB states in Sr{sub 2}RuO{sub 4} using magneto-optic probes, we embarked on a systematic study of several other of these candidate systems. The primary instrument for our studies is the Sagnac magneto-optic interferometer, which we recently developed. This instrument can measure magneto-optic Faraday or Kerr effects with an unprecedented sensitivity of 10 nanoradians at temperatures as low as 100 mK. In this paper we review our recent studies of TRSB in several systems, emphasizing the study of the pseudogap state of high temperature superconductors and the inverse proximity effect in superconductor/ferromagnet proximity structures.

The photoprotective processes of photosynthetic organisms involve the dissipation of excess absorbed light energy as heat. Photoprotection in cyanobacteria is mechanistically distinct from that in plants; it involves the Orange Carotenoid Protein (OCP), a water-soluble protein containing a single carotenoid. The OCP is a new member of the family of blue light photoactive proteins; blue-green light triggers the OCP-mediated photoprotective response. Here we report structural and functional characterization of the wildtype and two mutant forms of the OCP, from the model organism Synechocystis PCC6803. The structural analysis provides highresolution detail of the carotenoidprotein interactions that underlie the optical properties of the OCP, unique among carotenoid-proteins in binding a single pigment per polypeptide chain. Collectively, these data implicate several key amino acids in the function of the OCP and reveal that the photoconversion and photoprotective responses of the OCP to blue-green light can be decoupled.

Article on phase transition enthalpy measurements of organic and organometallic compounds, sublimation, and vaporization and fusion enthalpies from 1880 to 2010.

These proceedings contain papers prepared for the Monitoring Research Review 2010: Ground-Based Nuclear Explosion Monitoring Technologies, held 21-23 September, 2010 in Orlando, Florida,. These papers represent the combined research related to ground-based nuclear explosion monitoring funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), US Army Space and Missile Defense Command, National Science Foundation (NSF), Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), and other invited sponsors. The scientific objectives of the research are to improve the United States capability to detect, locate, and identify nuclear explosions. The purpose of the meeting is to provide the sponsoring agencies, as well as potential users, an opportunity to review research accomplished during the preceding year and to discuss areas of investigation for the coming year. For the researchers, it provides a forum for the exchange of scientific information toward achieving program goals, and an opportunity to discuss results and future plans. Paper topics include: seismic regionalization and calibration; detection and location of sources; wave propagation from source to receiver; the nature of seismic sources, including mining practices; hydroacoustic, infrasound, and radionuclide methods; on-site inspection; and data processing.