We report on searches for D{sup 0}-{bar D}{sup 0} mixing using decay-time distributions of D{sup 0} {yields} K{pi} and D{sup 0} {yields} K{sup (*)}e{nu} decays and a lifetime ratio analysis of D{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}K{sup -}, {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -} decays using 91 fb{sup -1} of e{sup +}e{sup -} data taken at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy storage ring at energies near 10.6 GeV. Searches for CP-violation in D{sup 0} mixing and decay are also reported, as well as a measurement of R{sub D}, the ratio of the doubly Cabibbo-suppressed decay rate to the Cabibbo-allowed decay rate.

This paper documents the application of a new image processing algorithm, two-dimensional non-linear additive decomposition (NLAD), which is used to identify regions in a digital image whose gray-scale (or color) intensity is different than the surrounding background. Standard image segmentation algorithms exist that allow users to segment images based on gray-scale intensity and/or shape. However, these processing techniques do not adequately account for the image noise and lighting variation that typically occurs across an image. NLAD is designed to separate image noise and background from artifacts thereby providing the ability to consistently evaluate images. The decomposition techniques used in this algorithm are based on the concepts of mathematical morphology. NLAD emulates the human capability of visually separating an image into different levels of resolution components, denoted as ''coarse'', ''fine'', and ''intermediate''. Very little resolution information overlaps any two of the component images. This method can easily determine and/or remove trends and noise from an image. NLAD has several additional advantages over conventional image processing algorithms, including no need for a transformation from one space to another, such as is done with Fourier transforms, and since only finite summations are required, the calculational effort is neither extensive nor complicated.

A measurement of the spin of the {Omega}{sup -} hyperon produced through the exclusive process {Xi}{sub c}{sup 0} {yields} {Omega}{sup -}K{sup +} is presented using a total integrated luminosity of 116 fb{sup -1} recorded with the BABAR detector at the e{sup +}e{sup -} asymmetric-energy B-Factory at SLAC. Under the assumption that the {Xi}{sub c}{sup 0} has spin 1/2, the angular distribution of the {Lambda} from {Omega}{sup -} {yields} {Lambda}K{sup -} decay is inconsistent with all half-integer {Omega}{sup -} spin values other than 3/2. Lower statistics data for the process {Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} {yields} {Omega}{sup -}{pi}{sup +} from a 230 fb{sup -1} sample are also found to be consistent with {Omega}{sup -} spin 3/2. If the {Xi}{sub c}{sup 0} spin were 3/2, an {Omega}{sup -} spin of 5/2 cannot be excluded.

We present a class of compact, monolithic, photonic sensors consisting of multiple section edge emitting lasers with functionalized lateral surface coatings for low level detection of chemical or biological agents. Specifically, we discuss 8 {micro}m x 250 {micro}m Pd-coated H{sub 2} sensors and configurations to reduce the minimum detection limit from 138ppm for passive sensors to 1ppm for active sensors. Compared with conventional optical H{sub 2} sensors that use fiber gratings, surface plasmon resonances, or surface reflectance, our sensors offer the advantages of smaller size, wider dynamic range, monolithic integration of laser source and detector, and 2-D scalability to arrays of sensors that are functionalized to detect different agents.

In the damping rings of the International Linear Collider (ILC), the resistive-wall instability is one of the dominant transverse instabilities. This instability directly influences the choice of material and aperture of the vacuum pipe, and the parameters of the transverse feedback system. This paper investigates the resistive-wall instabilities in an ILC damping ring under various conditions of beam pipe material, aperture, and fill pattern.

We have achieved {approx}30 psec single-photoelectron and {approx}12ps for multi-photoelectron timing resolution with a new 64 pixel Burle MCP-PMT with 10 micron microchannel holes. We have also demonstrated that this detector works in a magnetic field of 15kG, and achieved a single-photoelectron timing resolution of better than 60 psec. The study is relevant for a new focusing DIRC RICH detector for particle identification at future Colliders such as the super B-factory or ILC, and for future TOF techniques. This study shows that a highly pixilated MCP-PMT can deliver excellent timing resolution.

Using solution based single molecule spectroscopy, we study the motion of the polIII {beta}-subunit DNA sliding clamp ('{beta}-clamp') on DNA. Present in all cellular (and some viral) forms of life, DNA sliding clamps attach to polymerases and allow rapid, processive replication of DNA. In the absence of other proteins, the DNA sliding clamps are thought to 'freely slide' along the DNA; however, the abundance of positively charged residues along the inner surface may create favorable electrostatic contact with the highly negatively charged DNA. We have performed single-molecule measurements on a fluorescently labeled {beta}-clamp loaded onto freely diffusing plasmids annealed with fluorescently labeled primers of up to 90 bases. We find that the diffusion constant for 1D diffusion of the {beta}-clamp on DNA satisfies D {le} 10{sup -14} cm{sup 2}/s, much slower than the frictionless limit of D = 10{sup -10} cm{sup 2}/s. We find that the {beta} clamp remains at the 3-foot end in the presence of E. coli single-stranded binding protein (SSB), which would allow for a sliding clamp to wait for binding of the DNA polymerase. Replacement of SSB with Human RP-A eliminates this interaction; free movement of sliding clamp and poor binding of clamp loader to the …

The sensitivity for identification of high-Z objects in elemental form in the massive cargo of intermodal containers with continuous bremsstrahlung radiation depends critically on discriminating the weak signal from uncollided photons from the very intense flux of scattered radiations that penetrate the cargo. We propose that this might be accomplished by rejection of detected events with E {le} 2-3 MeV that contain the majority of multiply-scattered photons along with a correction for single-scattered photons at higher energies. Monte Carlo simulations of radiographs with a 9-MeV bremsstrahlung spectrum demonstrate that rejection of detected events with E {le} 3 MeV removes the majority of signals from scattered photons emerging through cargo with Z {le} 30 and areal densities of at least 145 g cm{sup -2}. With analytical estimates of the single-scattered intensity at higher energies, accurate estimates of linear attenuation coefficients for shielded and unshielded uranium spheres with masses as small as 0.08 kg are found. The estimated maximum dose is generally so low that reasonable order tomography of interesting portions of a container should be possible.

To successfully develop the geothermal resources of the Imperial Valley, adequate supplies of cooling water must be obtained. The primary sources of water include waste waters from agricultural lands, condensate from flashed-steam facilities, and irrigation water. The major advantages and disadvantages of these supplies are examined and then the consequences of adopting six sets of water policies to support three scenarios of geothermal energy production are assessed. The assessment includes analyses of potential constraints to development as a result of restrictive water policies. It also includes predictions of changes in the Salton Sea's elevation and salinity caused by the consumption of agricultural drain water for cooling.

The Molten Salt Destruction (MSD) process is an alternative to open burn/open detonation for destroying energetic materials; MSD has inherently low gaseous emissions, and the salt bath can scrub both acidic gases and particulates. It was demonstrated that high explosives and a liquid propellant can be safely and completely destroyed using MSD. Gaseous emissions of NOx and CO are very low. Nitrate builds up in the salt bath when nitrate-rich materials are destroyed, but addition fuel reduces the nitrate to NO. A program has been begun to add catalytic materials to the bed to further reduce emissions; a small molten salt bath has been constructed for chemical kinetic studies.

BNL is responsible for the design and construction of the US Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) accumulator ring. Titanium Nitride (TiN) coating on the stainless steel vacuum chamber of the SNS accumulator ring is needed to reduce the secondary electron yield (SEY) and the undesirable resonant multiplication of electrons. The total SEY of TiN coated stainless steel material has been measured after coating samples were exposed to air and after electron and ion bombardment. We report here about TiN coating system setup at BNL and SEY measurements results at CERN, SLAC and KEK. We also present some simulation results of SNS accumulator ring electron-cloud effects using different SEY values.

The luminosity of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has improved significantly [1] over the first three physics runs. A number of special rf techniques have been developed to facilitate higher luminosity. The techniques described herein include: an ultra low-noise rf source for the 197 MHz storage rf system, a frequency shift switch-on technique for transferring bunches from the acceleration to the storage system, synchronizing the rings during the energy ramp (including crossing the transition energy) to avoid incidental collisions, installation of dedicated 200 MHZ cavities to provide longitudinal Landau damping on the ramp, and the development of a bunch merging scheme in the Booster to increase the available bunch intensity from the injectors.

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) requires a low noise rf source to ensure that beam lifetime during a store is not limited by the rf system. The beam is particularly sensitive to noise from power line harmonics. Additionally, the rf source must be flexible enough to handle the frequency jump required for rebucketing (transferring bunches from the acceleration to the storage rf systems). This paper will describe the design of a Direct Digital Synthesizer (DDS) based system that provides both the noise performance and the flexibility required.

Recent work in heavy-ion fusion accelerators and final focusing systems shows a trend towards less current per beam, and thus, a greater number of beams. Final focusing magnets are susceptible to nuclear heating, radiation damage, and neutron activation. The trend towards more beams, however, means that there can be less shielding for each magnet, Excessive levels of nuclear heating may lead to magnet quench or an intolerable recirculating power for magnet cooling. High levels of radiation damage may result in short magnet lifetimes and low reliability. Finally, neutron activation of the magnet components may lead to difficulties in maintenance, recycling, and waste disposal. The present work expands upon previous, three-dimensional magnet shielding calculations for a modified version of the HYLIFE-I1 IFE power plant design. We present key magnet results as a function of the number of beams.

A practical obstacle for stochastic cooling in high-energy colliders like RHIC is the large amount of power needed for the cooling system. Based on the coasting-beam Fokker-Planck (F-P) equation, we analytically derived the optimum cooling rate and cooling power for a beam of uniform distribution and a cooling system of linear gain function. The results indicate that the usual back-of-envelope formula over-estimated the cooling power by a factor of the mixing factor M. On the other hand, the scaling laws derived from the coasting-beam Fokker-Planck approach agree with those derived from the bunched-beam Fokker-Planck approach if the peak beam intensity is used as the effective coasting-beam intensity. A longitudinal stochastic cooling system of 4-8 GHz bandwidth in RHIC can effectively counteract intrabeam scattering, preventing the beam from escaping the RF bucket becoming debunched around the ring.

Acceleration of polarized protons in the energy range of 5 to 25 GeV is particularly difficult since depolarizing spin resonances are strong enough to cause significant depolarization but full Siberian snakes cause intolerably large orbit excursions. Using a 20-30% partial Siberian snake both imperfection and intrinsic resonances can be overcome. Such a strong partial Siberian snake was designed for the Brookhaven AGS using a dual pitch helical superconducting dipole. Multiple strong partial snakes are also discussed for spin matching at beam injection and extraction.

In this paper we discuss, and study the feasibility of a method that may be used to measure the focusing properties of a magnet. This method may prove valuable when applied to ''non-conventional'' magnets that deviate from the usual dipole magnets or other multipole magnets (quadrupoles/sextupoles etc.) which are commonly used in a synchrotron or a beam line. In this category of ''non-conventional'' magnets, fall special magnets, which come under the name ''Snakes'', which are being used in synchrotron accelerators to introduce artificial spin resonances to help overcome the intrinsic and/or imperfection spin resonances which appear during the acceleration of polarized beams. This method of measuring the focusing properties of a magnet requires the use of ''low energy'' and ''high rigidity'' heavy-ions which may be obtained from the BNL Tandem accelerator. In brief the method consists on, injecting ''narrow-beamlets'' of heavy ions into a magnet and measuring the coordinates, of these ''narrow-beamlets'', at the entrance and exit of the magnet. From the measurement of the coordinates of the ''narrow-beamlets'' we can deduce information on the R matrix (first order transfer matrix elements) and higher order matrix elements that define the focusing properties of the magnet.

The principal aim of the National Waste Terminal Storage (NWTS) program is to develop pilot plants and, ultimately, repositories in several different rock formations in various parts of the country. Rocks such as salt, shale, limestone, granite, schists, and serpentinite may all qualify as host media for the disposition of radioactive wastes in the proper environments. In general, the only requirement for any rock formation or storage site is that it contain any emplaced wastes for so long as it takes for the radioactive materials to decay to innocuous levels. This requirement, though, is a formidable one as some of the wastes will remain active for periods of hundreds of thousands of years and the physical and chemical properties of rocks that govern circulating groundwater and hence containment, are difficult to determine and define. Nevertheless, there are many rock types and a host of areas throughout the country where conditions are promising for the development of waste repositories. Some of these are discussed below.

The process of recovering the waste in storage tanks at the Savannah River Site (SRS) typically requires mixing the contents of the tank to ensure uniformity of the discharge stream. Mixing is accomplished with one to four slurry pumps located within the tank liquid. The slurry pump may be fixed in position or they may rotate depending on the specific mixing requirements. The high-level waste in Tank 48 contains insoluble solids in the form of potassium tetraphenyl borate compounds (KTPB), monosodium titanate (MST), and sludge. Tank 48 is equipped with 4 slurry pumps, which are intended to suspend the insoluble solids prior to transfer of the waste to the Fluidized Bed Steam Reformer (FBSR) process. The FBSR process is being designed for a normal feed of 3.05 wt% insoluble solids. A chemical characterization study has shown the insoluble solids concentration is approximately 3.05 wt% when well-mixed. The project is requesting a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) mixing study from SRNL to determine the solids behavior with 2, 3, and 4 slurry pumps in operation and an estimate of the insoluble solids concentration at the suction of the transfer pump to the FBSR process. The impact of cooling coils is not considered …

The ultra high luminosity B-factory (SuperB) project of INFN requires a high performance and reliable injection system, providing electrons at 4 GeV and positrons at 7 GeV, to fulfil the very tight requirements of the collider. Due to the short beam lifetime, continuous injection of electron and positron bunches in both LER and HER rings is necessary to maintain an high average luminosity. Polarized electrons are required for experiments and must be delivered by the injection system, due to the beam lifetime shorter than the ring polarization build-up: they will be produced by means of a SLAC-SLC polarized gun. The emittance and the energy spread of the e{sup -}/e{sup +} beams are reduced in a 1 GeV Damping Ring (DR) before injection in the main rings. Two schemes for positron production are under study, one with e{sup -}/e{sup +} conversion at low energy (< 1 Gev) and one with conversion at 6 GeV and a recirculation line to bring the positrons back to the DR. Acceleration through the Linac is provided by a 2856 MHz RF system made of travelling wave (TW), room temperature accelerating structures.

The vertical emittance of the low energy ring (LER) in the PEP-II B-Factory was reduced by using skew quadrupoles consisting of permanent magnet material. The advantages over electric quadrupoles or rotating existing normal quadrupoles are discussed. To assure a high field quality, a Biot-Savart calculation was used to cancel the natural 12-pole component by using different size poles over a few layers. A magnetic measurement confirmed the high quality of the magnets. After installation and adjusting the original electric 12 skew and 16 normal quadrupoles the emittance contribution from the region close to the interaction point, which was the biggest part in the original design, was considerably reduced. To strengthen the vertical behavior of the LER beam, a low emittance lattice was developed. It lowered the original vertical design emittance from 0.54 nm-rad to 0.034 nm-rad. In order to achieve this, additional skew quadrupoles were required to bring the coupling correction out of the arcs and closer to the detector solenoid in the straight (Fig. 1). It is important, together with low vertical dispersion, that the low vertical emittance is not coupled into the horizontal, which is what we get if the coupling correction continues into the arcs. Further details …

A CERN-SLAC-KEK collaboration on high gradient X-band accelerator structure development for CLIC has been ongoing for three years. The major outcome has been the demonstration of stable 100 MV/m gradient operation of a number of CLIC prototype structures. These structures were fabricated using the technology developed from 1994 to 2004 for the GLC/NLC linear collider initiative. One of the goals has been to refine the essential parameters and fabrication procedures needed to realize such a high gradient routinely. Another goal has been to develop structures with stronger dipole mode damping than those for GLC/NLC. The latter requires that the surface temperature rise during the pulse be higher, which may increase the breakdown rate. One structure with heavy damping has been RF processed and another is nearly finished. The breakdown rates of these structures were found to be higher by two orders of magnitude compared to those with equivalent acceleration mode parameters but without the damping features. This paper presents these results together with some of the earlier results from non-damped structures.

X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) at the cadmium L3 and oxygen K edges for CdO thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition method, is interpreted within the real-space multiple scattering formalism, FEFF code. The features in the experimental spectra are well reproduced by calculations for a cluster of about six and ten coordination shells around the absorber for L3 edge of Cd and K edge of O, respectively. The calculated projected electronic density of states is found to be in good agreement with unoccupied electronic states in experimental data and allows to conclude that the orbital character of the lowest energy of the conductive band is Cd-5s-O-2p. The charge transfer has been quantified and not purely ionic bonding has been found. Combined XANES and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering measurements allow us to determine the direct and indirect band gap of investigated CdO films to be {approx}2.4-eV and {approx}0.9-eV, respectively.

LLNL has built a small-scale (about 1 kg/hr throughput unit to test the destruction of energetic materials using the Molten Salt Destruction (MSD) process. We have modified the unit described in the earlier references to inject energetic waste material continuously into the unit. In addition to the HMX, other explosives we have destroyed include RDX, PETN, ammonium picrate, TNT, nitroguanadine, and TATB. We have also destroyed a liquid gun propellant comprising hydroxyl ammonium nitrate, triethanolammonium nitrate and water. In addition to these pure components, we have destroyed a number of commonly used formulations, such as LX-10 (HMX/Viton), LX-16 (PETN/FPC461, LX-17 (TATB/Kel F), and PBX-9404 (HMX)/CEF/Nitro cellulose). Our experiments have demonstrated that energetic materials can be safely and effectively treated by MSD.We have also investigated the issue of steam explosions in molten salt units, both experimentally and theoretically, and concluded that steam explosions can be avoided under proper design and operating conditions. We are currently building a larger unit (nominal capacity 5 kg/hr,) to investigate the relationship between residence time, temperature, feed concentration and throughputs, avoidance of back-burn, a;nd determination of the products of combustion under different operating conditions.