Nanometer sized diamond has been found in meteorites, proto-planetary nebulae and interstellar dusts, as well as in residues of detonation and in diamond films. Remarkably, the size distribution of diamond nanoparticles appears to be peaked around 2-5 nm, and to be largely independent of preparation conditions. Using ab-initio calculations, we have shown that in this size range nanodiamond has a fullerene-like surface and, unlike silicon and germanium, exhibit very weak quantum confinement effects. We called these carbon nanoparticles bucky-diamonds: their atomic structure, predicted by simulations, is consistent with many experimental findings. In addition, we carried out calculations of the stability of nanodiamond which provided a unifying explanation of its size distribution in extra-terrestrial samples, and in ultra-crystalline diamond films. Here we present a summary of our theoretical results and we briefly outline work in progress on doping of nanodiamond with nitrogen.

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Under the sponsorship of the U.S. DOE and DHS, we have developed a CFD model for simulating flow and dispersion of chemical and biological agents released in the urban environment. Our model, FEM3MP (Chan and Stevens, 2000), is based on solving the three-dimensional, time-dependent, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on massively parallel computer platforms. The model uses the finite element method for accurate representation of complex building shapes and variable terrain, together with a semi-implicit projection method and modern iterative solvers for efficient time integration (Gresho and Chan, 1998). Physical processes treated include turbulence modeling via the RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) and LES (Large Eddy Simulation) approaches, atmospheric stability, aerosols, UV radiation decay, surface energy budget, and vegetative canopies, etc. Predictions from our model are continuously being verified and validated against data from wind tunnel (Chan and Stevens, 2000; Chan, et al., 2001) and field experiments (Chan, et al., 2002, 2003; Lee, et al., 2002; Humphreys, et al., 2003; and Calhoun, et al., 2004). Discussed below are several examples to illustrate the use of FEM3MP in simulating flow and dispersion in urban areas and forest canopies, with model results compared against available field measurements.

Isopiestic vapor-pressure measurements were made at 298.15 K for aqueous NaCl + SrCl{sub 2} solutions, using NaCl(aq) as the reference standard. The measurements for these ternary solutions were made at NaCl ionic strength fractions of y{sub 1} = 0.17066, 0.47366, and 0.82682 for the water activity range 0.9835 {ge} a{sub w} {ge} 0.8710. Our results, and those from two previous isopiestic studies, were combined and used with previously determined parameters for NaCl(aq) and those for SrCl{sub 2}(aq) determined here to evaluate the mixing parameters{sup S}{Theta}{sub Na,Sr} = (0.0562 {+-} 0.0007) kg {center_dot} mol{sup -1} and {Psi}{sub Na,Sr,Cl} = -(0.00705 {+-} 0.00017) kg{sup 2} {center_dot} mol{sup -2} for an extended form of Pitzer's ion-interaction model. These model parameters are valid for ionic strengths of I {le} 7.0 mol {center_dot} kg{sup -1}, where higher-order electrostatic effects have been included in the mixture model. If the fitting range is extended to the saturated solution molalities, then {sup S}{Theta}{sub Na,Sr} = (0.07885 {+-} 0.00195) kg {center_dot} mol{sup -1} and {Psi}{sub Na,Sr,Cl} = -(0.01230 {+-} 0.00033) kg{sup 2} {center_dot} mol{sup -2}. The extended ion-interaction model parameters obtained from available isopiestic data for SrCl{sub 2}(aq) at 298.15 K yield recommended values of the water activities and …

Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine environmental variables that affect the affinities and persistence of the nerve agent O-ethyl S-(2-diisopropylaminoethyl) methylphosphonothiolate (VX) at dilute concentrations in environmental matrices. Quantitative analyses of VX and its degradation products were performed using LC-MS. Batch hydrolysis experiments demonstrated an increasing hydrolysis rate as pH increased, as shown in previous studies, but also indicated that dissolved aqueous constituents can cause significant differences in the absolute hydrolysis rate. Adsorption isotherms from batch aqueous experiments revealed that VX has a high affinity for hydrophobic organics, a moderate affinity for montmorillonite clay, and a very low affinity for an iron-oxyhydroxide soil mineral, goethite. The adsorption on goethite was increased with the presence of dissolved organic matter in solution. VX degraded rapidly when dried onto goethite, when an inner-sphere complex was forced. No enhanced degradation occurred with goethite in small amounts water. These results suggest that aqueous conditions have important controls on VX adsorption and degradation in the environment and a more mechanistic understanding of these controls is needed in order to enable accurate predictions of its long-term fate and persistence.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a stadium-sized facility containing a 192-beam, 1.8-Megajoule, 500-Terawatt, ultraviolet laser system together with a 10-meter diameter target chamber with room for nearly 100 experimental diagnostics. NIF will be the world's largest and most energetic laser experimental system, providing a scientific center to study inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and matter at extreme energy densities and pressures. NIF's energetic laser beams will compress fusion targets to conditions required for thermonuclear burn, liberating more energy than required to initiate the fusion reactions. Other NIF experiments will study physical processes at temperatures approaching 108 K and 1011 bar, conditions that exist naturally only in the interior of stars, planets and in nuclear weapons. NIF has successfully activated, commissioned, and utilized the first four beams of the laser system to conduct over 300 shots between November 2002 and August 2004. NIF laser scientists have established that the laser meets nearly all performance requirements on a per beam basis for energy, uniformity, timing, and pulse shape. Using these four beams, ICF and high-energy-density physics researchers have conducted a number of experimental campaigns resulting in high quality data that could not be reached on any …

We show that a simple plane wave analysis can be used even under tight focusing conditions to predict the dependence of third-harmonic generation on the polarization state of the incident beam. Exploiting this fact, we then show that circularly polarized beams may be used to spatially characterize the beam focus and temporally characterize ultrashort pulses in high numerical aperture systems by experimentally demonstrating, for the first time, novel collinear, background-free, third-harmonic intensity autocorrelations in time and space in a high numerical aperture microscope. We also discuss the possibility of using third harmonic generation with circularly polarized beams for background-free collinear frequency resolved optical gating.

A fundamental challenge in applying texture features to statistical object modeling is recognizing differently oriented spatial patterns. Rows of moored boats in remote sensed images of harbors should be consistently labeled regardless of the orientation of the harbors, or of the boats within the harbors. This is not straightforward to do, however, when using anisotropic texture features to characterize the spatial patterns. We here propose an elegant solution, termed normalized texture motifs, that uses a parametric statistical model to characterize the patterns regardless of their orientation. The models are learned in an unsupervised fashion from arbitrarily orientated training samples. The proposed approach is general enough to be used with a large category of orientation-selective texture features.

The Warp code, developed for heavy-ion driven inertial fusion energy studies, is used to model high intensity ion (and electron) beams. Significant capability has been incorporated in Warp, allowing nearly all sections of an accelerator to be modeled, beginning with the source. Warp has as its core an explicit, three-dimensional, particle-in-cell model. Alongside this is a rich set of tools for describing the applied fields of the accelerator lattice, and embedded conducting surfaces (which are captured at sub-grid resolution). Also incorporated are models with reduced dimensionality: an axisymmetric model and a transverse ''slice'' model. The code takes advantage of modern programming techniques, including object orientation, parallelism, and scripting (via Python). It is at the forefront in the use of the computational technique of adaptive mesh refinement, which has been particularly successful in the area of diode and injector modeling, both steady-state and time-dependent. In the presentation, some of the major aspects of Warp will be overviewed, especially those that could be useful in modeling ECR sources. Warp has been benchmarked against both theory and experiment. Recent results will be presented showing good agreement of Warp with experimental results from the STS500 injector test stand. Additional information can be found on …

The line ratios of the 2p-3d transitions in the B-like spectra Ar XIV and Fe XXII have been measured using the electron beam ion traps at Livermore. Radiative-collisional model calculations show these line ratios to be sensitive to the electron density in the ranges ne = 10{sup 10} to 10{sup 12} cm{sup -3} and ne = 10{sup 13} to 10{sup 15} cm{sup -3}, respectively. In our experiment, the electron beam density of about 10{sup 11} cm{sup -3} was varied by about a factor of 5. Our data show a density effect for the line doublet in Ar XIV, and good agreement with theory is found. The relative intensity of the Fe XXII doublet shows good agreement with our predicted low density limit. The N VI K-shell spectrum was used to infer the actual electron density in the overlap region of ion cloud and electron beam, and systematic measurements and calculations of this spectrum are presented as well. The Ar XIV and Fe XXII spectra promise to be reliable density diagnostics for stellar coronae, complementing the K-shell diagnostics of helium-like ions.

We have observed that the residual vectors at the end of each restart cycle of restarted GMRES often alternate direction in a cyclic fashion, thereby slowing convergence. We present a new technique for accelerating the convergence of restarted GMRES by disrupting this alternating pattern. The new algorithm resembles a full conjugate gradient method with polynomial preconditioning, and its implementation requires minimal changes to the standard restarted GMRES algorithm.

We analyze results of 15 global climate simulations contributed to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). Focusing on the western U.S., we consider both present climate simulations and predicted responses to increasing atmospheric CO{sub 2}. The models vary in their ability to predict the present climate. Over the western U.S., a few models produce a seasonal cycle for spatially-averaged temperature and/or precipitation in good agreement with observational data. Other models tend to overpredict precipitation in the winter or exaggerate the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of temperature. The models also differ in their ability to reproduce the spatial patterns of temperature and precipitation in the U.S. Considering the monthly mean precipitation responses to doubled atmospheric CO{sub 2}, averaged over the western U.S., we find some models predict increases while others predict decreases. The predicted temperature response, on the other hand, is invariably positive over this region; however, for each month, the range of values given by the different models is large compared to the mean model response. We look for possible relationships between the models' temperature and precipitation responses to doubled CO{sub 2} concentration and their ability to simulate some aspects of the present climate. We find that these relationships …

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We have measured the production of hv {approx} 4.7 keV x-rays from low-density Ti-doped aerogel ({rho} {approx} 3 mg/cc) targets at the OMEGA laser facility (University of Rochester), with the goal of maximizing x-ray output. Forty OMEGA beams ({lambda}{sub L} = 0.351 {micro}m) illuminated the two cylindrical faces of the target with a total power that ranged from 7 to 14 TW. The laser fully ionizes the target (n{sub e}/n{sub crit} {le} 0.1), and a laser-bleaching wave excites, supersonically, the high-Z emitter ions in the sample. Heating in the target was imaged with gated x-ray framing cameras and an x-ray streak camera. Ti K-shell x-ray emission was spectrally resolved with a two-channel crystal spectrometer and also with a set of filtered aluminum x-ray diodes, both instruments provide absolute measurement of the multi-keV x-ray emission. We find between 40 - 260 J of output with 4.67 {le} hv {le} 5.0 keV. Radiation-hydrodynamic calculations predict late time enhancement of the x-ray power due first to axial stagnation of the heating waves, then, ablatively-driven radial compression from the target walls.

We examine various options for calibration of NIF neutron detectors in the energy region E<14 MeV. These options include: downscatter of D-T fusion neutrons using plastic targets; nuclear reactions at a Tandem Van de Graaf accelerator; and ''white'' neutrons from a pulsed spallation source. As an example of the spallation option, we present some calibration data that was recently obtained with a single crystal CVD diamond detector at the Weapons Neutron Research facility (WNR) at LANL.

The purpose of this study was to estimate the intrinsic physics limitations on the angular and energy resolution of electron-tracking type gamma-ray detectors. In a Compton interaction, one can completely determine the direction and energy of the incoming gamma ray, without measuring the scattered photon's energy, if one can measure the direction and energy of the scattered electron, and the direction of the scattered photon. Multiple scattering of the Compton electron will quickly destroy the information of the electron's initial direction, so practical devices must be able to resolve the original electron direction, i.e., have tracking resolution mucic h smaller than the typical radiation length in the material.

We have studied how often incoming photons interact via a Compton interaction and/or a photoelectric interaction as a function of energy and detector material Results are using a 1m{sup 3} detector, and discrete energy photons from 0.1 MeV up to 10 MeV. Essentially all of the lower energy photons interact at least once in a detector of this size. This is not the case at higher energies. Each detector, photon energy combination was simulated with 2000 photons.

Experimental studies of capillary-dominated displacements in variable-aperture fractures have demonstrated the occurrence of a satiated state at the end of invasion, where significant entrapment of the displaced phase occurs. The structure of this entrapped phase controls the behavior of flow and transport processes in the flowing phase. Recent studies have shown that the areal saturation of the flowing phase at satiation (S{sub f}) is largely controlled by a single parameter C/{delta}, where C, the Curvature number, weighs the mean in-plane interfacial curvature relative to the mean out-of-plane interfacial curvature, and {delta}, the coefficient of variation of the aperture field, represents the strength of interface roughening induced by aperture variations. Here we consider the satiated relative permeability (k{sub rs}) to the flowing phase, which is defined as the relative permeability at satiation, when the defending phase is fully entrapped. The satiated relative permeability is shown to be a well-defined function of S{sub f} over a wide range of C/{delta}, ranging from capillary fingering with significant entrapment (C/{delta} {yields} 0) to smooth invasion with very little entrapment (C/{delta} > 1). We propose a relationship, based on effective medium theory, for the satiated relative permeability as a function of S{sub f}. The predicted …

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The onset of plastic deformation during nanoindentation is studied, focusing upon the effects of temperature variation. By performing indentations on pure (100)-oriented platinum at room temperature, 100 and 200 C, we demonstrate that higher temperatures promote the discretization of plasticity into sharp bursts of activity. Additionally, the transition from elastic to plastic deformation occurs at progressively lower stress levels as temperature is increased. These results are in line with expectations for stress-biased, thermally-activated deformation processes such as the nucleation of dislocations or the abrupt release of dislocation entanglements.

Nickel-Chromium-Molybdenum alloys (Ni-Cr-Mo) are highly resistant to general corrosion, localized corrosion and environmentally assisted cracking (EAC). Cr acts as a beneficial element under oxidizing acidic conditions and Mo under reducing conditions. All three elements (Ni, Cr and Mo) act synergistically to provide resistance to EAC in environments such as hot concentrated chloride solutions. Ni-Cr-Mo alloys may suffer EAC in environments such as hot caustic solutions, hot wet hydrofluoric acid (HF) solutions and in super critical water oxidation (SCWO) applications. Not all the Ni-Cr-Mo alloys have the same susceptibility to cracking in the mentioned environments. Most of the available data regarding EAC is for the oldest Ni-Cr-Mo alloys such as N10276 and N06625.

This report describes the earthquakes that occurred in the Hanford seismic monitoring network during the first and second quarters of Fiscal Year 2005

The ENDF/B data library has recently been updated and is now freely available through the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC), Brookhaven National Laboratory. This most recent library is identified as ENDF/B-VI, Release 8. Release 8 completely supersedes all preceding releases. Release 8 will be the last release of ENDF/B-VI; the next release of ENDF/B data will be for the new ENDF/B-VII library. As distributed the ENDF/B-VI, Release 8 data includes cross sections represented in the form of a combination of resonance parameters and/or tabulated energy dependent cross sections, nominally at 0 Kelvin temperature. For use in applications this library has been processed into the form of temperature dependent cross sections at eight neutron reactor like temperatures, between 0 and 2100 Kelvin, in steps of 300 Kelvin. It has also been processed to five astrophysics like temperatures, 1, 10, 100 eV, 1 and 10 keV. For reference purposes, 300 Kelvin is approximately 1/40 eV, so that 1 eV is approximately 12,000 Kelvin. At each temperature the cross sections are tabulated and linearly interpolable in energy. All results are in the computer independent ENDF/B-VI character format [1], which allows the data to be easily transported between computers. In its processed form this …

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