Given proper care in siting, design, deployment, operation and maintenance, wave energy conversion could become one of the more environmentally benign sources of electricity generation. In order to accelerate the adoption of these emerging hydrokinetic and marine energy technologies, navigational and environmental concerns must be identified and addressed. All developing hydrokinetic projects involve a wide variety of stakeholders. One of the key issues that site developers face as they engage with this range of stakeholders is that, due to a lack of technical certainty, many of the possible conflicts (e.g., shipping and fishing) and environmental issues are not well-understood,. In September 2008, re vision consulting, LLC was selected by the Department of Energy (DoE) to apply a scenario-based assessment to the emerging hydrokinetic technology sector in order to evaluate the potential impact of these technologies on the marine environment and navigation constraints. The project’s scope of work includes the establishment of baseline scenarios for wave and tidal power conversion at potential future deployment sites. The scenarios capture variations in technical approaches and deployment scales to properly identify and characterize environmental effects and navigational effects. The goal of the project is to provide all stakeholders with an improved understanding of the …

The 11th International Surface X-ray and Neutron Scattering (SXNS) Conference was held on July 13-17, 2010, on the Northwestern University (NU) campus, in Evanston Illinois and hosted by the NU Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. This biennial conference brought together a community of 164 attendees from 16 countries. The field now makes use of a broad range of new experimental capabilities that have been made possible through the development of increasingly brilliant X-ray and neutron sources around the world, including third generation synchrotron sources, neutron reactor and spallation sources, as well as the recent development of X-ray lasers.

None

We present a new approach (demonstrated experimentally and through modeling) to characterize the spectral envelope of a terahertz (THz) pulse in a single shot. The coherent THz pulse is produced by a femtosecond electron bunch and contains information on the bunch duration. The technique, involving a single low-power laser probe pulse, is an extension of the conventional spectral encoding method (limited in time resolution to hundreds of femtoseconds) into a regime only limited in resolution by the laser pulse length (tens of femtoseconds). While only the bunch duration is retrieved (and not the exact charge profile), such a measurement provides a useful and critical parameter for optimization of the electron accelerator.

None

Given proper care in siting, design, deployment, operation and maintenance, marine and hydrokinetic technologies could become one of the more environmentally benign sources of electricity generation. In order to accelerate the adoption of these emerging hydrokinetic and marine energy technologies, navigational and environmental concerns must be identified and addressed. All developing hydrokinetic projects involve a wide variety of stakeholders. One of the key issues that site developers face as they engage with this range of stakeholders is that many of the possible conflicts (e.g., shipping and fishing) and environmental issues are not well-understood, due to a lack of technical certainty. In September 2008, re vision consulting, LLC was selected by the Department of Energy (DoE) to apply a scenario-based approach to the emerging wave and tidal technology sectors in order to evaluate the impact of these technologies on the marine environment and potentially conflicting uses. The project’s scope of work includes the establishment of baseline scenarios for wave and tidal power conversion at potential future deployment sites. The scenarios will capture variations in technical approaches and deployment scales to properly identify and characterize environmental impacts and navigational effects. The goal of the project is to provide all stakeholders with an …

We combine different wavelengths from an intense high-order harmonics source with variable delay at the focus of a split-mirror interferometer to conduct pump-probe experiments on gas-phase molecules. We report measurements of the time resolution (< 44fs) and spatial profiles (4 {micro}m x 12 {micro}m) at the focus of the apparatus. We demonstrate the utility of this two-color, high-order-harmonic technique by time resolving molecular hydrogen elimination from C{sub 2} H{sub 4} excited into its absorption band at 161nm.

None

None

Photosynthesis is the biological process that converts solar energy into chemical energy. Elucidation of the mechanisms of photosynthetic energy conversion at a molecular level is fundamentally important for understanding the biology of photosynthetic organisms, for optimizing biological solar fuels production, and for developing biologically inspired approaches to solar energy conversion. The 2011 Gordon Conference on Photosynthesis will present cutting-edge research focusing on the biochemical aspects of photosynthesis, including: (1) structure, assembly, and function of photosynthetic complexes; (2) the mechanism of water splitting by PSII; (3) light harvesting and quenching; (4) alternative electron transport pathways; (5) biosynthesis of pigments and cofactors; and (6) improvement of photosynthesis for bioenergy and food production. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of photosynthesis research, a diverse group of invited speakers will represent a variety of scientific approaches to investigate photosynthesis, such as biochemistry, molecular genetics, structural biology, systems biology, and spectroscopy. Highly interactive poster sessions provide opportunities for graduate students and postdocs to present their work and exchange ideas with leaders in the field. One of the highlights of the Conference is a session featuring short talks by junior investigators selected from the poster presentations. The collegial atmosphere of the Photosynthesis GRC, with programmed discussion sessions as …

The work performed in this project consisted of the derivation, implementation, and testing of a new, computationally advantageous approximation to the 3D Boltz- mann transport equation. The solution of the Boltzmann equation is the neutron flux in nuclear reactor cores and shields, but solving this equation is difficult and costly. The new “2D/1D” approximation takes advantage of a special geometric feature of typical 3D reactors to approximate the neutron transport physics in a specific (ax- ial) direction, but not in the other two (radial) directions. The resulting equation is much less expensive to solve computationally, and its solutions are expected to be sufficiently accurate for many practical problems. In this project we formulated the new equation, discretized it using standard methods, developed a stable itera- tion scheme for solving the equation, implemented the new numerical scheme in the MPACT code, and tested the method on several realistic problems. All the hoped- for features of this new approximation were seen. For large, difficult problems, the resulting 2D/1D solution is highly accurate, and is calculated about 100 times faster than a 3D discrete ordinates simulation.

Experimental results are reported from two measurement techniques (semiconductor switching and electro-optic sampling) that allow temporal characterization of electron bunches produced by a laser-driven plasma-based accelerator. As femtosecond electron bunches exit the plasma-vacuum interface, coherent transition radiation (at THz frequencies) is emitted. Measuring the properties of this radiation allows characterization of the electron bunches. Theoretical work on the emission mechanism is presented, including a model that calculates the THz wave form from a given bunch profile. It is found that the spectrum of the THz pulse is coherent up to the 200 {micro}m thick crystal (ZnTe) detection limit of 4 THz, which corresponds to the production of sub-50 fs (rms) electron bunch structure. The measurements demonstrate both the shot-to-shot stability of bunch parameters that are critical to THz emission (such as total charge and bunch length), as well as femtosecond synchronization among bunch, THz pulse, and laser beam.

None

We performed soft x-ray resonant scattering at the MnL{sub 2,3}- and OK edges of YMn{sub 2}O{sub 5}. While the resonant intensity at the MnL{sub 2,3} edges represent the magnetic order parameter, the resonant scattering at the OK edge is found to be directly related to the macroscopic ferroelectric polarization. The latter observation reveals the important role of the spin-dependent Mn-O hybridization for the multiferroicity of YMn{sub 2}O{sub 5}. We present details about how to obtain correct energy dependent lineshapes and discuss the origin of the resonant intensity at the OK edge.

A new single-shot technique based on linear spectral interferometry between a temporally short reader pulse and a temporally long probe pulse is demonstrated for measuring the spatiotemporal phase and amplitude of an optical probe for use as an ultrafast diagnostic. The probe spatiotemporal field information is recovered, with a resolution set by the duration of the reader pulse, by applying a single Fourier transform operation to the interferogram image, without need of any reference data. The technique was used in conjunction with electro-optic sampling to measure waveforms of coherent, ultrashort THz pulses emitted by electron bunches from a laser-plasma accelerator with sub-50fs resolution. The presence of strong spatiotemporal coupling in the THz waveforms and of complex temporal electron-bunch structure was determined.

None

None

This report briefly summarizes the progress made by ARM postdoctoral fellow, Yanluan Lin, at GFDL during the period from October 2008 to present. Several ARM datasets have been used for GFDL model evaluation, understanding, and improvement. This includes a new ice fall speed parameterization with riming impact and its test in GFDL AM3, evaluation of model cloud and radiation diurnal and seasonal variation using ARM CMBE data, model ice water content evaluation using ARM cirrus data, and coordination of the TWPICE global model intercomparison. The work illustrates the potential and importance of ARM data for GCM evaluation, understanding, and ultimately, improvement of GCM cloud and radiation parameterizations. Future work includes evaluation and improvement of the new dynamicsPDF cloud scheme and aerosol activation in the GFDL model.

None

The Objective of this project is to develop, implement, and test new deterministric methods to solve, as efficiently as possible, multigroup neutron transport problems having an extremely large number of groups. Our approach was to (i) use the standard CMFD method to "coarsen" the space-angle grid, yielding a multigroup diffusion equation, and (ii) use a new multigrid-in-space-and-energy technique to efficiently solve the multigroup diffusion problem. The overall strategy of (i) how to coarsen the spatial and energy grids, and (ii) how to navigate through the various grids, has the goal of minimizing the overall computational effort. This approach yields not only the fine-grid solution, but also coarse-group flux-weighted cross sections that can be used for other related problems.

Ultrafast isomerization of acetylene cations ([HC = CH]{sup +}) in the low-lying excited A{sup 2}{Sigma}{sub g}{sup +} state, populated by the absorption of extreme ultraviolet (XUV) photons (38 eV), has been observed at the Free Electron Laser in Hamburg, (FLASH). Recording coincident fragments C{sup +} + CH{sub 2}{sup +} as a function of time between XUV-pump and -probe pulses, generated by a split-mirror device, we find an isomerization time of 52 {+-} 15 fs in a kinetic energy release (KER) window of 5.8 < KER < 8 eV, providing clear evidence for the existence of a fast, nonradiative decay channel.

None

None

Electron accelerators such as laser wakefield accelerators, linear accelerators driving free electron lasers, or femto-sliced synchrotrons, are capable of producing femtosecond-long electron bunches. Single-shot characterization of the temporal charge profile is crucial for operation, optimization, and application of such accelerators. A variety of electro-optic sampling (EOS) techniques exists for the temporal analysis. In EOS, the field profile from the electron bunch (or the field profile from its coherent radiation) will be transferred onto a laser pulse co-propagating through an electro-optic crystal. This paper will address the most common EOS schemes and will list their advantages and limitations. Strong points that all techniques share are the ultra-short time resolution (tens of femtoseconds) and the single-shot capabilities. Besides introducing the theory behind EOS, data from various research groups is presented for each technique.