Building on recent work by N. Arkani-Hamed and the present authors, we construct realistic models that break supersymmetry dynamically and give rise to composite quarks and leptons, all in a single strongly-coupled sector. The most important improvement compared to earlier models is that the second-generation composite states correspond to dimension-2 ''meson'' operators in the ultraviolet. This leads to a higher scale for flavor physics, and gives a completely natural suppression of flavor-changing neutral currents. We also construct models in which the hierarchy of Yukawa couplings is explained by the dimensionality of composite states. These models provide an interesting and viable alternative to gravity- and gauge-mediated models. The generic signatures are unification of scalar masses with different quantum numbers at the compositeness scale, and lighter gaugino, Higgsino, and third-generation squark and slepton masses. We also analyze large classes of models that give rise to both compositeness and supersymmetry breaking, based on gauge theories with confining, fixed-point, or free-magnetic dynamics.

According to one of Maldacena's dualities, type IIB string theory on AdS{sub 3} x S{sup 3} x K3 is equivalent to a certain N = (4, 4) superconformal field theory. In this note we compute the elliptic genus of the boundary theory in the supergravity approximation. A finite quantity is obtained once we introduce a particular exclusion principle. In the regime where the supergravity approximation is reliable, we find exact agreement with the elliptic genus of a sigma model with target space K3{sup N}/S{sub N}.

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The IBM ASCI Blue-Pacific System is a scalable, distributed/shared memory architecture designed to reach multi-teraflop performance. The IBM SP pieces together a large number of nodes, each having a modest number of processors. The system is designed to accommodate a mixed programming model as well as a pure message-passing paradigm. We examine a number of applications on this architecture and evaluate their performance and scalability.

This paper reviews work on flashlamp-pumped solid state lasers and discusses diode-pumped solid state lasers, the Mercury laser in particular. It also discusses ICF lasers beyond Mercury.

A statistics-based model is being developed to predict the laser-damage-limited lifetime of UV optical components on the NIF laser. In order to provide data for the model, laser damage experiments were performed on the Beamlet laser system at LLNL (aperture: 34 cm x 34 cm). Three prototype NIF focus lenses were exposed to 351 nm pulses (1.5 ns or 3 ns) during four experimental campaigns, each consisting of 23 to 38 pulses at NIF relevant fluences. Each lens was sol-gel AR coated and all laser exposures were performed in a vacuum environment. Through inspections of the lens before, during and after the campaigns, pulse-to-pulse damage growth rates were measured for damage initiating both on the surfaces and at bulk inclusions. Radial growth rates measured for rear surface damage was typically 10x higher than that measured in the bulk or at the front surface. No significant correlation of growth rate to precursor type was indicated. For 5 J/cm², 3 ns pulses the typical radial growth rate was nominally 20 µm/pulse. Average growth rates measured on three lenses made by two manufacturers were in good agreement. While the growth rate clearly increased with fluence, the data obtained was insufficient to quantify the …

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In California, leaking underground fuel tank (LUFT) legislation was conceived because of concern that ''time bomb plumes'' would ultimately impact a significant portion of the state's ground and surface water resources. However, it has been found that fuel hydrocarbons (FHC) plumes are stable at relatively short distances from the source in areas of shallow groundwater. In urban areas, these shallow aquifers are not even recommended for use because they are subject to contamination from sewers, storm drains, septic fields and a variety of other sources. After the FHC source has been removed, risk to human health or the environment is insignificant in most cases. For this reason, cleanup to maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) will not significantly reduce the social damages associated with current or near-term human health or ecological risk. Based on these findings, California would be able to save significant resources that had been allocated for LUFT-site cleanup. Non-convexities in the rate of decay function and non-differentiability in the cleanup and social damage functions appear to limit the usefulness of models, such as Caputo and Wilen's (1995), that attempt to characterize the optimal cleanup path using marginal analyses. Furthermore, the effect of active remediation efforts on the natural rate …

The authors studied diets of nestling red-cockaded woodpeckers for two years on three sites in South Carolina and Georgia. Cameras recorded 33 different types of prey. Wood roaches were the most common, amounting to 50% of the prey. In addition, blueberries and saw fly larvae were collected by birds. Snail shells were also collected. Morista's index of diet overlap ranged from 0.94 to 0.99 for breeding males and females. We conclude that nestling diets are similar across the region.

The N* program at CEBAF is reviewed, and some preliminary experimental results are presented to illustrate the quality and capabilities of the CLAS detector.

The Laser Program at LLNL has developed automated facilities for damage testing optics up to 1 meter in diameter. The systems were developed to characterize the statistical distribution of localized damage performance across large-aperture National Ignition Facility optics. Full aperture testing is a key component of the quality assurance program for several of the optical components. The primary damage testing methods used are R:1 mapping and raster scanning. Automation of these test methods was required to meet the optics manufacturing schedule. The automated activities include control and diagnosis of the damage-test laser beam as well as detection and characterization of damage events.

A novel photothermal microscopy (PTM) is developed which uses only one laser beam, working as both the pump and the probe. The principle of this single-beam PTM is based on the detection of the second harmonic component of the laser modulated scattering (LMS) signal. This component has a linear dependence on the optical absorptance of the tested area and a quadratic dependence on the pump laser power. Using a pump laser at the wavelengths of 514.5- and 532-nm high-resolution photothermal scans are performed for polished fused silica surfaces and a HfO{sub 2}/SiO{sub 2} multilayer coatings. The results are compared with those from the traditional two-beam PTM mapping. It is demonstrated that the single-beam PTM is more user-friendly (i.e. no alignment is needed) than conventional two-beam PTM and, offers a higher spatial resolution for defect detection.

In models with dynamical supersymmetry breaking in the hidden sector, the gaugino masses in the observable sector have been believed to be extremely suppressed (below 1 keV), unless there is a gauge singlet in the hidden sector with specific couplings to the observable sector gauge multiplets. We point out that there is a pure supergravity contribution to gaugino masses at the quantum level arising from the superconformal anomaly. Our results are valid to all orders in perturbation theory and are related to the ''exact'' beta functions for soft terms. There is also an anomaly contribution to the A terms proportional to the beta function of the corresponding Yukawa coupling. The gaugino masses are proportional to the corresponding gauge beta functions, and so do not satisfy the usual GUT relations.

We present a nonsupersymmetric orbifold of type II string theory and show that it has vanishing cosmological constant at the one and two loop level. We argue heuristically that the cancellation may persist at higher loops.

Laser-induced damage of transparent fused silica optical components by 355 nm illumination occurs primarily at surface defects produced during the grinding and polishing processes. These defects can either be surface defects or sub-surface damage.Wet etch processing in a buffered hydrogen fluoride (HF) solution has been examined as a tool for characterizing such defects. A study was conducted to understand the effects of etch depth on the damage threshold of fused silica substrates. The study used a 355 nm, 7.5 ns, 10 Hz Nd:YAG laser to damage test fused silica optics through various wet etch processing steps. Inspection of the surface quality was performed with Nomarski microscopy and Total Internal Reflection Microscopy. The damage test data and inspection results were correlated with polishing process specifics. The results show that a wet etch exposes subsurface damage while maintaining or improving the laser damage performance. The benefits of a wet etch must be evaluated for each polishing process.

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The Shorebird Environmental Learning Center (SELC) is a new straw bale building that will showcase current and future technologies and techniques that will reduce the environmental impacts of building construction and operations. The building will also serve as a living laboratory to test systems and monitor their performance. The project will be the model for a building process that stops using our precious resources and reduces waste pollution. The rice straw that will be used for the bale construction is generally waste material that is typically burned--millions of tons of it a year--especially in California's San Joaquin Valley. Buildings have significant impacts on the overall environment. Building operations, including lighting, heating, and cooling, consume about 30% of the energy used in the United States. Building construction and the processes into making building materials consume an additional 8% of total energy. Construction also accounts for 39% of wood consumed in the U S, while 25% of solid waste volume is construction and demolition (C &D) debris. The SELC will incorporate a variety of materials and techniques that will address these and other issues, while providing a model of environmentally considered design for Bay Area residents and builders. Environmental considerations include energy …

In this paper, the authors describe their work on developing quantitatively accurate radiographic simulation and analysis tools for ASCI hydro codes. they have extended the ability of HADES, the code which simulates radiography through a mesh, to treat the complex meshes used in ASCI calculations. The ultimate goal is to allow direct comparison between experimental radiographs and full physics simulated radiographs of ASCI calculations. They describe the ray-tracing algorithm they have developed for fast, accurate simulation of dynamic radiographs with the meshes used in ALE3D, an LLNL ASCI code. Spectral effects and material compositions are included. In addition to the newness of the mesh types, the distributed nature of domain decomposed problems requires special treatment by the radiographic code. Because of the size of such problems, they have parallelized the radiographic simulation, in order to have quick turnaround time. presently, this is done using the domain decomposition from the hydro code. They demonstrate good parallel scaling as the size of the problem is increased. They show a comparison between an experimental radiograph of a high explosive detonation and a simulated radiograph of an ALE3D calculation. They conclude with a discussion of future work.

A graphical user interface (GUI) is under development for the MEEC family of SGEMP and SREMP simulation codes. These codes are workhorse legacy codes that have been in use for nearly two decades, with modifications and enhanced physics models added throughout the years. The MEEC codes are currently being evaluated for use by the DOE in the Dual Revalidation program and experiments at NIF. The new GUI makes the codes more accessible and less prone to input errors by automatically generating the parameters and grids that previously had to be designed by hand. physics-based algorithms define the simulation volume with expanding meshes. Users are able to specify objects, materials, and emission surfaces through dialogs and input boxes. 3D and orthographic views are available to view objects in the volume. Zone slice views are available for stepping through the overlay of objects on the mesh in planes aligned with the primary axes.

Microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) may decrease the functional lifetime of nuclear waste packaging materials in the potential geologic repository at Yucca Mountain (YM), Nevada. Biochemical contributions to corrosion of package materials are being determined in reactors containing crushed repository-site rock with the endogenous microbial community, and candidate waste package materials. These systems are being continually supplied with simulated ground water. Periodically, bulk chemistries are analyzed on the system outflow, and surfacial chemistries are assessed on withdrawn material coupons. Both Fe and Mn dissolved from C1020 coupons under conditions that included the presence of YM microorganisms. Insoluble corrosion products remained in a reduced state at the coupon surface, indicating at least a localized anoxic condition; soluble reduced Mn and Fe were also detected in solution, while precipitated and spalled products were oxidized. Alloy 22 surfaces showed a layer of chrome oxide, almost certainly in the Cr(III) oxidation state, on microcosm-exposed coupons, while no soluble chrome was detected in solution. The results of these studies will be compared to identical testing on systems containing sterilized rock to generate, and ultimately predict, microbial contributions to waste package corrosion chemistries.

Changes in mechanical and corrosion properties caused by the development of radiation-induced microstructure have relevance to the aging and lifetime extension of light water reactors (LWR's). However, much of the current data related to microstructural development in irradiated metals are generated from studies carried out at much higher dose-rates than encountered in LWR's. An opportunity exists to study the influence of low dose-rate irradiation on microstructural development for a variety of structural and surveillance materials extracted from the experimental breeder reactor EBR-II. In this study, irradiated 304 stainless steel hexagonal ''hex'' duct material is examined in order to compare microstructure in the dose-rate range of 10{sup {minus}7}-10{sup {minus}9} dpakec. The samples, taken from the reflector locations in EBR-II, experienced a total dose between 10 and 12 dpa at a temperature of {approximately}375 C. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results reveal that there is a moderate dose-rate effect on microstructural development for samples irradiated in the range of 2 x 10{sup {minus}8} to 4 x 10{sup {minus}8} dpa/sec, however a substantial dose rate-effect exists between dose-rates of 2 x 10{sup {minus}8} and 1 x 10{sup {minus}9} dpa/sec Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results will detail the development of the microstructure in terms of …

Superdeformation has been established for over a decade in the mass 150 region and nearly as long in the A=190 region. The first measurements directed at nuclei in these regions concentrated on mapping out the superdeformed (SD) islands by identifying SD rotational bands in {gamma}-ray coincidence data. These early studies provided new insights into the physics of superdeformation, but also raised unexpected issues. The new gamma-ray arrays (Gammasphere, Eurogam/Euroball and Gasp) have provided a wealth of new data on properties of SD states in these two mass regions. This paper highlights some of the more recent results from the large arrays which have addressed the outstanding issues in the field, namely, {Delta}I = 4 staggering, identical bands, SD vibrational bands, and questions about the feeding into and the decay out of the SD well.

The structure of a completely amorphous zircon was determined by time-of-flight neutron diffraction at Argonne's Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS). The sample of metamict zircon (ZrSiO{sub 4}),initially doped to 8.85 weight percent {sup 238}Pi, had been completely amorphized by alpha-recoil damage since its synthesis in 1981 at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The measured diffraction structure factor, S(Q), indicated a completely amorphous sample, with no signs of residual zircon microcrystallinity. The pair distribution function obtained indicated that the structure was that of an oxide glass, retaining the Si-0, Zr-0, and O-O bond lengths of crystalline zircon.