The absolute branching fractions for the decays D{sub s}{sup -} {yields} {ell}{sup -}{bar {nu}}{sub {ell}} ({ell} = e, {mu}, or {tau}) are measured using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 521 fb{sup -1} collected at center of mass energies near 10.58 GeV with the BABAR detector at the PEPII e{sup +}e{sup -} collider at SLAC. The number of D{sub s}{sup -} mesons is determined by reconstructing the recoiling system DKX{gamma} in events of the type e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} DKXD*{sub s}{sup -}, where D*{sub s}{sup -} {yields} D{sub s}{sup -} {gamma} and X represents additional pions from fragmentation. The D{sub s}{sup -} {yields} {ell}{sup -}{nu}{sub {ell}} events are detected by full or partial reconstruction of the recoiling system DKX{gamma}{ell}. The following results are obtained: {Beta}(D{sub s}{sup -} {yields} {mu}{sup -}{nu}) = (6.02 {+-} 0.38 {+-} 0.34) x 10{sup -3}, {Beta}(D{sub s}{sup -} {yields} {tau}{sup -}{nu}) = (5.00 {+-} 0.35 {+-} 0.49) x 10{sup -2}, and B(D{sub s}{sup -} {yields} e{sup -}{nu}) < 2.8 x 10{sup -4} at 90% C.L., where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The branching fraction measurements are combined to determine the D{sub s}{sup -} decay constant f{sub D{sub s}} …

High temperature alloys are essential to many industries that require a stable material to perform in harsh oxidative environments. Many of these alloys are suited for specific applications such as jet engine turbine blades where most other materials would either melt or oxidize and crumble (1). These alloys must have a high melting temperature, excellent oxidation resistance, good creep resistance, and decent fracture toughness to be successfully used in such environments. The discovery of Ni based superalloys in the 1940s revolutionized the high temperature alloy industry and there has been continued development of these alloys since their advent (2). These materials are capable of operating in oxidative environments in the presence of combustion gases, water vapor and at temperatures around 1050 C. Demands for increased f uel efficiency, however, has highlighted the need for materials that can be used under similar atmospheres and at temperatures in excess of 1200 C. The current Ni based superalloys are restricted to lower temperatures due to the presence of a number of low melting phases that result in softening of the alloys above 1000 C. Therefore, recent research has been aimed at exploring and developing newer alloy systems that can meet the escalating requirements. …

Surface sensitive synchrotron X-ray scattering studies were performed to obtain the distribution of monovalent ions next to a highly charged interface at room temperature. To control surface charge density, lipids, dihexadecyl hydrogen-phosphate (DHDP) and dimysteroyl phosphatidic acid (DMPA), were spread as monolayer materials at the air/water interface, containing CsI at various concentrations. Five decades in bulk concentrations (CsI) are investigated, demonstrating that the interfacial distribution is strongly dependent on bulk concentration. We show that this is due to the strong binding constant of hydronium H3O+ to the phosphate group, leading to proton-transfer back to the phosphate group and to a reduced surface charge. Using anomalous reflectivity off and at the L3 Cs+ resonance, we provide spatial counterion (Cs+) distributions next to the negatively charged interfaces. The experimental ion distributions are in excellent agreement with a renormalized surface charge Poisson-Boltzmann theory for monovalent ions without fitting parameters or additional assumptions. Energy Scans at four fixed momentum transfers under specular reflectivity conditions near the Cs+ L3 resonance were conducted on 10-3 M CsI with DHDP monolayer materials on the surface. The energy scans exhibit a periodic dependence on photon momentum transfer. The ion distributions obtained from the analysis are in excellent agreement …

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) will have many uses besides its primary mission in the US Department of Energy's Stockpile Stewardship Program. It will provide a broad array of applications to basic science, and will also play an important role in the development of commercial fusion energy.

The Stockpile Stewardship Program is an initiative to maintain the nuclear deterrent of the United States in the post-Cold War era. It is based on the maintenance of our stockpile through an ongoing process of surveillance, assessment, refurbishment, and recertification, without nuclear testing. At the heart of the SSP is an attempt to bring advanced experimental and computational tools to bear on the evaluation and certification of the stockpile itself; these advanced scientific capabilities are necessary because of the cessation of nuclear testing. This science-based approach requires new tools: advanced computers for more detailed 3-D simulations, multi-axis hydrodynamic facilities and plutonium research facilities for physics measurements of primaries, and the National Ignition Facility for fusion burn and high-energy-density science. The science basis requires summing up the pieces we can measure and simulate, which cannot be done without a complete set of tools. Refurbishing weapons with confidence, without testing, is a difficult challenge. Only with high-quality scientists and a complete set of tools, can the US accomplish this program. NIF is a unique element of the Stockpile Stewardship Program because it is the only facility that will allow the experimental study of thermonuclear burn and important regimes of high-energy-density science. Understanding …

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Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization(MALDI) mass spectrometry(MS) has been widely used for analysis of biological molecules, especially macromolecules such as proteins. However, MALDI MS has a problem in small molecule (less than 1 kDa) analysis because of the signal saturation by organic matrixes in the low mass region. In imaging MS (IMS), inhomogeneous surface formation due to the co-crystallization process by organic MALDI matrixes limits the spatial resolution of the mass spectral image. Therefore, to make laser desorption/ionization (LDI) MS more suitable for mass spectral profiling and imaging of small molecules directly from raw biological tissues, LDI MS protocols with various alternative assisting materials were developed and applied to many biological systems of interest. Colloidal graphite was used as a matrix for IMS of small molecules for the first time and methodologies for analyses of small metabolites in rat brain tissues, fruits, and plant tissues were developed. With rat brain tissues, the signal enhancement for cerebroside species by colloidal graphite was observed and images of cerebrosides were successfully generated by IMS. In addition, separation of isobaric lipid ions was performed by imaging tandem MS. Directly from Arabidopsis flowers, flavonoids were successfully profiled and heterogeneous distribution of flavonoids in petals was observed for …

The work in this dissertation presents the synthesis of two mixed metal oxides for biofuel applications and NMR characterization of silica materials. In the chapter 2, high catalytic efficiency of calcium silicate is synthesized for transesterfication of soybean oil to biodisels. Chapter 3 describes the synthesis of a new Rh based catalyst on mesoporous manganese oxides. The new catalyst is found to have higher activity and selectivity towards ethanol. Chapter 4 demonstrates the applications of solid-state Si NMR in the silica materials.

The WARP code is a robust electrostatic particle-in-cell simulation package used to model charged particle beams with strong space-charge forces. A fundamental operation associated with seeding detailed simulations of a beam transport channel is to generate initial conditions where the beam distribution is matched to the structure of a periodic focusing lattice. This is done by solving for periodic, matched solutions to a coupled set of ODEs called the Kapchinskij-Vladimirskij (KV) envelope equations, which describe the evolution of low-order beam moments subject to applied lattice focusing, space-charge defocusing, and thermal defocusing forces. Recently, an iterative numerical method was developed (Lund, Chilton, and Lee, Efficient computation of matched solutions to the KV envelope equations for periodic focusing lattices, Physical Review Special Topics-Accelerators and Beams 9, 064201 2006) to generate matching conditions in a highly flexible, convergent, and fail-safe manner. This method is extended and implemented in the WARP code as a Python package to vastly ease the setup of detailed simulations. In particular, the Python package accommodates any linear applied lattice focusing functions without skew coupling, and a more general set of beam parameter specifications than its predecessor. Lattice strength iteration tools were added to facilitate the implementation of problems with …

The research program reported here is focused on critical issues that represent conspicuous gaps in current understanding of rapid solidification, limiting our ability to predict and control microstructural evolution (i.e. morphological dynamics and microsegregation) at high undercooling, where conditions depart significantly from local equilibrium. More specifically, through careful application of phase-field modeling, using appropriate thin-interface and anti-trapping corrections and addressing important details such as transient effects and a velocity-dependent (i.e. adaptive) numerics, the current analysis provides a reasonable simulation-based picture of non-equilibrium solute partitioning and the corresponding oscillatory dynamics associated with single-phase rapid solidification and show that this method is a suitable means for a self-consistent simulation of transient behavior and operating point selection under rapid growth conditions. Moving beyond the limitations of conventional theoretical/analytical treatments of non-equilibrium solute partitioning, these results serve to substantiate recent experimental findings and analytical treatments for single-phase rapid solidification. The departure from the equilibrium solid concentration at the solid-liquid interface was often observed during rapid solidification, and the energetic associated non-equilibrium solute partitioning has been treated in detail, providing possible ranges of interface concentrations for a given growth condition. Use of these treatments for analytical description of specific single-phase dendritic and cellular operating point …

The Standard Model predicts that the lifetime of the top quark is shorter than the typical time scale at which hadronization process occurs, and the spin information at its production is preserved. Spin correlation of the t{anti t} system from p{anti p} collisions at the Tevatron is analyzed using 6 events in the dilepton channels collected using the D0 detector. Spin correlation factor of {kappa} > {minus} 0.25 at 68% CL is obtained from the data.

Model heterogeneous catalysts have been synthesized and studied to better understand how the surface structure of noble metal nanoparticles affects catalytic performance. In this project, monodisperse rhodium and platinum nanoparticles of controlled size and shape have been synthesized by solution phase polyol reduction, stabilized by polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). Model catalysts have been developed using these nanoparticles by two methods: synthesis of mesoporous silica (SBA-15) in the presence of nanoparticles (nanoparticle encapsulation, NE) to form a composite of metal nanoparticles supported on SBA-15 and by deposition of the particles onto a silicon wafer using Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) monolayer deposition. The particle shapes were analyzed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution TEM (HRTEM) and the sizes were determined by TEM, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and in the case of NE samples, room temperature H2 and CO adsorption isotherms. Catalytic studies were carried out in homebuilt gas-phase reactors. For the nanoparticles supported on SBA-15, the catalysts are in powder form and were studied using the homebuilt systems as plug-flow reactors. In the case of nanoparticles deposited on silicon wafers, the same systems were operated as batch reactors. This dissertation has focused on the synthesis, characterization, and reaction studies of model noble metal heterogeneous catalysts. …

The nonlinear coupling of intense, monochromatic, electromagnetic radiation with plasma is considered in a number of special cases. The first part of the thesis serves as an introduction to three-wave interactions. A general formulation of the stimulated scattering of transverse waves by longitudinal modes in a warm, unmagnetized, uniform plasma is constructed. A general dispersion relation is derived that describes Raman and Brillouin scattering, modulational instability, and induced Thomson scattering. Raman scattering (the scattering of a photon into another photon and an electron plasma wave) is investigated as a possible plasma heating scheme. Analytic theory complemented by computer simulation is presented describing the nonlinear mode coupling of laser light with small and large amplitude, resonantly excited electron plasma waves. The simulated scattering of a coherent electromagnetic wave by low frequency density perturbations in homogeneous plasma is discussed. A composite picture of the linear dispersion relations for filamentation and Brillouin scattering is constructed. The absolute instability of Brillouin weak and strong coupling by analytic and numerical means is described. (auth)

The antiproton--proton interaction was studied at three energies, 2.0, 1.25, and 0.98 Bev. Antiprotons produced internally in the Revatron and channeled externally by a system of bending magnets and quadrupoles were selected from background particles by using a gas Cherenkov counter and scintillation counters. At the two lower energies, an electrostatic-magnetic velocity spectrometer was used to reject background particles. A liquidhydrogen target was completely surrounded by scintillation counters so that all charged secondaries from the antiproton--proion interactions could be detected. With the information obtained from these counters, the --p-bar--p total, elastic, inelastic, and charge-exchange cross sections and the angular distribution of the elastic scatterings were obtained at each energy. The total cross section was found to be 80, 89, and 100 mb at 2.0 1.25. and 0.98 Bev. respeclively. The inelastic cross section was about twothirds of ihe total cross section at each energy. It was found that each of the partial cross sections was dropping off slowly with energy. The results were fitted by an optic al-model c alculation. (auth)

This thesis describes the design, selection and scale model test results of a contour design for a convectively-cooled, ground test nozzle extension which originates at an area ratio of 5:1 (termination point of main nozzle).

Laser vibrometry is a technique used to detect vibrations on objects using the interference of coherent light with itself. Most vibrometry systems process only one target location at a time, but processing multiple locations simultaneously provides improved detection capabilities. Traditional laser vibrometry systems employ oversampling to sample the incoming modulated-light signal, however as the number of channels increases in these systems, certain issues arise such a higher computational cost, excessive heat, increased power requirements, and increased component cost. This thesis describes a novel approach to laser vibrometry that utilizes undersampling to control the undesirable issues associated with over-sampled systems. Undersampling allows for significantly less samples to represent the modulated-light signals, which offers several advantages in the overall system design. These advantages include an improvement in thermal efficiency, lower processing requirements, and a higher immunity to the relative intensity noise inherent in laser vibrometry applications. A unique feature of this implementation is the use of a parallel architecture to increase the overall system throughput. This parallelism is realized using a hierarchical multi-channel architecture based on off-the-shelf programmable logic devices (PLDs).

Mortandad Canyon is a discharge site for treated industrial effluents containing radionuclides and other chemicals at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico. This study was conducted to develop an understanding of the unsaturated hydrologic behavior below the canyon floor. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the hypothetical performance of the vadose zone above the water table. Numerical simulations of unsaturated groundwater flow at the site were conducted using the Finite Element Heat and Mass Transfer (FEHM) code. A two-dimensional cross-section along the canyon's axis was used to model flow between an alluvial groundwater system and the regional aquifer approximately 300 m below. Using recharge estimated from a water budget developed in 1967, the simulations showed waters from the perched water table reaching the regional aquifer in 13.8 years, much faster than previously thought. Additionally, simulations indicate that saturation is occurring in the Guaje pumice bed an d that the Tshirege Unit 1B is near saturation. Lithologic boundaries between the eight materials play an important role in flow and solute transport within the system. Horizontal flow is shown to occur in three thin zones above capillary barriers; however, vertical flow dominates the system. Other simulations were conducted to …

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The Department of Energy`s program for disposing of nuclear High-Level Waste (HLW) and transuranic (TRU) waste has been impeded by overwhelming political opposition fueled by public perceptions of actual risk. Analysis of these perceptions shows them to be deeply rooted in images of fear and dread that have been present since the discovery of radioactivity. The development and use of nuclear weapons linked these images to reality and the mishandling of radioactive waste from the nations military weapons facilities has contributed toward creating a state of distrust that cannot be erased quickly or easily. In addition, the analysis indicates that even the highly educated technical community is not well informed on the latest technology involved with nuclear HLW and TRU waste disposal. It is not surprising then, that the general public feels uncomfortable with DOE`s management plans for with nuclear HLW and TRU waste disposal. Postponing the permanent geologic repository and use of Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) would provide the time necessary for difficult social and political issues to be resolved. It would also allow time for the public to become better educated if DOE chooses to become proactive.

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Determination of application times-to-solution for large-scale clustered computers continues to be a difficult problem in high-end computing, which will only become more challenging as multi-core consumer machines become more prevalent in the market. Both researchers and consumers of these multi-core systems desire reasonable estimates of how long their programs will take to run (time-to-solution, or TTS), and how many resources will be consumed in the execution. Currently there are few methods of determining these values, and those that do exist are either overly simplistic in their assumptions or require great amounts of effort to parameterize and understand. One previously untried method is queuing network modeling (QNM), which is easy to parameterize and solve, and produces results that typically fall within 10 to 30% of the actual TTS for our test cases. Using characteristics of the computer network (bandwidth, latency) and communication patterns (number of messages, message length, time spent in communication), the QNM model of the NAS-PB CG application was applied to MCR and ALC, supercomputers at LLNL, and the Keck Cluster at USF, with average errors of 2.41%, 3.61%, and -10.73%, respectively, compared to the actual TTS observed. While additional work is necessary to improve the predictive capabilities of …

The field of metamaterials is driven by fascinating and far-reaching theoretical visions, such as perfect lenses, invisibility cloaking, and enhanced optical nonlinearities. However, losses have become the major obstacle towards real world applications in the optical regime. Reducing the losses of optical metamaterials becomes necessary and extremely important. In this thesis, two approaches are taken to reduce the losses. One is to construct an indefinite medium. Indefinite media are materials where not all the principal components of the permittivity and permeability tensors have the same sign. They do not need the resonances to achieve negative permittivity, {var_epsilon}. So, the losses can be comparatively small. To obtain indefinite media, three-dimensional (3D) optical metallic nanowire media with different structures are designed. They are numerically demonstrated that they are homogeneous effective indefinite anisotropic media by showing that their dispersion relations are hyperbolic. Negative group refraction and pseudo focusing are observed. Another approach is to incorporate gain into metamaterial nanostructures. The nonlinearity of gain is included by a generic four-level atomic model. A computational scheme is presented, which allows for a self-consistent treatment of a dispersive metallic photonic metamaterial coupled to a gain material incorporated into the nanostructure using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. …

The ammonia synthesis reaction has been studied using single crystal model catalysis combined with sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy. The adsorption of gases N{sub 2}, H{sub 2}, O{sub 2} and NH{sub 3} that play a role in ammonia synthesis have been studied on the Fe(111) crystal surface by sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy using an integrated Ultra-High Vacuum (UHV)/high-pressure system. SFG spectra are presented for the dissociation intermediates, NH{sub 2} ({approx}3325 cm{sup -1}) and NH ({approx}3235 cm{sup -1}) under high pressure of ammonia or equilibrium concentrations of reactants and products on Fe(111) surfaces. Special attention was paid to understand how potassium promotion of the iron catalyst affects the intermediates of ammonia synthesis. An Fe(111) surface promoted with 0.2 monolayers of potassium red shifts the vibrational frequencies of the reactive surface intermediates, NH and NH{sub 2}, providing evidence for weakened the nitrogen-hydrogen bonds relative to clean Fe(111). Spectral features of these surface intermediates persisted to higher temperatures for promoted iron surfaces than for clean Fe(111) surfaces implying that nitrogen-iron bonds are stronger for the promoted surface. The ratio of the NH to NH{sub 2} signal changed for promoted surfaces in the presence of equilibrium concentrations of reactants and products. The …

We have studied the dissociation of CO catalyzed by platinum single crystals. At 40 torr of CO, the Pt(111) crystal dissociates CO at 673 K. Under the same conditions, Pt(100) dissociates CO at 500 K, and Pt(557) dissociates CO at 548 K. Hence, the CO dissociation reaction is a structure sensitive reaction. SFG was used to monitor the CO top site resonance as the platinum crystals were heated to the dissociation temperature when exposed to 40 torr of CO. In all three systems, the CO resonance shifts to lower frequency as the platinum crystal is heated. However, the frequency of the CO resonance at the dissociation frequency is lower on the (100) and (111) crystal faces than on the Pt(557) crystal. We believe that the (111) and (100) crystal faces must undergo roughening to expose step or kink sites in order to facilitate the dissociation reaction. This is supported by UHV studies of CO dissociation catalyzed by platinum crystals. These studies observe dissociation only when step or kink sites are present. Since the Pt(111) surface is very stable, it needs to be heated to 673 K to produce the low coordination number sites needed for CO dissociation. Since the Pt(100) …