We discuss the energy dependence of the total charm cross section and some of its theoretical uncertainties including the quark mass, scale choice and the parton densities. We compare the next-to-leading order calculation of the total cross section with results obtained using PYTHIA.

Laser-induced breakdown in the bulk of transparent dielectric materials is associated with the generation of extreme localized conditions of temperatures and pressures. In this work, we perform pump and probe damage testing experiments to investigate the evolution of transient absorption by the host material arising from modifications following confined laser energy deposition in fused silica and DKDP materials. Specifically, we measure the size of the damage sites observed in the region of spatial overlap between the pump and probe pulses versus probe time delay and energy. Results of this proof-of-principle experimental work confirm that material modifications under extreme conditions created during a damage event include transient optical absorption. In addition, we found that the relaxation times of the induced absorption are very distinct for DKDP and SiO{sub 2} even under identical excitation conditions, on the order of 100 ns and 100 {micro}s, respectively.

A high-order finite volume algorithm is developed for the Fokker-Planck Operator (FPO) describing Coulomb collisions in strongly magnetized plasmas. The algorithm is based on a general fourth-order reconstruction scheme for an unstructured grid in the velocity space spanned by parallel velocity and magnetic moment. The method provides density conservation and high-order-accurate evaluation of the FPO independent of the choice of the velocity coordinates. As an example, a linearized FPO in constant-of-motion coordinates, i.e. the total energy and the magnetic moment, is developed using the present algorithm combined with a cut-cell merging procedure. Numerical tests include the Spitzer thermalization problem and the return to isotropy for distributions initialized with velocity space loss cones. Utilization of the method for a nonlinear FPO is straightforward but requires evaluation of the Rosenbluth potentials.

None

Incoherent electron effects could seriously limit the beam lifetime in proton or ion storage rings, such as LHC, SPS, or RHIC, or blow up the vertical emittance of positron beams, e.g., at the B factories or in linear-collider damping rings. Different approaches to modeling these effects each have their own merits and drawbacks. We describe several simulation codes which simplify the descriptions of the beam-electron interaction and of the accelerator structure in various different ways, and present results for a toy model of the SPS. In addition, we present evidence that for positron beams the interplay of incoherent electron-cloud effects and synchrotron radiation can lead to a significant increase in vertical equilibrium emittance. The magnitude of a few incoherent e+e- scattering processes is also estimated. Options for future code development are reviewed.

The dynamics of water molecules near the protein surface are different from those of bulk water and influence the structure and dynamics of the protein itself. To elucidate the temperature dependence hydration dynamics of water molecules, we present results from the molecular dynamic simulation of the water molecules surrounding two proteins (Carboxypeptidase inhibitor and Ovomucoid) at seven different temperatures (T=273 to 303 K, in increments of 5 K). Translational diffusion coefficients of the surface water and bulk water molecules were estimated from 2 ns molecular dynamics simulation trajectories. Temperature dependence of the estimated bulk water diffusion closely reflects the experimental values, while hydration water diffusion is retarded significantly due to the protein. Protein surface induced scaling of translational dynamics of the hydration waters is uniform over the temperature range studied, suggesting the importance protein-water interactions.

The dielectric wall accelerator (DWA) is a compact pulsed power device where the pulse forming lines, switching, and vacuum wall are integrated into a single compact geometry. For this effort, we initiated a extensive compact pulsed power development program and have pursued the study of switching (gas, oil, laser induced surface flashover and photoconductive), dielectrics (ceramics and nanoparticle composites), pulse forming line topologies (asymmetric and symmetric Blumleins and zero integral pulse forming lines), and multilayered vacuum insulator (HGI) technology. Finally, we fabricated an accelerator cell for test on ETAII (a 5.5 MeV, 2 kA, 70 ns pulsewidth electron beam accelerator). We review our past results and report on the progress of accelerator cell testing.

We investigate faint radio emission from low- to high-luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Their radio properties are inferred by coadding large ensembles of radio image cut-outs from the FIRST survey, as almost all of the sources are individually undetected. We correlate the median radio flux densities against a range of other sample properties, including median values for redshift, [O III] luminosity, emission line ratios, and the strength of the 4000{angstrom} break. We detect a strong trend for sources that are actively undergoing star-formation to have excess radio emission beyond the {approx} 10{sup 28} ergs s{sup -1} Hz{sup -1} level found for sources without any discernible star-formation. Furthermore, this additional radio emission correlates well with the strength of the 4000{angstrom} break in the optical spectrum, and may be used to assess the age of the star-forming component. We examine two subsamples, one containing the systems with emission line ratios most like star-forming systems, and one with the sources that have characteristic AGN ratios. This division also separates the mechanism responsible for the radio emission (star-formation vs. AGN). For both cases we find a strong, almost identical, correlation between [O III] and radio luminosity, …

This paper describes automated demand response (Auto-DR) activities, an innovative effort in California to ensure that DR programs produce effective and sustainable impacts. Through the application of automation and communication technologies coupled with well-designed incentives and DR programs such as Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) and Demand Bidding (DBP), Auto-DR is opening up the opportunity for many different types of buildings to effectively participate in DR programs. We present the results of Auto-DR implementation efforts by the three California investor-owned utilities for the Summer of 2007. The presentation emphasizes Pacific Gas and Electric Company's (PG&E) Auto-DR efforts, which represents the largest in the state. PG&E's goal was to recruit, install, test and operate 15 megawatts of Auto-DR system capability. We describe the unique delivery approaches, including optimizing the utility incentive structures designed to foster an Auto-DR service provider community. We also show how PG&E's Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) and Demand Bidding (DBP) options were called and executed under the automation platform. Finally, we show the results of the Auto-DR systems installed and operational during 2007, which surpassed PG&E's Auto-DR goals. Auto-DR is being implemented by a multi-disciplinary team including the California Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs), energy consultants, energy management control system …

Trivalent bismuth luminescence is reported in three Sillenbismuth oxyhalide phases, SrBiO2Cl, BaBiO2Cl, and BaBiO2Br. Thesecompounds exhibit Bi 6s6->6 s2 emission under UV and X-ray radiation.At room temperature, BaBiO2Cl shows the most intense light emission, withspectral and decay properties similar to those found in Bi4Ge3O12 (BGO).At low temperatures, each phase show an increase in the photoluminescenceintensities and a narrowing of the emission peaks. In contrast to thetemperature dependence of BGO, X-ray excited luminescence intensities ofall three phases remain relatively constant throughout the temperaturerange 10 - 295 K. This result indicates that the Sillen phases undergoless thermal quenching than BGO. The low temperature and room temperatureradio-luminescence decay times were determined from pulsed x-raymeasurements. At room temperature, SrBiO2Cl exhibits faster decays thanBGO, while, BaBiO2Cl and BaBiO2Br have decay times similar toBGO.

Comets have long been proposed as a potential means for the transport of complex organic compounds to early Earth. For this to be a viable mechanism, a significant fraction of organic compounds must survive the high temperatures due to impact. We have undertaken three-dimensional numerical simulations to track the thermodynamic state of a comet during oblique impacts. The comet was modeled as a 1-km water-ice sphere impacting a basalt plane at 11.2 km/s; impact angles of 15{sup o} (from horizontal), 30{sup o}, 45{sup o}, 65{sup o}, and 90{sup o} (normal impact) were examined. The survival of organic cometary material, modeled as water ice for simplicity, was calculated using three criteria: (1) peak temperatures, (2) the thermodynamic phase of H{sub 2}O, and (3) final temperature upon isentropic unloading. For impact angles greater than or equal to 30{sup o}, no organic material is expected to survive the impact. For the 15{sup o} impact, most of the material survives the initial impact and significant fractions (55%, 25%, and 44%, respectively) satisfy each survival criterion at 1 second. Heating due to deceleration, in addition to shock heating, plays a role in the heating of the cometary material for nonnormal impacts. This effect is more …

Using magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) adaptive mesh refinement simulations, we study the formation and early evolution of disk galaxies with a magnetized interstellar medium. For a 10{sup 10} M{sub {circle_dot}} halo with initial NFW dark matter and gas profiles, we impose a uniform 10{sup -9} G magnetic field and follow its collapse, disk formation and evolution up to 1 Gyr. Comparing to a purely hydrodynamic simulation with the same initial condition, we find that a protogalactic field of this strength does not significantly influence the global disk properties. At the same time, the initial magnetic fields are quickly amplified by the differentially rotating turbulent disk. After the initial rapid amplification lasting {approx} 500 Myr, subsequent field amplification appears self-regulated. As a result, highly magnetized material begin to form above and below the disk. Interestingly, the field strengths in the self-regulated regime agrees well with the observed fields in the Milky Way galaxy both in the warm and the cold HI phase and do not change appreciably with time. Most of the cold phase shows a dispersion of order ten in the magnetic field strength. The global azimuthal magnetic fields reverse at different radii and the amplitude declines as a function of radius …

An international experiment to demonstrate muon ionization cooling is scheduled for beam at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in 2007. The experiment comprises one cell of the Study II cooling channel [1], along with upstream and downstream detectors to identify individual muons and measure their initial and final 6D phase-space parameters to a precision of 0.1%. Magnetic design of the beam line and cooling channel are complete and portions are under construction. The experiment will be described, including cooling channel hardware designs, fabrication status, and running plans. Phase 1 of the experiment will prepare the beam line and provide detector systems, including time-of-flight, Cherenkov, scintillating-fiber trackers and their spectrometer solenoids, and an electromagnetic calorimeter. The Phase 2 system will add the cooling channel components, including liquid-hydrogen absorbers embedded in superconducting Focus Coil solenoids, 201-MHz normal-conducting RF cavities, and their surrounding Coupling Coil solenoids. The MICE Collaboration goal is to complete the experiment by 2010; progress toward this is discussed.

Fourier transform visible spectroscopy, in conjunction withVUV photons produced by a synchrotron, is employed to investigate thephotodissociation of CH3CN. Emission is observed from both theCN(B2Sigma+ - X2Sigma+) and CH(A2Delta - X2PI) transitions; only theformer is observed in spectra recorded at 10.2 and 11.5 eV, whereas bothare detected in the 16 eV spectrum. The rotational and vibrationaltemperatures of both the CN(B2Sigma+) and CH(A2Delta) radical productsare derived using a combination of spectral simulations and Boltzmannplots. The CN(B2Sigma+) fragment displays a bimodal rotationaldistribution in all cases. Trot(CN(B2Sigma+)) ranges from 375 to 600 K atlower K' and from 1840 to 7700 K at higher K' depending on the photonenergy used. Surprisal analyses indicate clear bimodal rotationaldistributions, suggesting CN(B2Sigma+) is formed via either linear orbent transition states, respectively, depending on the extent ofrotational excitation in this fragment. CH(A2Delta) has a singlerotational distribution when produced at 16 eV which results inTrot(CH(A2Delta)) = 4895 +- 140 K in nu' = 0 and 2590 +- 110 K in nu' =1. From thermodynamic calculations, it is evident that CH(A2Delta) isproduced along with CN(X2Sigma+) + H2. These products can be formed by atwo step mechanism (via excited CH3* and ground state CN(X2Sigma+) or aprocess similar to the "roaming" atom mechanism; …

Orbit bumps in sextupoles are routinely used for tuning the luminosity in the PEP-II B-Factory. Anti-symmetric bumps at a pair of identical sextupoles separated by -I section generate the net dispersion, while symmetric horizontal bumps induce a tune shift and beta beat. By combining two of these symmetric bumps with opposite signs, where the second pair is 90{sup o} away, the tune shift cancels and the beta beat doubles. In the low energy ring (LER), there are four -I sextupole pairs per arc, located one after another 90{sup o} apart, where pairs 1 and 3 are at the same phase and pairs 2 and 4 are 90{sup o} away. By making two symmetric bumps with opposite sign in pairs 1 and 3, the tune shift and beta beat outside this region cancel, but there is a local change of phase and beta in the 2nd sextupole pair located in the middle. By using this bump knob, the LER lifetime improved by a factor of 3, losses by a factor of 5, and the beam-beam background in the drift chamber of the BaBar detector by 20%. Optics analysis showed that the local phase change at the 2nd sextupole pair can compensate …

It turns out that gyrokinetic theory can be geometrically formulated as special cases of a geometrically generalized Vlasov-Maxwell system. It is proposed that the phase space of the spacetime is a 7-dimensional fiber bundle P over the 4-dimensional spacetime M, and that a Poincare-Cartan-Einstein 1-form {gamma} on the 7-dimensional phase space determines particles worldlines in the phase space. Through Liouville 6-form {Omega} and fiber integral, the 1-form {gamma} also uniquely defines a geometrically generalized Vlasov-Maxwell system as a field theory for the collective electromagnetic field. The geometric gyrokinetic theory is then developed as a special case of the geometrically generalized Vlasov-Maxwell system. In its most general form, gyrokinetic theory is about a symmetry, called gyro-symmetry, for magnetized plasmas, and the 1-form {gamma} again uniquely defines the gyro-symmetry. The objective is to decouple the gyro-phase dynamics from the rest of particle dynamics by finding the gyro-symmetry in {gamma}. Compared with other methods of deriving the gyrokinetic equations, the advantage of the geometric approach is that it allows any approximation based on mathematical simplification or physical intuition to be made at the 1-form level, and yet the field theories still have the desirable exact conservation properties such as phase space volume conservation …

I present a summary of topics relevant to the electron-cloud build-up and dissipation that were presented at the International Workshop on Electron-Cloud Effects 'ECLOUD 07' (Daegu, S. Korea, April 9-12, 2007). This summary is not meant to be a comprehensive review of the talks. Rather, I focus on those developments that I found, in my personal opinion, especially interesting. The contributions, all excellent, are posted in http://chep.knu.ac.kr/ecloud07/.

We have studied detailed nucleosynthesis in the shocked surface layers of an oxygen-neon-magnesium core collapse supernova with an eye to determining whether the conditions are suitable for r-process nucleosynthesis. We find no such conditions in an unmodified model, but do find overproduction of N=50 nuclei (previously seen in early neutron-rich neutrino winds) in amounts that, if ejected, would pose serious problems for Galactic chemical evolution.

In several cases, coupling synchrotron light into opticalfibers can substantially facilitate the use of beam diagnosticinstrumentation, that measures longitudinal beam properties by detectingsynchrotron radiation. It has been discussed in [1]with some detail, howfiberoptics can bring the light at relatively large distances from theaccelerator, where a variety of devices can be used to measure beamproperties and parameters. Light carried on a fiber can be easilyswitched between instruments so that each one of them has 100 percent ofthe photons available, rather than just a fraction , when simultaneousmeasurements are not indispensable. From a more general point of view,once synchrotron light is coupled into the fiber, the vast array oftechniques and optoelectronic devices, developed by the telecommunicationindustry becomes available.In this paper we present the results of ourexperiments at the Advanced Light Source, where we tried to assess thechallenges and limitations of the coupling process and determine whatlevel of efficiency one can typically expect to achieve.

I agree with the authors that forecasting the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) in a high resolution global model is important for numerous reasons, including improved weather forecast skill beyond 10 days, and resolving small scale features embedded in the MJO that coarse resolution ({approx}100-300km horizontal grid spacing) climate models do not (e.g., tropical cyclones). Unfortunately, the authors promote the (incorrect) overall impression that coarse resolution climate models cannot simulate the MJO by (a) only discussing aspects of works that indicate the poor ability of coarse resolution climate models to simulate the MJO, and (b) by promoting the use of higher resolution models, and the use of embedded two-dimensional cloud resolving models embedded in coarse resolution climate models as the principal methods for realistically representing the MJO because of the difficulty of coarse resolution models 'to estimate the vertical redistribution of heat and moisture by unresolved convective clouds'. Regarding items (a) and (b), I have co-authored two of the works cited by Miura et al. that bemoan the poor ability of coarse resolution climate models to simulate the MJO, and indeed simulating the MJO in coarse resolution climate models is a grand challenge. However, I would like to draw to their attention …

Comparing gene expression profiles over many different conditions has led to insights that were not obvious from single experiments. In the same way, comparing patterns of natural selection across a set of ecologically distinct species may extend what can be learned from individual genome-wide surveys. Toward this end, we show how variation in protein evolutionary rates, after correcting for genome-wide effects such as mutation rate and demographic factors, can be used to estimate the level and types of natural selection acting on genes across different species. We identify unusually rapidly and slowly evolving genes, relative to empirically derived genome-wide and gene family-specific background rates for 744 core protein families in 30 gamma-proteobacterial species. We describe the pattern of fast or slow evolution across species as the 'selective signature' of a gene. Selective signatures represent a profile of selection across species that is predictive of gene function: pairs of genes with correlated selective signatures are more likely to share the same cellular function, and genes in the same pathway can evolve in concert. For example, glycolysis and phenylalanine metabolism genes evolve rapidly in Idiomarina loihiensis, mirroring an ecological shift in carbon source from sugars to amino acids. In a broader context, …

A practical, functional group tolerant method for the Rh-catalyzed direct arylation of a variety of pharmaceutically important azoles with aryl bromides is described. Many of the successful azole and aryl bromide coupling partners are not compatible with methods for the direct arylation of heterocycles using Pd(0) or Cu(I) catalysts. The readily prepared, low molecular weight ligand, Z-1-tert-butyl-2,3,6,7-tetrahydrophosphepine, which coordinates to Rh in a bidentate P-olefin fashion to provide a highly active yet thermally stable arylation catalyst, is essential to the success of this method. By using the tetrafluoroborate salt of the corresponding phosphonium, the reactions can be assembled outside of a glove box without purification of reagents or solvent. The reactions are also conducted in THF or dioxane, which greatly simplifies product isolation relative to most other methods for direct arylation of azoles employing high-boiling amide solvents. The reactions are performed with heating in a microwave reactor to obtain excellent product yields in two hours.

Can supersymmetric models with a moderate stop mass be made consistent with the negative Higgs boson searches at LEP, while keeping perturbative unification manifest? The NMSSM achieves this rather easily, but only if extra matter multiplets filling complete SU(5) representations are present at intermediate energies. As a concrete example which makes use of this feature, we give an analytic description of the phenomenology of a constrained NMSSM close to a Peccei-Quinn symmetry point. The related pseudo-Goldstone boson appears in decays of the Higgs bosons and possibly of the lightest neutralino, and itself decays into (b anti-b) and (tau anti-tau).

The coupling of mechanical and optical properties insemiconductor nanostructures can potentially lead to new types ofdevices. This work describes our theoretical examination of themechanical properties of CdSe tetrapods under directional forces, such asmay be induced by AFM tips. In addition to studying the general behaviorof the mechanical properties under modifications of geometry,nanocrystal-substrate interaction, and dimensional scaling, ourcalculations indicate that mechanical deformations do not lead to largechanges in the band-edge state eigenenergies, and have only a weak effecton the oscillator strengths of the lowest energy transitions.