The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Legacy Management conducted annual sampling at the Rulison, Colorado, Site for the Long-Term Hydrologic Monitoring Program (LTHMP) on May 18, 2011. The samples were shipped to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Radiation and Indoor Environments National Laboratory in Las Vegas, Nevada, for analysis. All requested analyses were successfully completed, with the exception of the determination of tritium concentration by the enrichment method. The laboratory no longer provides that service. Samples were analyzed for gamma-emitting radionuclides by high-resolution gamma spectrometry and for tritium using the conventional method. Starting in 2012, DOE will retain a different laboratory that provides the enriched tritium analysis service.

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Clouds of low energy electrons in the vacuum beam pipes of accelerators of positively charged particle beams present a serious limitation for operation of these machines at high currents. Because of the size of these accelerators, it is difficult to probe the low energy electron clouds over substantial lengths of the beam pipe. We have developed a novel technique to directly measure the electron cloud density via the phase shift induced in a TE wave that is independently excited and transmitted over a section of the accelerator. We infer the absolute phase shift with relatively high accuracy from the phase modulation of the transmission due to the modulation of the electron cloud density from a gap in the positively charged beam. We have used this technique for the first time to measure the average electron cloud density over a 50 m straight section in the positron ring of the PEP-II collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. We have also measured the variation of the density by using low field solenoid magnets to control the electrons.

We search for the Z{sub 1}(4050){sup +} and Z{sub 2}(4250){sup +} states, reported by the Belle Collaboration, decaying to {chi}{sub c1}{pi}{sup +} in the decays {bar B}{sup 0} {yields} {chi}{sub c1}K{sup -}{pi}{sup +} and B{sup +} {yields} {chi}{sub c1}K{sub S}{sup 0}{pi}{sup +} where {chi}{sub c1} {yields} J/{psi}{gamma}. The data were collected with the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric-energy e{sup +}e{sup -} collider operating at center-of-mass energy 10.58 GeV, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 429 fb{sup -1}. In this analysis, we model the background-subtracted, efficiency-corrected {chi}{sub c1}{pi}{sup +} mass distribution using the K{pi} mass distribution and the corresponding normalized K{pi} Legendre polynomial moments, and then test the need for the inclusion of resonant structures in the description of the {chi}{sub c1}{pi}{sup +} mass distribution. No evidence is found for the Z{sub 1}(4050){sup +} and Z{sub 2}(4250){sup +} resonances, and 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions are reported for the corresponding B-meson decay modes.

Landfill Gas to Electric Energy Generation and Transmission at Chautauqua County Landfill, Town of Ellery, New York. The goal of this project was to create a practical method with which the energy, of the landfill gas produced by the decomposing waste at the Chautauqua County Landfill, could be utilized. This goal was accomplished with the construction of a landfill gas to electric energy plant (originally 6.4MW and now 9.6MW) and the construction of an inter-connection power-line, from the power-plant to the nearest (5.5 miles) power-grid point.

In 1997, the first two United States Department of Energy (US DOE) high level waste tanks (Tanks 17-F and 20-F: Type IV, single shell tanks) were taken out of service (permanently closed) at the Savannah River Site (SRS). In 2012, the DOE plans to remove from service two additional Savannah River Site (SRS) Type IV high-level waste tanks, Tanks 18-F and 19-F. These tanks were constructed in the late 1950's and received low-heat waste and do not contain cooling coils. Operational closure of Tanks 18-F and 19-F is intended to be consistent with the applicable requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and will be performed in accordance with South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC). The closure will physically stabilize two 4.92E+04 cubic meter (1.3 E+06 gallon) carbon steel tanks and isolate and stabilize any residual contaminants left in the tanks. The closure will also fill, physically stabilize and isolate ancillary equipment abandoned in the tanks. A Performance Assessment (PA) has been developed to assess the long-term fate and transport of residual contamination in the environment resulting from the operational closure of the F-Area Tank …

Using a sample of 122 million {Upsilon}(3S) decays collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric energy collider at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, we measure the ratio R{sub {tau}{mu}} = BR({Upsilon}(1S) {yields} {tau}{sup +}{tau}{sup -})/BR({Upsilon}(1S) {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -}); the measurement is intended as a test of lepton universality and as a possible search for a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson in Next to Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) scenarios. Such a boson could appear in a deviation of the ratio R{sub {tau}{mu}} from the Standard Model expectation, that is 1, except for small lepton mass corrections. The analysis exploits the decays {Upsilon}(3S) {yields} {Upsilon}(1S){pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}, {Upsilon}(1S) {yields} l{sup +}l{sup -}, where l = {mu},{tau}.

Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) evaluated methods to mix and blend the contents of the blend tanks to ensure the contents are properly blended before they are transferred from the blend tank such as Tank 21 and Tank 24 to the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) feed tank. The tank contents consist of three forms: dissolved salt solution, other waste salt solutions, and sludge containing settled solids. This paper focuses on developing the computational model and estimating the operation time of submersible slurry pump when the tank contents are adequately blended prior to their transfer to the SWPF facility. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics approach was taken by using the full scale configuration of SRS Type-IV tank, Tank 21H. Major solid obstructions such as the tank wall boundary, the transfer pump column, and three slurry pump housings including one active and two inactive pumps were included in the mixing performance model. Basic flow pattern results predicted by the computational model were benchmarked against the SRNL test results and literature data. Tank 21 is a waste tank that is used to prepare batches of salt feed for SWPF. The salt feed must be a homogeneous solution satisfying the acceptance criterion of …

We present the promise of generating gigawatt mode-locked multichromatic x rays in a seeded free-electron laser (FEL). We show that, by using a laser to imprint periodic modulation in electron beam phase space, a single-frequency coherent seed can be amplified and further translated to a mode-locked multichromatic output in an FEL. With this configuration the FEL output consists of a train of mode-locked ultrashort pulses which span a wide frequency gap with a series of equally spaced sharp lines. These gigawatt multichromatic x rays may potentially allow one to explore the structure and dynamics of a large number of atomic states simultaneously. The feasibility of generating mode-locked x rays ranging from carbon K edge ({approx}284 eV) to copper L{sub 3} edge ({approx}931 eV) is confirmed with numerical simulation using the realistic parameters of the linac coherent light source (LCLS) and LCLS-II. We anticipate that the mode-locked multichromatic x rays in FELs may open up new opportunities in x-ray spectroscopy (i.e. resonant inelastic x-ray scattering, time-resolved scattering and spectroscopy, etc.).

We report on the Dalitz plot analyses of B{sup -} {yields} D{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup -}, B{sup +} {yields} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +} and D{sub s}{sup +} {yields} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{sup +}. The Dalitz plot method and the most recent BABAR results are discussed.

In this study, the microwave materials interactions were studied through dielectric property measurements, process modeling, and lab scale microwave hybrid calcination tests. Characterization and analysis were performed to evaluate material reactions and energy usage. Processing parameters for laboratory scale and larger scale calcining experiments were developed for MAT limestone calcination. Early stage equipment design concepts were developed, with a focus on microwave post heating treatment. The retrofitting of existing rotary calcine equipment in the lime industry was assessed and found to be feasible. Ceralink sought to address some of the major barriers to the uptake of MAT identified as the need for (1) team approach with end users, technology partners, and equipment manufacturers, (2) modeling that incorporates kiln materials and variations to the design of industrial microwave equipment. This project has furthered the commercialization effort of MAT by working closely with an industrial lime manufacturer to educate them regarding MAT, identifying equipment manufacturer to supply microwave equipment, and developing a sophisticated MAT modeling with WPI, the university partner. MAT was shown to enhance calcining through lower energy consumption and faster reaction rates compared to conventional processing. Laboratory testing concluded that a 23% reduction in energy was possible for calcining small …

Significant progress has been made on the development of a control strategy for the supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO{sub 2}) Brayton cycle enabling removal of power from an autonomous load following Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) down to decay heat levels such that the S-CO{sub 2} cycle can be used to cool the reactor until decay heat can be removed by the normal shutdown heat removal system or a passive decay heat removal system such as Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System (DRACS) loops with DRACS in-vessel heat exchangers. This capability of the new control strategy eliminates the need for use of a separate shutdown heat removal system which might also use supercritical CO{sub 2}. It has been found that this capability can be achieved by introducing a new control mechanism involving shaft speed control for the common shaft joining the turbine and two compressors following reduction of the load demand from the electrical grid to zero. Following disconnection of the generator from the electrical grid, heat is removed from the intermediate sodium circuit through the sodium-to-CO{sub 2} heat exchanger, the turbine solely drives the two compressors, and heat is rejected from the cycle through the CO{sub 2}-to-water cooler. To investigate the effectiveness …

This report forms part of the Conceptual Design Report (CDR) of the Compact LInear Collider (CLIC). The CLIC accelerator complex is described in a separate CDR volume. A third document, to appear later, will assess strategic scenarios for building and operating CLIC in successive center-of-mass energy stages. It is anticipated that CLIC will commence with operation at a few hundred GeV, giving access to precision standard-model physics like Higgs and top-quark physics. Then, depending on the physics landscape, CLIC operation would be staged in a few steps ultimately reaching the maximum 3 TeV center-of-mass energy. Such a scenario would maximize the physics potential of CLIC providing new physics discovery potential over a wide range of energies and the ability to make precision measurements of possible new states previously discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The main purpose of this document is to address the physics potential of a future multi-TeV e{sup +}e{sup -} collider based on CLIC technology and to describe the essential features of a detector that are required to deliver the full physics potential of this machine. The experimental conditions at CLIC are significantly more challenging than those at previous electron-positron colliders due to the much higher …

Glycolic acid (GA) is being studied as an alternate reductant in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) feed preparation process. It will either be a total or partial replacement for the formic acid that is currently used. A literature review has been conducted on the impact of glycolate on two post-DWPF downstream systems - the 2H Evaporator system and the Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF). The DWPF recycle stream serves as a portion of the feed to the 2H Evaporator. Glycolate enters the evaporator system from the glycolate in the recycle stream. The overhead (i.e., condensed phase) from the 2H Evaporator serves as a portion of the feed to the ETF. The literature search revealed that virtually no impact is anticipated for the 2H Evaporator. Glycolate may help reduce scale formation in the evaporator due to its high complexing ability. The drawback of the solubilizing ability is the potential impact on the criticality analysis of the 2H Evaporator system. It is recommended that at least a theoretical evaluation to confirm the finding that no self-propagating violent reactions with nitrate/nitrites will occur should be performed. Similarly, identification of sources of ignition relevant to glycolate and/or update of the composite flammability analysis to …

We apply the Matrix Element Method (MEM) to mass determination of squark pair production with direct decay to quarks and LSP at the LHC, showing that simultaneous mass determination of squarks and LSP is possible. We furthermore propose methods for inclusion of QCD radiation effects in the MEM. The goal of the LHC at CERN, scheduled to start this year, is to discover new physics through deviations from the Standard Model (SM) predictions. After discovery of deviations from the SM, the next step will be classification of the new physics. An important first goal in this process will be establishing a mass spectrum of the new particles. One of the most challenging scenarios is pair-production of new particles which decay to invisible massive particles, giving missing energy signals. Many methods have been proposed for mass determination in such scenarios (for a recent list of references, see e.g. [1]). In this proceeding, we report the first steps in applying the Matrix Element Method (MEM) in the context of supersymmetric scenarios giving missing energy signals. After a quick review of the MEM, we will focus on squark pair production, a process where other mass determination techniques have difficulties to simultaneously determine the …

Quarterly highlights are: (1) The integration of Denovo and AMP was demonstrated in an AMP simulation of the thermo-mechanics of a complete fuel assembly; (2) Bison was enhanced with a mechanistic fuel cracking model; (3) Mechanistic algorithms were incorporated into various lower-length-scale models to represent fission gases and dislocations in UO2 fuels; (4) Marmot was improved to allow faster testing of mesoscale models using larger problem domains; (5) Component models of reactor piping were developed for use in Relap-7; (6) The mesh generator of Proteus was updated to accept a mesh specification from Moose and equations were formulated for the intermediate-fidelity Proteus-2D1D module; (7) A new pressure solver was implemented in Nek5000 and demonstrated to work 2.5 times faster than the previous solver; (8) Work continued on volume-holdup models for two fuel reprocessing operations: voloxidation and dissolution; (9) Progress was made on a pyroprocessing model and the characterization of pyroprocessing emission signatures; (10) A new 1D groundwater waste transport code was delivered to the used fuel disposition (UFD) campaign; (11) Efforts on waste form modeling included empirical simulation of sodium-borosilicate glass compositions; (12) The Waste team developed three prototypes for modeling hydride reorientation in fuel cladding during very long-term fuel …

The complexity of petascale and exascale machines makes it increasingly difficult to develop applications that can take advantage of them. Future systems are expected to feature billion-way parallelism, complex heterogeneous compute nodes and poor availability of memory (Peter Kogge, 2008). This new challenge for application development is motivating a significant amount of research and development on new programming models and runtime systems designed to simplify large-scale application development. Unfortunately, DoE has significant multi-decadal investment in a large family of mission-critical scientific applications. Scaling these applications to exascale machines will require a significant investment that will dwarf the costs of hardware procurement. A key reason for the difficulty in transitioning today's applications to exascale hardware is their reliance on explicit programming techniques, such as the Message Passing Interface (MPI) programming model to enable parallelism. MPI provides a portable and high performance message-passing system that enables scalable performance on a wide variety of platforms. However, it also forces developers to lock the details of parallelization together with application logic, making it very difficult to adapt the application to significant changes in the underlying system. Further, MPI's explicit interface makes it difficult to separate the application's synchronization and communication structure, reducing the amount …

After years of waiting, and after six Les Houches workshops, the era of LHC running is finally upon us, albeit at a lower initial center-of-mass energy than originally planned. Thus, there has been a great sense of anticipation from both the experimental and theoretical communities. The last two years, in particular, have seen great productivity in the area of multi-parton calculations at leading order (LO), next-to-leading order (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO), and this productivity is reflected in the proceedings of the NLM group. Both religions, Feynmanians and Unitarians, as well as agnostic experimenters, were well-represented in both the discussions at Les Houches, and in the contributions to the write-up. Next-to-leading order (NLO) is the first order at which the normalization, and in some cases the shape, of perturbative cross sections can be considered reliable. This can be especially true when probing extreme kinematic regions, as for example with boosted Higgs searches considered in several of the contributions to this writeup. A full understanding for both standard model and beyond the standard model physics at the LHC requires the development of fast, reliable programs for the calculation of multi-parton final states at NLO. There have been many advances in the …

Electron cooling was proposed to increase luminosity of the RHIC collider for heavy ion beams at low energies. Luminosity decreases as the square of bunch intensity due to the beam loss from the RF bucket as a result of the longitudinal intra beam scattering (IBS), as well as due to the transverse emittance growth because of the transverse IBS. Both transverse and longitudinal IBS can be counteracted with electron cooling. This would allow one to keep the initial peak luminosity close to constant throughout the store essentially without the beam loss. In addition, the phase-space density of the hadron beams can be further increased by providing stronger electron cooling. Unfortunately, the defining limitation for low energies in RHIC is expected to be the space charge. Here we explore an idea of additional improvement in luminosity, on top of the one coming from just IBS compensation and longer stores, which may be expected if one can operate with longer bunches at the space-charge limit in a collider. This approach together with electron cooling may result in about 10-fold improvement in total luminosity for low-energy RHIC program.

In July, 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and Department of Energy (DOE) asked the National Research Council’s Board on Life Sciences to convene a committee to examine the current state of biological research in the United States and recommend how best to capitalize on recent technological and scientific advances that have allowed biologists to integrate biological research findings, collect and interpret vastly increased amounts of data, and predict the behavior of complex biological systems. From September 2008 through July of 2009, a committee of 16 experts from the fields of biology, engineering and computational science undertook to delineate those scientific and technological advances and come to a consensus on how the U.S. might best capitalize on them. This report, authored by the Committee on a New Biology for the 21st Century, describes the committee’s work and conclusions.

While the storage of hydrogen for portable and stationary applications is regarded as critical in bringing PEM fuel cells to commercial acceptance, little is known of the environmental exposure risks posed in utilizing condensed phase chemical storage options as in complex hydrides. It is thus important to understand the effect of environmental exposure of metal hydrides in the case of accident scenarios. Simulated tests were performed following the United Nations standards to test for flammability and water reactivity in air for a destabilized lithium borohydride and magnesium hydride system in a 2 to 1 molar ratio respectively. It was determined that the mixture acted similarly to the parent, lithium borohydride, but at slower rate of reaction seen in magnesium hydride. To quantify environmental exposure kinetics, isothermal calorimetry was utilized to measure the enthalpy of reaction as a function of exposure time to dry and humid air, and liquid water. The reaction with liquid water was found to increase the heat flow significantly during exposure compared to exposure in dry or humid air environments. Calorimetric results showed the maximum normalized heat flow the fully charged material was 6 mW/mg under liquid phase hydrolysis; and 14 mW/mg for the fully discharged material …

This research effort is focused on understanding the mechanical response of foams, and other complex fluids, from the microscopic to the macroscopic level. The research uses a model two-dimensional system: bubble rafts. Bubble rafts are a single layer of gas bubbles with liquid walls that float on a water surface. The work involves studies of the macroscopic response of foam under various conditions of external forcing, mesoscopic studies of bubble motion, and systematic variations of the microscopic details of the system. In addition to characterizing the specific properties of the bubble raft, a second aim of the research is to provide experimental tests of various general theories that have recently been developed to characterize complex fluids. Primarily, the focus is on testing the proposed jamming phase diagram paradigm. This paradigm suggests that a general “jammed” state of matter exists and is common to a wide range of systems, including foam, colloids, granular matter, glasses, and emulsions. Therefore,we have extended our research in two directions. First, we have included studies of plastic bead rafts. These are systems of plastic beads floating on the air-water interface. The advantage of plastic beads is that they do not pop, so they can be studied …