A 1-J laser was designed to launch light down 16, multi-mode fibers (400-{micro}m-core dia.). A diffractive-optic splitter was designed in collaboration with Digital Optics Corporation (DOC), and was delivered by DOC. Using this splitter, the energy injected into each fiber varied <1%. The spatial profile out of each fiber was such that there were no ''hot spots,'' a flyer could successfully be launched and a PETN pellet could be initiated. Preliminary designs of the system were driven by system efficiency where a pristine TEM{sub 00} laser beam would be required. The laser is a master oscillator, power amplifier (MOPA) consisting of a 4-mm-dia. Nd:YLF rod in the stable, q-switched oscillator and a 9.5-mm-dia. Nd:YLF rod in the double-passed amplifier. Using a TEM{sub 00} oscillator beam resulted in excellent transmission efficiencies through the fibers at lower energies but proved to be quite unreliable at higher energies, causing premature fiber damage, flyer plate rupture, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). Upon further investigation, it was found that both temporal and spatial beam formatting of the laser were required to successfully initiate the PETN. Results from the single-mode experiments, including fiber damage, SRS and SBS losses, will be presented. In …

Node-on-segment contact is the most common form of contact used today but has many deficiencies ranging from potential locking to non-smooth behavior with large sliding. Furthermore, node-on-segment approaches are not at all applicable to higher order discretizations (e.g. quadratic elements). In a previous work, [3, 4] we developed a segment-to-segment contact approach for eight node hexahedral elements based on the mortar method that was applicable to large deformation mechanics. The approach proved extremely robust since it eliminated the over-constraint that caused 'locking' and provided smooth force variations in large sliding. Here, we extend this previous approach to treat frictional contact problems. In addition, the method is extended to 3D quadratic tetrahedrals and hexahedrals. The proposed approach is then applied to several challenging frictional contact problems that demonstrate its effectiveness.

Ab initio electronic structure methods can supplement CALPHAD in two major ways for subsequent applications to stability in complex alloys. The first one is rather immediate and concerns the direct input of ab initio energetics in CALPHAD databases. The other way, more involved, is the assessment of ab initio thermodynamics {acute a} la CALPHAD. It will be shown how these results can be used within CALPHAD to predict the equilibrium properties of multi-component alloys.

Crystals of potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KH{sub 2}PO{sub 4}, KDP) are grown in large scale for use as nonlinear material in laser components. Traces of trivalent metal impurities are often added to the supernatant to achieve habit control during crystal growth, selectively inhibiting the growth of the {l_brace}100{r_brace} face. Model systems representing AlPO{sub 4}-doped KDP {l_brace}100{r_brace} stepped surfaces are prepared and studied using ab initio quantum methods. Results of Hartree-Fock partial optimizations are presented, including estimated energies of ion pair binding to the steps. We find that the PO{sub 4}{sup 3-} ion takes a position not unlike that of a standard phosphate in the crystal lattice, while the aluminum atom is displaced far from a K{sup +} ion position to establish coordinations with the PO{sub 4}{sup 3-} ion and to bind with another lattice-bound phosphate. Our optimized structures suggest that it is the formation of a fourth coordination of Al(III) to a third phosphate ion from solution, or perhaps from a nearby position in the lattice, that disrupts further deposition, pinning the steps.

We report the results of variational calculations of elastic electron scattering by tetrafluoroethene, C{sub 2}F{sub 4}, with incident electron energies ranging from 0.5 to 20 eV, using the complex Kohn method and effective core potentials. These are the first fully calculations to reproduce experimental angular differential cross sections at energies below 10 eV. Low-energy electron scattering by C{sub 2}F{sub 4} is sensitive to the inclusion of electronic correlation and target-distortion effects. We therefore present results that describe the dynamic polarization of the target by the incident electron. The calculated cross sections are compared with recent experimental measurements.

We have designed an experimental technique to use on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser to achieve very high pressure (P{sub max} > 10 Mbar = 1000 GPa), dense states of matter at moderate temperatures (kT < 0.5 eV = 6000 K), relevant to the core conditions of the giant planets. A discussion of the conditions in the interiors of the giant planets is given, and an experimental design that can approach those conditions is described.

Our ability to simulate physical processes numerically is constrained by our ability to solve the resulting linear systems, prompting substantial research into the development of multiscale iterative methods capable of solving these linear systems with an optimal amount of effort. Overcoming the limitations of geometric multigrid methods to simple geometries and differential equations, algebraic multigrid methods construct the multigrid hierarchy based only on the given matrix. While this allows for efficient black-box solution of the linear systems associated with discretizations of many elliptic differential equations, it also results in a lack of robustness due to assumptions made on the near-null spaces of these matrices. This paper introduces an extension to algebraic multigrid methods that removes the need to make such assumptions by utilizing an adaptive process. The principles which guide the adaptivity are highlighted, as well as their application to algebraic multigrid solution of certain symmetric positive-definite linear systems.

Article about two events hosted by Brilliant Magazine celebrating Carolyn Farb and Mark Sullivan.

The Control System for the Advanced Light Source uses in-house designed IndustryPack (IP) I/O Modules in compact PCI (cPCI) chassis to control instrumentation. Each module consists of digital I/O ports and 16-bit analog I/O interfaced to instrumentation via a cPCI rear I/O card. During the past few years of installed operation, several factors have prompted investigation into the design of a new IP I/O Module. The ADC channels have significant offset drift over periods of days of initial installed operation. An in-situ calibration procedure was developed to address this problem, but it lacks speed and is inconvenient to perform. Digital I/O port limitations have led to increasing amounts of wasted I/O. Fast orbit feedback requires faster ADC sampling and better filtering than the current IP module offers. This paper discusses the issues related to the current IP I/O Module and the design of a new Double-size IP I/O Module.

This paper presents an evaluation of the applicability of Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition Engines (HCCI) for small-scale cogeneration (less than 1 MWe) in comparison to five previously analyzed prime movers. The five comparator prime movers include stoichiometric spark-ignited (SI) engines, lean burn SI engines, diesel engines, microturbines and fuel cells. The investigated option, HCCI engines, is a relatively new type of engine that has some fundamental differences with respect to other prime movers. Here, the prime movers are compared by calculating electric and heating efficiency, fuel consumption, nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and capital and fuel cost. Two cases are analyzed. In Case 1, the cogeneration facility requires combined power and heating. In Case 2, the requirement is for power and chilling. The results show that the HCCI engines closely approach the very high fuel utilization efficiency of diesel engines without the high emissions of NOx and the expensive diesel fuel. HCCI engines offer a new alternative for cogeneration that provides a unique combination of low cost, high efficiency, low emissions and flexibility in operating temperatures that can be optimally tuned for cogeneration systems. HCCI engines are the most efficient technology that meets the oncoming 2007 CARB NOx standards for cogeneration …

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Aircraft crashes are an element of external events required to be analyzed and documented in facility Safety Analysis Reports (SARs) and Nuclear Explosive Safety Studies (NESSs). This paper discusses the localized effects of an aircraft crash impact into the Device Assembly Facility (DAF) located at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), given that the aircraft hits the facility. This was done to gain insight into the robustness of the DAF and to account for the special features of the DAF that enhance its ability to absorb the effects of an aircraft crash. For the purpose of this paper, localized effects are considered to be only perforation or scabbing of the facility. This paper presents an extension to the aircraft crash risk methodology of Department of Energy (DOE) Standard 3014. This extension applies to facilities that may find it necessary or desirable to estimate the localized effects of an aircraft crash hit on a facility of nonuniform construction or one that is shielded in certain directions by surrounding terrain or buildings. This extension is not proposed as a replacement to the aircraft crash risk methodology of DOE Standard 3014 but rather as an alternate method to cover situations that were not considered.

We consider the possibility that supernovae which form hyper-accreting black holes might be responsible for synthesis of r-process elements with mass A {approx}< 130. Calculations are presented which show that these elements are naturally synthesized in neutron-rich magnetically-dominated bubbles born in the inner regions of a black hole accretion disk. Simple considerations suggest that the total mass ejected in the form of these bubbles is about that needed to account for the entire galactic inventory of the 2nd-peak r-process elements. We also argue that if collapsars are responsible for, e.g., Ag synthesis, then Ag abundances should be correlated with Sc and/or Zn abundances in metal-poor stars.

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The X-ray Spectrometer (XRS) instrument is a revolutionary non-dispersive spectrometer that will form the basis for the Astro-E2 observatory to be launched in 2005. We have recently installed a flight spare XRS microcalorimeter spectrometer at the EBIT-I and SuperEBIT facility at LLNL replacing the XRS from the earlier Astro-E mission and providing twice the resolving power. The XRS microcalorimeter is an x-ray detector that senses the heat deposited by the incident photon. It achieves a high energy resolution by operating at 0.06K and by carefully engineering the heat capacity and thermal conductance. The XRS/EBIT instrument has 32 pixels in a square geometry and achieves an energy resolution of 6 eV at 6 keV, with a bandpass from 0.1 to 12 keV (or more at higher operating temperature). The instrument allows detailed studies of the x-ray line emission of laboratory plasmas. The XRS/EBIT also provides an extensive calibration 'library' for the Astro-E2 observatory.

We present two new methods for automatic registration of microscope images of consecutive tissue sections. They represent two possibilities for the first step in the 3-D reconstruction of histological structures from serially sectioned tissue blocks. The goal is to accurately align the sections in order to place every relevant shape contained in each image in front of its corresponding shape in the following section before detecting the structures of interest and rendering them in 3D. This is accomplished by finding the best rigid body transformation (translation and rotation) of the image being registered by maximizing a matching function based on the image content correlation. The first method makes use of the entire image information, whereas the second one uses only the information located at specific sites, as determined by the segmentation of the most relevant tissue structures. To reduce computing time, we use a multiresolution pyramidal approach that reaches the best registration transformation in increasing resolution steps. In each step, a subsampled version of the images is used. Both methods rely on a binary image which is a thresholded version of the Sobel gradients of the image (first method) or a set of boundaries manually or automatically obtained that define …

These four lectures constitute a gentle introduction to what may lie beyond the standard model of quarks and leptons interacting through SU(3){sub c} {direct_product} SU(2){sub L} {direct_product} U(1){sub Y} gauge bosons, prepared for an audience of graduate students in experimental particle physics. In the first lecture, I introduce a novel graphical representation of the particles and interactions, the double simplex, to elicit questions that motivate our interest in physics beyond the standard model, without recourse to equations and formalism. Lecture 2 is devoted to a short review of the current status of the standard model, especially the electroweak theory, which serves as the point of departure for our explorations. The third lecture is concerned with unified theories of the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions. In the fourth lecture, I survey some attempts to extend and complete the electroweak theory, emphasizing some of the promise and challenges of supersymmetry. A short concluding section looks forward.

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We use data from a unique 40-year record of 150 urban and rural stations in the ''Black Smoke and SO2 Network'' in Great Britain to infer information about sources of atmospheric black carbon (BC). The data show a rapid decline of ambient atmospheric BC between 1962 and the early 1990s that exceeds the decline in official estimates of BC emissions based only on amount of fuel use and mostly fixed emission factors. This provides empirical confirmation of the existence and large impact of a time-dependent ''technology factor'' that must multiply the rate of fossil fuel use. Current ambient BC amounts in Great Britain comparable to those in western and central Europe, with diesel engines being the principal present source. From comparison of BC and SO2 data we infer that current BC emission inventories understate true emissions in the U.K. by about a factor of two. The results imply that there is the potential for improved technology to achieve large reduction of global ambient BC. There is a need for comparable monitoring of BC in other countries.

A well-known result due to Hill provides an exact expression for the bulk modulus of any multicomponent elastic composite whenever the constituents are isotropic and the shear modulus is uniform throughout. Although no precise analog of Hill's result is available for the opposite case of uniform bulk modulus and varying shear modulus, it is shown here that some similar statements can be made for shear behavior of random polycrystals composed of laminates of isotropic materials. In particular, the Hashin-Shtrikman-type bounds of Peselnick, Meister, and Watt for random polycrystals composed of hexagonal (transversely isotropic) grains are applied to the problem of polycrystals of laminates. An exact product formula relating the Reuss estimate of bulk modulus and an effective shear modulus (of laminated grains composing the system) to products of the eigenvalues for quasi-compressional and quasi-uniaxial shear eigenvectors also plays an important role in the analysis of the overall shear behavior of the random polycrystal. When the bulk modulus is uniform in such a system, the equations are shown to reduce to a simple form that depends prominently on the uniaxial shear eigenvalue - as expected from physical arguments concerning the importance of uniaxial shear in these systems. One application of the …

Convective amplification in large homogeneous systems is studied, both analytically and numerically, in the case of a linear diffraction-free stochastic amplifier. Overall amplification does not result from successive amplifications in small scale high intensity hot-spots, but from a single amplification in a delocalized mode of the driver field spreading over the whole interaction length. For this model, the hot-spot approach is found to systematically underestimate the gain factor by more than 50%.

We have augmented the code POSINST to include solenoid fields, and used it to simulate the build up of electron cloud due to electron multipacting in the PEP-II positron ring. We find that the distribution of electrons is strongly affected by the resonances associated with the cyclotron period and bunch spacing. In addition, we discover a threshold beyond which the electron density grows exponentially until it reaches the space charge limit. The threshold does not depend on the bunch spacing but does depend on the positron bunch population.

The Full Aperture Backscatter System (FABS) provides a measure of the spectral power, and integrated energy scattered by stimulated Brillouin (348-354 nm) and Raman (400 - 700 nm) scattering into the final focusing lens of the first four beams of the NIF laser. The system was designed to provide measurements at the highest expected fluences with: (1) spectral and temporal resolution, (2) beam aperture averaging, and (3) near-field imaging. This is accomplished with a strongly attenuating diffusive fiber coupler and streaked spectrometer and separate calibrated time integrated spectrometers, and imaging cameras. Measurement of the wavelength dependent sensitivity of the complete system is accomplished with a calibrated Xe lamp. Data from the calibration system is combined with experimental data to produce the power and energy measurements. Examples of measurements will be discussed.

We examine various options for calibration of NIF neutron detectors in the energy region E<14 MeV. These options include: downscatter of D-T fusion neutrons using plastic targets; nuclear reactions at a Tandem Van de Graaf accelerator; and ''white'' neutrons from a pulsed spallation source. As an example of the spallation option, we present some calibration data that was recently obtained with a single crystal CVD diamond detector at the Weapons Neutron Research facility (WNR) at LANL.