We present an overview of results from the most recent phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). This phase of CMIP has archived output from both unforced (''control run'') and perturbed (1% per year increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide) simulations by 15 modern coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation models. The models are about equally divided between those employing and those not employing ad hoc flux corrections at the ocean-atmosphere interface. The new generation of non-flux-connected control runs are nearly as stable and agree with observations nearly as well as the flux-corrected models. This development represents significant progress in the state of the art of climate modeling since the Second (1995) Scientific Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; see Gates et al. 1996). From the increasing-CO{sub 2} runs, we find that differences between different models, while substantial, are not as great as would be expected from earlier assessments that relied on equilibrium climate sensitivity.

The goal of this joint LLNL-CalEnergy project is to develop a method for precipitating marketable silica from spent Salton Sea Geothermal Field (SSGF) brines. Many markets for silica exist. We have initially targeted production of silica as a rubber additive. Silica reinforced rubber gives tires less rolling resistance, greater tear strength, and better adhesion to steel belts. Previous silica precipitates produced by CalEnergy from Salton Sea brines were not suitable as rubber additives. They did not to disperse well in the rubber precursors and produced inferior rubber. CalEnergy currently minimizes silica scaling in some of their production facilities by acidifying the brine pH. The rate of silica precipitation slows down as the pH is lowered, so that energy extraction and brine reinfection are possible without unacceptable amounts of scaling even with more than 700 ppm SiO{sub 2} in solution. We are adding a step in which a small amount of base is added to the acidified brine to precipitate silica before reinfection. By carefully controlling the type, rate, and amount of base addition, we can optimize the properties of the precipitate to approach those of an ideal rubber additive.

We conducted a six-month investigation of the design, analysis, and software implementation of a class of singularity-insensitive, scalable, parallel nonlinear iterative methods for the numerical solution of nonlinear partial differential equations. The solutions of nonlinear PDEs are often nonsmooth and have local singularities, such as sharp fronts. Traditional nonlinear iterative methods, such as Newton-like methods, are capable of reducing the global smooth nonlinearities at a nearly quadratic convergence rate but may become very slow once the local singularities appear somewhere in the computational domain. Even with global strategies such as line search or trust region the methods often stagnate at local minima of {parallel}F{parallel}, especially for problems with unbalanced nonlinearities, because the methods do not have built-in machinery to deal with the unbalanced nonlinearities. To find the same solution u* of F(u) = 0, we solve, instead, an equivalent nonlinearly preconditioned system G(F(u*)) = 0 whose nonlinearities are more balanced. In this project, we proposed and studied a nonlinear additive Schwarz based parallel nonlinear preconditioner and showed numerically that the new method converges well even for some difficult problems, such as high Reynolds number flows, when a traditional inexact Newton method fails.

A passive soil gas study was conducted in the Building 419/511 (B419/511) area to screen for volatile organic compound (VOC) source locations in June 2000. Results of this study are presented with the most recent ground water contaminant plume maps, as well as the historic surface vapor analysis and soil contamination maps. Limited analytical data exists for the area directly north and west of B419. Because of extensive VOCs in ground water directly under the north end of B419, it is important to determine if the contaminant plume migrated to that location or if it originated from activities at B419. The results of this and previous investigations will aid in defining (1) the source(s) of contamination, (2) the placement and management of future remediation wells, and (3) remediation strategies. A brief description of the building's function and contamination summary is presented in Section 1.1. Section 1.2 presents the methodology used for the passive soil gas study. Section 1.3 is a discussion of the passive soil gas study and the hydrogeologic analysis. Concluding remarks and recommendations for future source investigations and remediation designs are found in Section 1.4.

Despite the enormous wealth of gamma-ray burst (GRB) data collected over the past several years the physical mechanism which causes these extremely powerful phenomena is still unknown. Simultaneous and early time optical observations of GRBs will likely make an great contribution t o our understanding. LOTIS is a robotic wide field-of-view telescope dedicated to the search for prompt and early-time optical afterglows from gamma-ray bursts. LOTIS began routine operations in October 1996 and since that time has responded to over 145 gamma-ray burst triggers. Although LOTIS has not yet detected prompt optical emission from a GRB its upper limits have provided constraints on the theoretical emission mechanisms. Super-LOTIS, also a robotic wide field-of-view telescope, can detect emission 100 times fainter than LOTIS is capable of detecting. Routine observations from Steward Observatory's Kitt Peak Station will begin in the immediate future. During engineering test runs under bright skies from the grounds of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Super-LOTIS provided its first upper limits on the early-time optical afterglow of GRBs. This dissertation provides a summary of the results from LOTIS and Super-LOTIS through the time of writing. Plans for future studies with both systems are also presented.

This work studies multiscale phenomena in silicon micro-resonators which comprise the mechanical components of next-generation Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). Unlike their larger relatives, the behavior of these sub-micron MEMS is not described well by conventional continuum models and finite elements, but it is determined appreciably by the interplay between physics at the Angstrom, nanometer and micron scales. As device sizes are reduced below the micron scale, atomistic processes cause systematic deviations from the behavior predicted by conventional continuum elastic theory. [1] These processes cause anomalous surface effects in the resonator frequency and quality factor-even for single crystal devices with clean surfaces due to thermal fluctuations. The simulation of these atomistic effects is a challenging problem due to the large number of atoms involved and due to the fact that they are finite temperature phenomena. Our simulations include up to two million atoms in the device itself, and hundreds of millions more are in the proximal regions of the substrate. A direct, atomistic simulation of the motion of this many atoms is prohibitive, and it would be inefficient. The micron-scale processes in the substrate are well described by finite elements, and an atomistic simulation is not required. On the other hand, atomistic …

By producing compact representations of hyperspectral image cubes (hypercubes), image storage requirements and the amount of time it takes to extract essential elements of information can both be dramatically reduced. However, these compact representations must preserve the important spectral features within hypercube pixels and the spatial structure associated with background and objects or phenomena of interest. This paper describes a novel approach for automatically and efficiently generating a particular type of compact hypercube representation, referred to as a supercube. The hypercube is segmented into regions that contain pixels with similar spectral shapes that are spatially connected, and the pixel connectivity constraint can be relaxed. Thresholds of similarity in spectral shape between pairs of pixels are derived directly from the hypercube data. One superpixel is generated for each region as some linear combination of pixels belonging to that region. The superpixels are optimal in the sense that the linear combination coefficients are computed so as to minimize the level of noise. Each hypercube pixel is represented in the supercube by applying a gain and bias to the superpixel assigned to the region containing that pixel. Examples are provided.

We review the status of two ongoing large-scale searches for axions which may constitute the dark matter of our Milky Way halo. The experiments are based on the microwave cavity technique proposed by Sikivie, and marks a ''second-generation'' to the original experiments performed by the Rochester-Brookhaven-Fermilab collaboration, and the University of Florida group.

General physical relations connect the expected size and depth of laser damage induced craters to absorbed laser energy and to the strength of the material. In general, for small absorbers and ''instantaneous'' energy release, one expects three regions of interest. First is an inner region in which material is subjected to high pressure and temperature, pulverized and ejected. The resultant crater morphology will appear melted. A second region, outside the first, exhibits material removal due to spallation, which occurs when a shock wave is reflected at the free surface. The crater surface in this region will appear fractured. Finally, there is an outermost region where stresses are strong enough to crack material, but not to eject it. These regions are described theoretically and compared to representative observed craters in fused silica.

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Battelle received five samples from Hanford waste tank 241-AP-101, taken at five different depths within the tank. No visible solids or organic layer were observed in the individual samples. Individual sample densities were measured, then the five samples were mixed together to provide a single composite. The composite was homogenized and representative sub-samples taken for inorganic, radioisotopic, and organic analysis. All analyses were performed on triplicate sub-samples of the composite material. The sample composite did not contain visible solids or an organic layer. A subsample held at 10?C for seven days formed no visible solids.

As a result of nuclear weapons testing and accidents, plutonium has been distributed into the environment. The areas close to the sites of these tests and accidental dispersions contain plutonium deposition of such a magnitude that health authorities and responsible officials have mandated that the contaminated areas be protected, generally through isolation or removal of the contaminated areas. In recent years remedial actions have taken place at all these sites. For reasons not entirely clear, the public perceives radiation exposure risk to be much greater than the evidence would suggest [1]. This perception seems to be particularly true for plutonium, which has often been ''demonized'' in various publications as the ''most hazardous substance known to man'' [2]. As the position statement adapted by the Health Physics Society explains, ''Plutonium's demonization is an example of how the public has been misled about radiation's environmental and health threats generally, and in cases like plutonium, how it has developed a warped ''risk perception'' that does not reflect reality'' [3]. As a result of this risk perception and ongoing debate surrounding environmental plutonium contamination, remedial action criteria are difficult to establish. By examining the data available before and after remedial actions taken at the …

The United States Government currently has an abundance of depleted uranium (DU). This surplus of about 1 billion pounds is the result of an enrichment process using gaseous diffusion to produce enriched and depleted uranium. The enriched uranium has been used primarily for either nuclear weapons for the military or nuclear fuel for the commercial power industry. Most of the depleted uranium remains at the enrichment process plants in the form of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF{sub 6}). The Department of Energy (DOE) recently began a study to identify possible commercial applications for the surplus material. One of these potential applications is to use the DU in high-density strikers/hammers in pneumatically driven tools, such as jack hammers and piledrivers to improve their impulse performance. The use of DU could potentially increase tunneling velocity and excavation into target materials with improved efficiency. This report describes the efforts undertaken to analyze the particulars of using DU in two specific striking applications: the jackhammer and chipper tool.

High-energy cascades have been simulated in gold using molecular dynamics with a modified embedded atom method potential. The results show that both vacancy and interstitial clusters form with high probability as a result of intracascade processes. The formation of clusters has been interpreted in terms of the high pressures generated in the core of the cascade during the early stages. We provide evidence that correlation between interstitial and vacancy clustering exists.

The Project provides for the design, procurement, construction, assembly, installation, and acceptance testing of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), an experimental inertial confinement fusion facility intended to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion in the laboratory by imploding a small capsule containing a mixture of the hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium. The NIF will be constructed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, California as determined by the Record of Decision made on December 19, 1996, as a part of the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (SSM PEIS). Safety: On Saturday April 29, 2000, while preparing the Ringer crane for operation at the NIF site, a mechanical malfunction was observed by the operator. He stopped work and consulted with line management. They agreed with the operator's assessment, and with the Livermore Emergency Duty Officer, implemented a precautionary evacuation of the area around the crane. DOE was notified of the situation. The crane was then placed in a safe condition. A crane maintenance vendor is inspecting the crane and a management team headed by the Beampath Infrastructure System Associate Project Manager is reviewing the documentation, crane history, and repairs to ensure that the crane is fully safe before reuse. …

An international round robin study was conducted on the absorption measurement of laser-quality coatings. Sets of optically coated samples were made by a ''reactive DC magnetron'' sputtering and an ion beam sputtering deposition process. The sample set included a high reflector at 514 nm and a high reflector for the near infrared (1030 to 1318 nm), single layers of silicon dioxide, tantalum pentoxide, and hafnium dioxide. For calibration purposes, a sample metalized with hafnium and an uncoated, superpolished fused silica substrate were also included. The set was sent to laboratory groups for absorptance measurement of these coatings. Whenever possible, each group was to measure a common, central area and another area specifically assigned to the respective group. Specific test protocols were also suggested in regards to the laser exposure time, power density, and surface preparation.

Recent LLNL experiments reported elsewhere at this conference explored the pulselength dependence of 351 nm bulk damage incidence in DKDP. The results found are consistent, in part, with a model in which a distribution of small bulk initiators is assumed to exist in the crystal and the damage threshold is determined by reaching a critical temperature. The observed pulse length dependence can be explained as being set by the most probable defect capable of causing damage at a given pulselength. Analysis of obscuration in side illuminated images of the damaged region yields estimates of the damage site distributions that are in reasonable agreement with the distributions experimentally directly estimated.

In this project we studied several fundamental issues arising in the parallel adaptive solution of linear and nonlinear elliptic and parabolic PDEs using multilevel algorithms. We focused our attention on a new approach described in the paper ''A New Paradigm for Parallel Adaptive Mesh Refinement'' by Bank and Hoist. The new approach requires almost no communication to solve an elliptic equation in parallel, and therefore has the potential to scale much more efficiently on massively parallel computers than do more traditional algorithms. The algorithm described in the Bank and Hoist paper has an inherently multilevel structure, in that a sequence of problems on a refinement hierarchy of meshes is solved during the course of the calculation. In particular, the algorithm has three main components: (1) We solve a small problem on a coarse mesh, and use a posteriori error estimates to partition the mesh. (2) Each processor is provided the complete coarse mesh and instructed to solve the entire problem, but with its adaptive refinement largely limited to its own assigned mesh partition. (3) A final mesh is computed using the union of the refined partitions provided by each processor. The mesh is regularized into a global conformal mesh, and …

In the transient diffraction NLYF proposal we set forward a program of work to investigate the response of crystals to shock compression in regions of strain rates previously unexplored, in a coordinated experimental, computational, and analytical program. Time resolved x-ray diffraction was used to directly determine the lattice parameters of crystals during shock loading previously on the Nova and Trident laser facilities. Under this proposal we extended this work to exploit the multi-beam direct drive capability of the Omega laser facility to allow more extensive diagnostic access for measuring the lattice parameters both parallel and perpendicular to the shock front. Under the NLUF Program in FY 99, we transitioned the dynamic diffraction experiments to the OMEGA facility. We developed a direct drive target configuration that uses a single beam to direct irradiate the surface of a thin crystal and 4 beams to irradiate a separate metal backlighter foil. Experiments were done with single crystal Si to demonstrate that the target design worked and that simultaneous measurements of compression both parallel and perpendicular to the shock propagation direction could be performed. We obtained simultaneous measurements of the (400) and (040) lattice planes during the period when a shock traveled through the …

Astrophysics has traditionally been pursued at astronomical observatories and on theorists' computers. Observations record images from space, and theoretical models are developed to explain the observations. A component often missing has been the ability to test theories and models in an experimental setting where the initial and final states are well characterized. Intense lasers are now being used to recreate aspects of astrophysical phenomena in the laboratory, allowing the creation of experimental testbeds where theory and modeling can be quantitatively tested against data. We describe here several areas of astrophysics--supernovae, supernova remnants, gamma-ray bursts, and giant planets--where laser experiments are under development to test our understanding of these phenomena.

X-ray backlighting is a powerful tool for diagnosing a large variety of high-energy-density phenomena. Traditional area backlighting techniques used at Nova and Omega cannot be extended efficiently to NIF-scale. New, more efficient backlighting sources and techniques are required and have begun to show promising results. These include a backlit-pinhole point projection technique, pinhole and slit arrays, distributed polychromatic sources, and picket fence backlighters. In parallel, there have been developments in improving the data SNR and hence quality by switching from film to CCD-based recording media and by removing the fixed-pattern noise of MCP-based cameras.

The development of a set of stable implosions using indirectly driven plastic microspheres with argon (0.1 atm) doped deuterium (50 atm) has provided a unique source for testing the plasma spectroscopy of the high energy density imploded core. The core reaches electron densities of > 10{sup 24} cm{sup -3} with temperatures of {approx} 1 keV and has been shown to be reproducible on a shot to shot basis. Moreover, it has been shown that not only the peak temperature and density are consistent, but that the temporal evolution of the mean temperature and density of the final phase of the implosion is also reproducible. These imploding cores provide a unique opportunity to test aspects of plasma spectroscopy that are difficult to study in other plasmas and to develop methods to test stable hydrodynamics. We present experimental results and discuss spectroscopic analysis algorithms to determine consistent temperature and density fits to determine gradients in the plasma.

This project developed techniques for measuring globally distributed radionuclides that occur today in extremely low abundances (''fallout'' from the era of atmospheric nuclear testing), and then applied these techniques to better understand the mechanisms by which radionuclides migrate. The techniques employ accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), a relatively new analytical tool that permits this work to be conducted for the first time. The goal in this project was to develop AMS analytical techniques for {sup 129}I (fallout concentration: {approx} 10{sup 6} atoms/g) {sup 99}Tc ({approx} 10{sup 9} atoms/g), {sup 90}Sr ({approx}10{sup 7} atoms/gram soil), and {sup 93}Zr ({approx} 10{sup 9} atoms/g), and improved methods for {sup 36}Cl ({approx} 10{sup 9} atoms/g). As a demonstration of the analytical techniques, and as an investigation of identified problems associated with characterizing moisture and radionuclide movement in unsaturated desert soils, we developed a vadose zone research site at the Nevada Test Site. Our findings can be summarized as follows: (1) The distribution of chloride and {sup 36}Cl at the research site indicates that the widely-used ''chloride accumulation'' method for estimating moisture flux is erroneous; some mechanism for attenuation of chloride exists, violating an assumption of the accumulation method; (2) {sup 129}I is fractionated into several …

The construction of a short pulse tunable x-ray laser source will be a watershed for plasma-based and warm dense matter research. The areas we will discuss below can be separated broadly into warn dense matter (WDM) research, laser probing of near solid density plasmas, and laser-plasma spectroscopy of ions in plasmas. The area of WDM refers to that part of the density-temperature phase space where the standard theories of condensed matter physics and/or plasma statistical physics are invalid. Warm dense matter, therefore, defines a region between solids and plasmas, a regime that is found in planetary interiors, cool dense stars, and in every plasma device where one starts from a solid, e.g., laser-solid matter produced plasma as well as all inertial fusion schemes. The study of dense plasmas has been severely hampered by the fact that laser-based methods have been unavailable. The single most useful diagnostic of local plasma conditions, e.g., the temperature (T{sub e}), the density (n{sub e}), and the ionization (Z), has been Thomson scattering. However, due to the fact that visible light will not propagate at electron densities, n{sub e}, {ge} 10{sup 22} cm{sup -3} implies dense plasmas can not be probed. The 4th generation sources, LCLS …