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For an x-ray free-electron laser (FEL) such as the LCLS, the FEL gain signal is accompanied by spontaneous radiation with a significant power level. Detecting the weak FEL gain among the large spontaneous background in the early stage of the exponential growth or for a low quality electron beam is important in commissioning the FEL. In this paper, we describe a simple ''lock-in'' method of weak FEL gain detection, suggested by K. Robinson, accomplished by slowly modulating the laser power of a designated beam heater that controls the local energy spread of the electron beam. We present numerical modeling that shows the effectiveness of this method and discuss its implementation in the LCLS.

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The recent astounding discoveries of ignition in single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) after exposure to an ordinary photographic flash, (1) other formulations of carbons containing noble metals, (2) and polyaniline nanofibers (3) prompted us to explore a possible further instigation of explosive materials. Here, we report that an ignition and initiation process, further leading to actual detonation, does occur for explosives in lax contact with carbon nanotubes that are prone to opto-thermal activity via a conventional flashbulb. Optical ignition and initiation of explosives could thus far only be accomplished through lasers, (4) with specific characteristic of high power, pulse length, wavelength, and a small target area that greatly inhibit their applications. Our results have the implication that explosives with opto-thermally active SWNTs formulations are new ideal candidates for remote optical triggering of safety apparatus such as the firing of bolts on space shuttles rockets and aircraft exit doors, and for controlled burning of explosives as actuators.

The damage test procedure for qualifying a coating run of anti-reflection coated optics consists of scanning a pulsed 1064 nm laser over a 1 cm x 1 cm area on a test sample to illuminate approximately 2400 sites. Scans are repeated at 3 J/cm{sup 2} increments until the fluence specification for the optic is reached. In the past, initiation of 1 or more damage sites was classified as a failed coating run, requiring the production optics in the corresponding coating lot be reworked and recoated. Recent laser damage growth tests of 300 repetitive pulses performed on numerous damage sites revealed that all were stable up to 20 J/cm{sup 2}. Therefore the acceptance criteria has been modified to allow a moderate number of damage sites, as long as they are smaller than the allowed dig size and are stable (do not grow). Consequently many coating runs that previously would have been rejected are now accepted, resulting in higher yield, lower cost, and improved delivery schedule. The new test also provides assurance that initiated damage sites are stable during long term operation.

A sensitivity analysis of the remote detection NMR techniqueis presented. With remote detection, information about a sample isencoded onto a mobile sensor fluid, which facilitates a spatialseparation of encoding and detection of spin magnetization. This approachcan be interpreted as a two-dimensional NMR experiment, therefore thesame general formalism can be used for a sensitivity analysis. Eventhough remote detection is a point-by-point experiment, the sensitivitydoes not scale unfavorably with the number of detected points compared totransient detection. It is proportional to the relative sensitivitybetween the remote detector and the circuit that is used for encoding.The influence of the different signal decay times is analyzed, and thedistinction between spectroscopy and imaging experiments ismade.

The performance of a free electron lasers (FEL) is affected when the electron beam energy varies alone the undulator as would be caused by vacuum pipe wakefields and/or when the undulator strength parameter is tapered in the small signal regime until FEL saturation. In this paper, we present a self-consistent theory of FELs with slowly-varying beam and undulator parameters. A general method is developed to apply the WKB approximation to the beam-radiation system by employing the adjoint eigenvector that is orthogonal to the eigenfunctions of the coupled Maxwell-Vlasov equations. This method may be useful for other slowly varying processes in beam dynamics.

Longitudinal phase space properties of a photoinjector beam are important in many areas of high-brightness beam applications such as bunch compression, transverse-to-longitudinal emittance exchange, and high-gain free-electron lasers. In this paper, we discuss both the rf and the space charge contributions to the uncorrelated energy spread of the beam generated from a laser-driven rf gun. We compare analytical expressions for the uncorrelated energy spread and the longitudinal emittance with numerical simulations and recent experimental results.

The exit from mitosis is the last critical decision a cell has to make during a division cycle. A complex regulatory system has evolved to evaluate the success of mitotic events and control this decision. Whereas outstanding genetic work in yeast has led to rapid discovery of a large number of interacting genes involved in the control of mitotic exit, it has also become increasingly difficult to comprehend the logic and mechanistic features embedded in the complex molecular network. Our view is that this difficulty stems in part from the attempt to explain mitotic exit control using concepts from traditional top-down engineering design, and that exciting new results from evolutionary engineering design applied to networks and electronic circuits may lend better insights. We focus on four particularly intriguing features of the mitotic exit control system: the two-stepped release of Cdc14; the self-activating nature of Tem1 GTPase; the spatial sensor associated with the spindle pole body; and the extensive redundancy in the mitotic exit network. We attempt to examine these design features from the perspective of evolutionary design and complex system engineering.

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Recommendation 2002-1 (''Quality Assurance for Safety-Related Software'') identified a number of quality assurance issues on the use of software in Department of Energy (DOE) facilities for analyzing hazards, and designing and operating controls to prevent or mitigate potential accidents. Over the last year, DOE has begun several processes and programs as part of the Implementation Plan commitments, and in particular, has made significant progress in addressing several sets of issues particularly important in the application of software for performing hazard and accident analysis. The work discussed here demonstrates that through these actions, Software Quality Assurance (SQA) guidance and software tools are available that can be used to improve resulting safety analysis. Specifically, five of the primary actions corresponding to the commitments made in the Implementation Plan to Recommendation 2002-1 are identified and discussed in this paper. Included are the web-based DOE SQA Knowledge Portal and the Central Registry, guidance and gap analysis reports, electronic bulletin board and discussion forum, and a DOE safety software guide. These SQA products can benefit DOE safety contractors in the development of hazard and accident analysis by precluding inappropriate software applications and utilizing best practices when incorporating software results …

Instrumentation was developed in 2004 and 2005 to measurethe quantum efficiency of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab(LBNL)total-depletion CCD's, intended for astronomy and spaceapplications. This paper describes the basic instrument. Although it isconventional even to the parts list, there are important innovations. Axenon arc light source was chosen for its high blue/UV and low red/IRoutput as compared with a tungsten light. Intensity stabilization hasbeen difficult, but sinceonly flux ratios matter this is not critical.Between the light source andan Oriel MS257 monochromator are a shutterand two filter wheels. High-bandpass and low-bandpass filter pairsisolate the 150-nm wide bands appropriate to the wavelength, thusminimizing scattered light and providing order blocking. Light from theauxiliary port enters a 20-inch optical sphere, and the 4-inch outputport is at right angles to the input port. An 80 cm drift space producesnear-uniform illumination on the CCD. Next to the cold CCD inside thehorizontal dewar is a calibrated reference photodiode which is regulatedto the PD calibration temperature, 25$^\circ$ C. The ratio ofthe CCD andin-dewar reference PD signals provides the QE measurement. Additionalcross-calibration to a PD on the integrating spherepermitslower-intensity exposures.

The performance of parallel Monte Carlo transport calculations which use both spatial and particle parallelism is increased by dynamically assigning processors to the most worked domains. Since he particle work load varies over the course of the simulation, this algorithm determines each cycle if dynamic load balancing would speed up the calculation. If load balancing is required, a small number of particle communications are initiated in order to achieve load balance. This method has decreased the parallel run time by more than a factor of three for certain criticality calculations.

View-factor simulations are presented of the spatially varying radiation conditions inside double-ended gold hohlraums and single-ended gold hohlraums (''halfraums'') used in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and high energy density (HED) physics experiments [J. Lindl, Phys. Plasmas 11, 339 (2004); M. D. Rosen, Phys. Plasmas 3, 1803 (1996)]. It is shown that in many circumstances, the common assumption that the hohlraum ''drive'' can be characterized by a single temperature is too simplistic. Specifically, the radiation conditions seen by an experimental package can differ significantly from the wall reemission measured through diagnostic holes or laser entrance holes (LEHs) by absolutely calibrated detectors. Furthermore, even in situations where the radiation temperature is roughly the same for diagnostics and experimental packages, or for packages at different locations, the spectral energy distributions can vary significantly, due to the differing fractions of reemitting wall, laser hot spots, and LEHs seen from different locations. We find that the spatial variation of temperature, and especially the differences between what diagnostics looking in the LEH measure vs. the radiation temperature on wall-mounted experimental packages, is generally greater for double-ended hohlraums than it is for halfraums. View-factor simulations can also be used to explore experimental variables (halfraum length and geometry, …

Phase transformations in 2xxx series aluminium alloys (Al-Cu-Mg) are investigated with an off-lattice atomistic kinetic Monte Carlo simulation incorporating the effects of strain around misfitting atoms and vacancies. Vacancy diffusion is modeled by comparing the energies of trial states, where the system is partially relaxed for each trial state. Only a limited precision is required for the energy of each trial state, determined by the value of k{sub B}T. Since the change in the relaxation displacement field caused by a vacancy hop decays as 1/r{sup 3}, it is sufficient to determine the next move by relaxing only those atoms in a sphere of finite radius centered on the moving vacancy. However, once the next move has been selected, the entire system is relaxed. Simulations of the early stages of phase separation in Al-Cu with elastic relaxation show an enhanced rate of clustering compared to those performed on the same system with a rigid lattice. However on a flexible lattice vacancy trapping by Mg atoms in the ternary Al-Cu-Mg system makes clustering slower than the corresponding rigid lattice calculation.

Liquid and solid radioactive wastes are formed during conversion of plutonium metal to oxide and during fabrication of weapons-grade plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. In Russia, these wastes are to be processed for disposition by immobilization in either borosilicate glass or cement matrices depending upon the waste stream-specific radionuclide contents. Vitrification is planned for the liquid high-level waste raffinate stream containing the bulk of the Am-241 produced from Pu-241 decay. Previous work on the Russian MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (R-MFFF) by the Public Joint Stock Corporation (TVEL) [1] showed that this waste stream may contain significant amounts of silver derived from the electrochemical dissolution of PuO2 using a Ag(II) catalyst. The work reported here further investigated silver solubility limits, which, if exceeded in a production glass melter, allow discrete silver grains to form in the glass and also deposit over time on the bottom of a joule-heated ceramic melter. In melters with immersed electrodes, such as the Russian EP-100 for phosphate glasses or the US Duratek DP-100 type melters for borosilicate glasses that are being considered for use at the Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC) Tomsk site, the undissolved silver could cause a short circuit and an unacceptable production melter failure. …

The growth of laser development & technology has been remarkable. Unfortunately, a number of traps or obstacles to laser safety have also developed with that growth. The goal of this article is to highlight those traps, in the hope that an aware laser user will avoid them. These traps have been the cause or contributing factor of many a preventable laser accident.

Several benchmarks for measuring memory performance of HPC systems along dimensions of spatial and temporal memory locality have recently been proposed. However, little is understood about the relationships of these benchmarks to real applications and to each other. In this paper, we propose a methodology for producing architecture-neutral characterizations of the spatial and temporal locality exhibited by the memory access patterns of applications. We demonstrate that the results track intuitive notions of spatial and temporal locality on several synthetic and application benchmarks. We employ the methodology to analyze the memory performance components of the HPC Challenge Benchmarks, the Apex-MAP benchmark, and their relationships to each other and other benchmarks and applications. We show that this analysis can be used to both increase understanding of the benchmarks and enhance their usefulness by mapping them, along with applications, to a 2-D space along axes of spatial and temporal locality.

Models incorporating interactions between surface and subsurface flow are commonly based on the conductance concept that presumes a distinct interface at the land surface, separating the surface from the subsurface domain. In these models the subsurface and surface domains are linked via an exchange flux that depends upon the magnitude and direction of the hydraulic gradient across the interface and a proportionality constant (a measure of the hydraulic connectivity). Because experimental evidence of such a distinct interface is often lacking in the field, a more general coupled modeling approach would be preferable. We present a more general approach that incorporates a two-dimensional overland flow simulator into the parallel three-dimensional variably saturated subsurface flow code ParFlow developed at LLNL. This overland flow simulator takes the form of an upper, free-surface boundary condition and is, thus, fully integrated without relying on the conductance concept. Another advantage of this approach is the efficient parallelism of ParFlow, which is exploited by the overland flow simulator. Several verification and simulation examples are presented that focus on the two main processes of runoff production: excess infiltration and saturation. The usefulness of our approach is demonstrated in an application of the model to an urban watershed. The …

The {gamma}-ray energy spectra due to positron annihilation with the 3p core-level of Cu, the 4p core-level of Ag, and 5p core level of Au were obtained separately from the total annihilation spectrum by measuring the energies of {gamma}-rays time coincident with Auger electrons emitted as a result of filling the core-hole left by annihilation. The results of these measurements are compared to the total annihilation spectra and with LDA based theoretical calculations. A comparison of area normalized momentum distributions with the individual cores extracted from the Doppler measurements shows good qualitative agreement, however, in all three spectra, the calculated values of the momentum density appears to fall below the measured values as the momentum increases. The discrepancies between theory and experiment are well outside the statistical uncertainties of the experiment and become more pronounced with increasing Z going down the column from Cu to Ag to Au. The comparison with the experimental results clearly indicates that the calculations are not predicting the correct ratio of high momentum to low momentum spectral weight and suggest the need to improve the treatment of many body electron-positron correlation effects in annihilation as they pertain to core levels.

The ion flux from vacuum arc cathode spots was measured in two vacuum arc systems. The first was a vacuum arc ion source which was modified allowing us to collect ions from arc plasma streaming through an anode mesh. The second discharge system essentially consisted of a cathode placed near the center of a spherically shaped mesh anode. In both systems, the ion current streaming through the mesh was measured by a biased collector. The mesh anodes had geometric transmittances of 60 percent and 72 percent, respectively, which were taken into account as correction factors. The ion current from different cathode materials was measured for 50-500 A of arc current. The ion current normalized by the arc current was found to depend on the cathode material, with values in the range from 5 percent to 19 percent. The normalized ion current is generally greater for elements of low cohesive energy. The ion erosion rates were determined from values of ion current and ion charge states, which were previously measured in the same ion source. The absolute ion erosion rates range from 16-173 mu g/C.

The processing-structure-property relationship is investigated for electrodeposited foils of the gold-copper alloy system. A model is presented that relates the deposition process parameters to the nanocrystalline grain size. An activation energy of 1.52 eV {center_dot} atom{sup -1} for growth is determined for a long pulse (>10 msec) mode, and is 0.16 eV {center_dot} atom{sup -1} for short pulses (<5 msec). The affect of nanocrystalline grain size on the mechanical properties is assessed using indentation measurements. A Hall-Petch type variation of the Vickers microhardness with nanocrystalline grain size (>6 nm) is observed for Au-Cu samples with 1-12 wt.% Cu as tested in cross-section. The hardness increases three-fold from a rule-of-mixtures value <1 GPa to a maximum of 2.9 GPa.

We demonstrate that the Qbox code supports unprecedented large-scale First-Principles Molecular Dynamics (FPMD) applications on the BlueGene/L supercomputer. Qbox is an FPMD implementation specifically designed for large-scale parallel platforms such as BlueGene/L. Strong scaling tests for a Materials Science application show an 86% scaling efficiency between 1024 and 32,768 CPUs. Measurements of performance by means of hardware counters show that 37% of the peak FPU performance can be attained.

Development of the comprehensive codes used to study the boundary region of the DIII-D tokamak has been done in parallel with improvement of the diagnostics of this important region of the plasma. These codes have been used to interpret the diagnostic data and assist in design of improved divertor configurations. The development of codes used for analysis on DIII-D is described briefly. Model validation by comparing with the extensive DIII-D boundary region diagnostic data is also discussed.

An engineering model is presented for the removal of the plastic mandrel from the inside of a sputtered Be shell. The removal is accomplished by forcing heated air in and out of the 4 to 5 {micro}m laser drilled fill hole in the capsule wall by cycling the external pressure between 2 and 5 atm. The plastic is combusted to CO{sub 2} and H{sub 2}O by this exposure, thus removing the mandrel. Calculations are presented to evaluate the various parameters in the approach. Experimental confirmation of the effectiveness of the removal is shown.