From page 2: "This article first describes the Bevatron [particle accelerator] and its operation, and then discusses a portion of the research program. The principles of the machine and its early history were given in "The Bevatron," by Lloyd Smith, Scientific American, February 1951."

The following report is a general monthly progress report for the University of California's radiation laboratory in Berkeley, covering the period of February 15 to March 15 of 1954.

Five isotopes of bismuth occur in nature. Using particle accelerators providing helium ions up to 40 Mev in energy and deuterons up to 20 Mev in energy, it was possible to produce and identify two artificial radioactive isotopes. With the advent of the 184-inch Berkeley syncho-cyclotron and its hundreds of Mev energies, it was possible to form highly neutron-deficient bismuth isotopes extending more than ten mass units below stable Bi(209).

Calculations presented were done to determine what maximum temperature gradients and stresses would be in typical designs of flat thorium plates, 100 mils thick and coolled on both sides by NaK.

A fraction of the energy released by the underground detonation of nuclear explosives is locally deposited as residual thermal energy. An accurate prediction of this usable fraction of the energy released is necessary to evaluate the feasibility of several of the proposed projects in the Plowshare Program. This paper will present a summary of the available data on residual thermal energy from nuclear detonations in three different geological media: tuff, halite, and granodiorite.

In a previous report the adaptation of Stix's ion-cyclotron-wave-heating scheme to the mirror geometry was suggested. An experiment along these lines has been conducted for the past year by E. Chambers, using a tubular P.I.G discharge to provide the basic plasma. The Chambers experiment has been eminently successful in demonstrating the transfer of rf power along the P.I.G. (as along a co-axial conductor), and the resultant acceleration of ions. The power transfer is evident from the predominantly resistive rf impedance of the P.I.G. (1 - 10 ohms), the production of intense luminosity outside the dc P.I.G channel when the rf is turned on, and by the observation large signals with magnetic pick-up loops. The ion heating is demonstrated by direct measurement of ion current on a probe some centimeters outside the P.I.G., and by the observation of energetic charge-exchange neutrals. At the same time, the characteristic features of heating by ion-cyclotron-waves, as described by Stix, are only partly in evidence. The visible broadening of the P.I.G. channel and such fast-ion phenomena as neutral emission do seem to be maximal near the expected cyclotron resonance point. However, the rf impedance is anomalous both in magnitude and parameter dependence, and there are …

The increasing exponential function e-at [a > 0] characterizes such natural events as gas discharges, neutron multiplication, and the transistor avalanche phenomenon. This report describes an instrument for measuring the rate of rise, a, of an increasing electrical exponential signal.