Our previous atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies successfully visualized native Bacillus atrophaeus spore coat ultrastructure and surface morphology. We have shown that the outer spore coat surface is formed by a crystalline array of {approx}11 nm thick rodlets, having a periodicity of {approx}8 nm. We present here further AFM ultrastructural investigations of air-dried and fully hydrated spore surface architecture. In the rodlet layer, planar and point defects, as well as domain boundaries, similar to those described for inorganic and macromolecular crystals, were identified. For several Bacillus species, rodlet structure assembly and architectural variation appear to be a consequence of species-specific nucleation and crystallization mechanisms that regulate the formation of the outer spore coat. We propose a unifying mechanism for nucleation and self-assembly of this crystalline layer on the outer spore coat surface.

The relationship between pullback velocity and impact velocity is studied for different microstructures in Cu. A size distribution of potential nucleation sites is derived under the conditions of an applied stochastic stress field. The size distribution depends on flow stress leading to a connection between the plastic flow appropriate to a given microstructure and nucleation rate. The pullback velocity in turn depends on the nucleation rate resulting in a prediction for the relationship between pullback velocity and flow stress. The theory is compared to observations of Cu on Cu gas-gun experiments (10-50 GPa) for a diverse set of microstructures. The scaling law is incorporated into a 1D finite difference code and is shown to reproduce the experimental data with one adjustable parameter that depends only on a nucleation exponent, {Lambda}.

The self-assembly of tetradecylamine (C14) and of mixtures of tetradecyl and octadecylamine (C18) molecules from chloroform solutions on mica has been studied using atomic force microscopy(AFM). For pure components self-assembly proceeds more slowly for C14 than for C18. In both cases after equilibrium is reached islands of tilted molecules cover a similar fraction of the surface. Images of films formed by mixtures of molecules acquired before equilibrium is reached (short ripening time at room temperature) show only islands with the height corresponding to C18 with many pores. After a long ripening time, when equilibrium is reached, islands of segregated pure components are formed.

A new facility for high-pressure diffraction and spectroscopy using diamond anvil high-pressure cells has been built at the Advanced Light Source on Beamline 12.2.2. This beamline benefits from the hard X-radiation generated by a 6 Tesla superconducting bending magnet (superbend). Useful x-ray flux is available between 5 keV and 35 keV. The radiation is transferred from the superbend to the experimental enclosure by the brightness preserving optics of the beamline. These optics are comprised of: a plane parabola collimating mirror (M1), followed by a Kohzu monochromator vessel with a Si(111) crystals (E/{Delta}E {approx} 7000) and a W/B{sub 4}C multilayer (E/{Delta}E {approx} 100), and then a toroidal focusing mirror (M2) with variable focusing distance. The experimental enclosure contains an automated beam positioning system, a set of slits, ion chambers, the sample positioning goniometry and area detectors (CCD or image-plate detector). Future developments aim at the installation of a second end station dedicated for in situ laser-heating on one hand and a dedicated high-pressure single-crystal station, applying both monochromatic as well as polychromatic techniques.

We show that the solid lower bound of about 10{sup -44} cm{sup 2} is obtained for the cross section between the supersymmetric dark matter and nucleon in a theory in which the supersymmetric fine-tuning problem is solved without extending the Higgs sector at the weak scale. This bound arises because of relatively small superparticle masses and a fortunate correlation that the two dominant diagrams for the dark matter detection always interfere constructively if the constraint from the b {yields} s{gamma} measurements is obeyed. It is, therefore, quite promising in the present scenario that the supersymmetric dark matter is discovered before the LHC, assuming that the dark matter is the lightest supersymmetric particle.

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The {alpha} to {beta} transition in pure Ti occurs mainly by a 'martensitic type' phase transformation. In such transformations, growth rates and interface velocities tend to be very large, on the order of 10{sup 3} m/s, making it difficult to observe the transformation experimentally. With thin films, it becomes even more difficult to observe, since the large surface augments the nucleation and transformation rates to levels that require nanosecond temporal resolution for experimental observations. The elucidation of the transformational mechanisms in these materials yearns for an apparatus that has both high spatial and temporal resolution. We have constructed such an instrument at LLNL (the dynamical transmission electron microscope or DTEM) that combines pulsed lasers systems and optical pump-probe techniques with a conventional TEM. We have used the DTEM to observe the transient events of the {alpha}-{beta} transformation in nanocrystalline Ti films via single shot diffraction patterns with 1.5 ns resolution. With pulsed, nanosecond laser irradiation (pump laser), the films were heated at an extreme rate of 10{sup 10} K/s. was observed At 500 ns after the initial pump laser hit, the HCP, alpha phase was almost completely transformed to the BCC, beta phase. Post-mortem investigations of the laser treated films …

A shot automation framework has been developed and deployed during the past year to automate shots performed on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) using the Integrated Computer Control System This framework automates a 4-8 hour shot sequence, that includes inputting shot goals from a physics model, set up of the laser and diagnostics, automatic alignment of laser beams and verification of status. This sequence consists of set of preparatory verification shots, leading to amplified system shots using a 4-minute countdown, triggering during the last 2 seconds using a high-precision timing system, followed by post-shot analysis and archiving. The framework provides for a flexible, model-based execution driven of scriptable automation called macro steps. The framework is driven by high-level shot director software that provides a restricted set of shot life cycle state transitions to 25 collaboration supervisors that automate 8-laser beams (bundles) and a common set of shared resources. Each collaboration supervisor commands approximately 10 subsystem shot supervisors that perform automated control and status verification. Collaboration supervisors translate shot life cycle state commands from the shot director into sequences of ''macro steps'' to be distributed to each of its shot supervisors. Each Shot supervisor maintains order of macro steps for each …

Characterizing percolation patterns in unsaturated zones hasposed a greater challenge to numerical modeling investigations thancomparable saturated zone studies, because of the heterogeneous nature ofunsaturated media as well as the great number of variables impactingunsaturated zone flow. This paper presents an integrated modelingmethodology for quantitatively characterizing percolation patterns in theunsaturated zone of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, a proposed undergroundrepository site for storing high-level radioactive waste. It takes intoaccount the multiple coupled processes of air, water, heat flow andchemical isotopic transport in Yucca Mountain s highly heterogeneous,unsaturated fractured tuffs. The modeling approach integrates a widevariety of moisture, pneumatic, thermal, and isotopic geochemical fielddata into a comprehensive three-dimensional numerical model for modelinganalyses. Modeling results are examined against different types offield-measured data and then used to evaluate different hydrogeologicalconceptual models and their results of flow patterns in the unsaturatedzone. In particular, this integration model provides a much clearerunderstanding of percolation patterns and flow behavior through theunsaturated zone, both crucial issues in assessing repositoryperformance. The integrated approach for quantifying Yucca Mountain sflow system is also demonstrated to provide a comprehensive modeling toolfor characterizing flow and transport processes in complex subsurfacesystems.

The trajectory of thermodynamic states passed through by the nitrogen Hugoniot starting from the liquid and up to 10{sup 6} GPa has been studied. An earlier report of cooling in the doubly shocked liquid, near 50 to 100 GPa and 7500 K, is revisited in light of the recent discovery of solid polymeric nitrogen. It is found that cooling occurs when the doubly shocked liquid is driven into a volume near the molecular to polymer transition and raising the possibility of a liquid-liquid phase transition (LLPT). By increasing the shock pressure and temperature by an order of magnitude, theoretical calculations predict thermal ionization of the L shell drives the compression maxima to 5-6 fold compression at 10 Mbar (T {approx} 3.5 10{sup 5} K) and at 400 Mbar (T {approx} 2.3 10{sup 6} K) from K shell ionization. Near a pressure of 10{sup 6} GPa the K shell ionizes completely and the Hugoniot approaches the classical ideal gas compression fourfold limit.

The simplest extension of the supersymmetric standard model--the addition of one singlet superfield--can have a profound impact on the Higgs and its decays. We perform a general operator analysis of this scenario, focusing on the phenomenologically distinct scenarios that can arise, and not restricting the scope to the narrow framework of the NMSSM. We reexamine decays to four b quarks and four {tau}'s, finding that they are still generally viable, but at the edge of LEP limits. We find a broad set of Higgs decay modes, some new, including those with four gluon final states, as well as more general six and eight parton final states. We find the phenomenology of these scenarios is dramatically impacted by operators typically ignored, specifically those arising from D-terms in the hidden sector, and those arising from weak-scale colored fields. In addition to sensitivity of m{sub z}, there are potential tunings of other aspects of the spectrum. In spite of this, these models can be very natural, with light stops and a Higgs as light as 82 GeV. These scenarios motivate further analyses of LEP data as well as studies of the detection capabilities of future colliders to the new decay channels presented.

The PLEIADES (Picosecond Laser-Electron Interaction for the Dynamic Evaluation of Structures) facility provides tunable short x-ray pulses with energies of 30-140 keV and pulse durations of 0.3-5 ps by scattering an intense, ultrashort laser pulse off a 35-75 MeV electron beam. Synchronization of the laser and electron beam is obtained by using a photoinjector gun, and using the same laser system to generate the electrons and the scattering laser. The Ti Ti:Sapphire, chirped pulse amplification based 500 mJ, 50 fs, 810 nm scattering laser and the similar 300 {micro}J, 5 ps, 266 nm photoinjector laser systems are detailed. Additionally, an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system is studied as a replacement for part of the scattering laser front end. Such a change would significantly simplify the set-up the laser system by removing the need for active switching optics, as well as increase the pre-pulse contrast ratio which will be important when part of the scattering laser is used as a pump beam in pump-probe diffraction experiments using the ultrashort tunable x-rays generated as the probe.

Neutron-induced reaction cross-sections on unstable nuclei are inherently difficult to measure due to target activity and the low intensity of neutron beams. In an alternative approach, named the 'surrogate' technique, one measures the decay probability of the same compound nucleus produced using a stable beam on a stable target to estimate the neutron-induced reaction cross-section. As an extension of the surrogate method, in this paper they introduce a new technique of measuring the fission probabilities of two different compound nuclei as a ratio, which has the advantage of removing most of the systematic uncertainties. This method was benchmarked in this report by measuring the probability of deuteron-induced fission events in coincidence with protons, and forming the ratio P({sup 236}U(d,pf))/P({sup 238}U(d,pf)), which serves as a surrogate for the known cross-section ratio of {sup 236}U(n,f)/{sup 238}U(n,f). IN addition, the P({sup 238}U(d,d{prime}f))/P({sup 236}U(d,d{prime}f)) ratio as a surrogate for the {sup 237}U(n,f)/{sup 235}U(n,f) cross-section ratio was measured for the first time in an unprecedented range of excitation energies.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory routinely manufactures planar laser targets that consist of stacked and bonded foils for physics experiments on high-energy lasers. One recent planar laser target, the Equation of State target, had extremely tight specifications. The target required four bonded layers with thickness uniformities of several hundred nm, and the adhesive bonds between the layers could not exceed a few {micro}m. This paper describes the manufacturing process that was developed to meet these specifications.

Managing subsurface damage during the shaping process and removing subsurface damage during the polishing process is essential in the production of low damage density optical components, such as those required for use on high peak power lasers. Removal of subsurface damage, during the polishing process, requires polishing to a depth which is greater than the depth of the residual cracks present following the shaping process. To successfully manage, and ultimately remove subsurface damage, understanding the distribution and character of fractures in the subsurface region introduced during fabrication process is important. We have characterized the depth and morphology of subsurface fractures present following fixed abrasive and loose abrasive grinding processes. At shallow depths lateral cracks and an overlapping series of trailing indentation fractures were found to be present. At greater depths, subsurface damage consists of a series of trailing indentation fractures. The area density of trailing fractures changes as a function of depth, however the length and shape of individual cracks remain nearly constant for a given grinding process. We have developed and applied a model to interpret the depth and crack length distributions of subsurface surface damage in terms of key variables including abrasive size and load.

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The Savannah River National Laboratory's (SRNL) Weather INformation and Display (WIND) System was used to provide meteorological and atmospheric modeling/consequence assessment support to state and local agencies following the collision of two Norfolk Southern freight trains on the morning of January 6, 2005. This collision resulted in the release of several toxic chemicals to the environment, including chlorine. The dense and highly toxic cloud of chlorine gas that formed in the vicinity of the accident was responsible for nine fatalities and injuries to more than five hundred others. Transport model results depicting the forecast path of the ongoing release were made available to emergency managers in the county's Unified Command Center shortly after SRNL received a request for assistance. Support continued over the ensuing two days of the active response. The SRNL also provided weather briefings and transport/consequence assessment model results to responders from South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental control (SCDHEC), the Savannah River Site's (SRS) Emergency Operations Center (EOC), DOE Headquarters, and hazmat teams dispatched from the SRS.

We present systematic k{sub {parallel}}-dependent measurements of the Fermi surface and underlying band structure of quantum well states in Cu/Co/Cu(001). Compared to bands from normal emission, we find a complicated evolution of ''split'' QW states as a function of the thicknesses of both the copper overlayer and the cobalt barrier layer. Self-consistent calculations show that the penetration of the quantum well states into the cobalt barrier layer is significant and leads to the observed very non-free-electron behavior of these states.

The dilute GaN{sub x}As{sub 1-x} alloys (with x up to 0.05) have exhibited many unusual properties as compared to the conventional binary and ternary semiconductor alloys. We report on a new effect in the GaN{sub x}As{sub 1-x} alloy system in which electrically active substitutional group IV donors and isoelectronic N atoms passivate each other's activity. This mutual passivation occurs in dilute GaN{sub x}As{sub 1-x} doped with group IV donors through the formation of nearest neighbor IV{sub Ga-}N{sub As} pairs when the samples are annealed under conditions such that the diffusion length of the donors is greater than or equal to the average distance between donor and N atoms. The passivation of the shallow donors and the N{sub As} atoms is manifested in a drastic reduction in the free electron concentration and, simultaneously, an increase in the fundamental band gap. This mutual passivation effect is demonstrated in both Si and Ge doped GaN{sub x}As{sub 1-x} alloys. Analytical calculations of the passivation process based on Ga vacancies mediated diffusion show good agreement with the experimental results.

In this paper, we prove that the numerical solution of the mono-directional neutron transport equation by the Petrov-Galerkin method converges to the true solution in the L{sup 2} norm at the rate of h{sup 2}. Since consistency has been shown elsewhere, the focus here is on stability. We prove that the system of Petrov-Galerkin equations is stable by showing that the 2-norm of the inverse of the matrix for the system of equations is bounded by a number that is independent of the order of the matrix. This bound is equal to the length of the longest path that it takes a neutron to cross the domain in a straight line. A consequence of this bound is that the global error of the Petrov-Galerkin approximation is of the same order of h as the local truncation error. We use this result to explain the widely held observation that the solution of the Petrov-Galerkin method is second accurate for one class of problems, but is only first order accurate for another class of problems.

Geometry processing algorithms have traditionally assumed that the input data is entirely in main memory and available for random access. This assumption does not scale to large data sets, as exhausting the physical memory typically leads to IO-inefficient thrashing. Recent works advocate processing geometry in a 'streaming' manner, where computation and output begin as soon as possible. Streaming is suitable for tasks that require only local neighbor information and batch process an entire data set. We describe a streaming compression scheme for tetrahedral volume meshes that encodes vertices and tetrahedra in the order they are written. To keep the memory footprint low, the compressor is informed when vertices are referenced for the last time (i.e. are finalized). The compression achieved depends on how coherent the input order is and how many tetrahedra are buffered for local reordering. For reasonably coherent orderings and a buffer of 10,000 tetrahedra, we achieve compression rates that are only 25 to 40 percent above the state-of-the-art, while requiring drastically less memory resources and less than half the processing time.

B-meson decays involving b {yields} u transitions are sensitive to the Unitarity Triangle angle {alpha} (or {phi}{sub 2}). The B-factories at SLAC and KEK have made significant progress toward the measurement of {alpha} in recent years. This paper summarizes the results of the B-factories' constraints on {alpha}.

Fabrication of compositionally graded structures for use as light-gas gun impactors has been demonstrated using a tape casting technique. Mixtures of metal powders in the Mg-Cu system were cast into a series of tapes with uniform compositions ranging from 100% Mg to 100% Cu. The individual compositions were fabricated into monolithic pellets for characterization by laminating multiple layers together, thermally removing the organics, and hot-pressing to near-full density. The pellets were characterized by optical and scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and measurement of density and sound wave velocity. The density and acoustic impedance were observed to vary monotonically (and nearly linearly) with composition. Graded structures were fabricated by stacking layers of different compositions in a sequence calculated to yield a desired acoustic impedance profile. The measured physical properties of the graded structures compare favorably with those predicted from the monolithic-pellet characteristics. Fabrication of graded impactors by this technique is of significant interest for providing improved control of the pressure profile in gas gun experiments.

We have recently carried out novel and exploratory dynamic experiments where the sample follows a prescribed thermodynamic path. In typical dynamic compression experiments, the samples are thermodynamically limited to the principal Hugoniot or quasi-isentrope. With recent developments in the functionally graded material impactor, we can prescribe and shape the applied pressure profile with similarly-shaped, non-monotonic impedance profile in the impactor. Previously inaccessible thermodynamic states beyond the quasi-isentropes and Hugoniot can now be reached in dynamic experiments with these impactors. In the light gas-gun experiments on copper reported here, we recorded the particle velocities of the Cu-LiF interfaces and employed hydrodynamic simulations to relate them to the thermodynamic phase diagram. Peak pressures for these experiments were on the order of megabars, and the time-scales ranged from nanoseconds to several microseconds. The strain rates of the quasi-isentropic experiments are approximately 10{sup 4} s{sup -1} to 10{sup 6} s{sup -1} in samples with thicknesses up to 5 mm. Though developed at a light-gas gun facility, such shaped pressure-profiles are also feasible in principle with laser ablation or magnetic driven compression techniques allowing for new directions to be taken in high pressure physics.