We discuss the feasibility of a weak charged current experiment using a low energy electron beam. A first goal is to measure the Q^2 dependence of the axial-vector form factor g_a(Q^2). It can be measured model-independently and as robustly as for electromagnetic form factors from typical electron scattering experiments, in contrast to the methods used so far to measure g_a(Q^2). If g_a(Q^2) follows a dipole form, the axial mass can be extracted with a better accuracy than the world data altogether. The most important detection equipment would be a segmented neutron detector with good momentum and angular resolution that is symmetric about the beam direction, and covers a moderate angular range. A high intensity beam (100 uA) is necessary. Beam polarization is highly desirable as it provides a clean measurement of the backgrounds. Beam energies between 70 and 110 MeV are ideal. This range would provide a Q^2 mapping of g_a between 0.01

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has initiated a focused effort to upgrade legacy computational reactor physics software tools and protocols used for support of core fuel management and experiment management in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) and its companion critical facility (ATRC) at the INL.. This will be accomplished through the introduction of modern high-fidelity computational software and protocols, with appropriate new Verification and Validation (V&V) protocols, over the next 12-18 months. Stochastic and deterministic transport theory based reactor physics codes and nuclear data packages that support this effort include MCNP5[1], SCALE/KENO6[2], HELIOS[3], SCALE/NEWT[2], and ATTILA[4]. Furthermore, a capability for sensitivity analysis and uncertainty quantification based on the TSUNAMI[5] system has also been implemented. Finally, we are also evaluating the Serpent[6] and MC21[7] codes, as additional verification tools in the near term as well as for possible applications to full three-dimensional Monte Carlo based fuel management modeling in the longer term. On the experimental side, several new benchmark-quality code validation measurements based on neutron activation spectrometry have been conducted using the ATRC. Results for the first four experiments, focused on neutron spectrum measurements within the Northwest Large In-Pile Tube (NW LIPT) and in the core fuel elements surrounding the NW …

Laboratory experiments have been used to investigate the fundamental interactions responsible for deuterium retention in lithiated graphite. Oxygen was found to be present and play a key role in experiments that simulated NSTX lithium conditioning, where the atomic surface concentration can increase to >40% when deuterium retention chemistry is observed. Quantum-classical molecular dynamic simulations elucidated this oxygen-deuterium effect and showed that oxygen retains significantly more deuterium than lithium in a simulated matrix with 20% lithium, 20% oxygen, and 60% carbon. Simulations further show that deuterium retention is even higher when lithium is removed from the matrix. Experiments artificially increased the oxygen content in graphite to approximately 16% and then bombarded with deuterium. XPS showed depletion of the oxygen and no enhanced deuterium retention, thus demonstrating that lithium is essential in retaining the oxygen that thereby retains deuterium.

The effects of the thickness of Zirconium liner on

The curing of cross-linkable encapsulation is a critical consideration for photovoltaic (PV) modules manufactured using a lamination process. Concerns related to ethylene-co-vinyl acetate (EVA) include the quality (e.g., expiration and uniformity) of the films or completion (duration) of the cross-linking of the EVA within a laminator. Because these issues are important to both EVA and module manufacturers, an international standard has recently been proposed by the Encapsulation Task-Group within the Working Group 2 (WG2) of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee 82 (TC82) for the quantification of the degree of cure for EVA encapsulation. The present draft of the standard calls for the use of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) as the rapid, enabling secondary (test) method. Both the residual enthalpy- and melt/freeze-DSC methods are identified. The DSC methods are calibrated against the gel content test, the primary (reference) method. Aspects of other established methods, including indentation and rotor cure metering, were considered by the group. Key details of the test procedure will be described.

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There has been much activity in the measurement of the elastic electromagnetic proton and neutron form factors in the last decade, and the quality of the data has been greatly improved by performing double-polarization experiments, in comparison with with pre-vious unpolarized cross section data. Here we will review the experimental data base in view of the new results for the proton and the neutron, obtained at MIT-Bates, JLab and MAMI. The rapid evolution of phenomenological models triggered by these high- precision experiments will be discussed. In particular, the possibility that the proton is non-spherical in its ground state, and that the transverse charge density are model in- dependently defined in the infinite momentum frame. Likewise, flavor decomposition of the nucleon form factors into dressed u and d quark form factors, may give information about the quark-diquark structure of the nucleon. The current proton radius "crisis" will also be discussed.

The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), located at the Id

We establish improved upper limits on branching fractions for B{sup 0} decays to final states where the decay products are purely invisible (i.e., no observable final state particles) and for final states where the only visible product is a photon. Within the Standard Model, these decays have branching fractions that are below the current experimental sensitivity, but various models of physics beyond the Standard Model predict significant contributions for these channels. Using 471 million B{bar B} pairs collected at the {Upsilon} (4S) resonance by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II e{sup +}e{sup -} storage ring at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, we establish upper limits at the 90% confidence level of 2.4 x 10{sup -5} for the branching fraction of B{sup 0} {yields} invisible and 1.7 x 10{sup -5} for the branching fraction of B{sup 0} {yields} invisible + {gamma}.

We present results for the leading order QCD correction to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon including the first two generations of quarks as dynamical degrees of freedom. Several light quark masses are examined in order to yield a controlled extrapolation to the physical pion mass. We analyse ensembles for three different lattice spacings and several volumes in order to investigate lattice artefacts and finite-size effects, respectively. We also provide preliminary results for this quantity for two flavours of mass-degenerate quarks at the physical value of the pion mass.

We report measurements of photon and neutron radiation levels observed while transmitting a 0.43 MW electron beam through millimeter-sized apertures and during beam-off, but accelerating gradient RF-on, operation. These measurements were conducted at the Free-Electron Laser (FEL) facility of the Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory (JLab) using a 100 MeV electron beam from an energy-recovery linear accelerator. The beam was directed successively through 6 mm, 4 mm, and 2 mm diameter apertures of length 127 mm in aluminum at a maximum current of 4.3 mA (430 kW beam power). This study was conducted to characterize radiation levels for experiments that need to operate in this environment, such as the proposed DarkLight Experiment. We find that sustained transmission of a 430 kW continuous-wave (CW) beam through a 2 mm aperture is feasible with manageable beam-related backgrounds. We also find that during beam-off, RF-on operation, multipactoring inside the niobium cavities of the accelerator cryomodules is the primary source of ambient radiation when the machine is tuned for 130 MeV operation.

The Risk Informed Safety Margins Characterization (RISMC) Pathway uses a systematic approach developed to characterize and quantify safety margins of nuclear power plant structures, systems and components. What differentiates the RISMC approach from traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is the concept of safety margin. In PRA, a safety metric such as core damage frequency (CDF) is generally estimated using static fault-tree and event-tree models. However, it is not possible to estimate how close we are to physical safety limits (say peak clad temperature) for most accident sequences described in the PRA. In the RISMC approach, what we want to understand is not just the frequency of an event like core damage, but how close we are (or not) to this event and how we might increase our safety margin through margin management strategies in a Dynamic PRA (DPRA) fashion. This paper gives an overview of methods that are currently under development at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) with the scope of advance the current state of the art of dynamic PRA.

Offshore wind turbines are designed and analyzed using comprehensive simulation tools that account for the coupled dynamics of the wind inflow, aerodynamics, elasticity, and controls of the turbine, along with the incident waves, sea current, hydrodynamics, and foundation dynamics of the support structure. The Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration (OC3), which operated under the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Task 23, was established to verify the accuracy of these simulation tools [1]. This work was then extended under the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration, Continuation (OC4) project under IEA Wind Task 30 [2]. Both of these projects sought to verify the accuracy of offshore wind turbine dynamics simulation tools (or codes) through code-to-code comparison of simulated responses of various offshore structures. This paper describes the latest findings from Phase II of the OC4 project, which involved the analysis of a 5-MW turbine supported by a floating semisubmersible. Twenty-two different organizations from 11 different countries submitted results using 24 different simulation tools. The variety of organizations contributing to the project brought together expertise from both the offshore structure and wind energy communities. Twenty-one different load cases were examined, encompassing varying levels of model complexity and a variety of metocean conditions. Differences in the …

A new generation of precise Parity-Violating experiments will require a sub-percent accuracy of electron beam polarimetry. Compton polarimetry can provide such accuracy at high energies, but at a few hundred MeV the small analyzing power limits the sensitivity. M{\o}ller polarimetry provides a high analyzing power independent on the beam energy, but is limited by the properties of the polarized targets commonly used. Options for precision polarimetry at ~300 MeV will be discussed, in particular a proposal to use ultra-cold atomic hydrogen traps to provide a 100\%-polarized electron target for M{\o}ller polarimetry.

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The Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (DOE-OE) has a critical mission to secure the energy infrastructure from cyber attack. Through DOE-OE’s Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems (CEDS) program, the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has developed a method to detect malicious traffic on Supervisory, Control, and Data Acquisition (SCADA) network using a data compression technique. SCADA network traffic is often repetitive with only minor differences between packets. Research performed at the INL showed that SCADA network traffic has traits desirable for using compression analysis to identify abnormal network traffic. An open source implementation of a Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression algorithm was used to compress and analyze surrogate SCADA traffic. Infected SCADA traffic was found to have statistically significant differences in compression when compared against normal SCADA traffic at the packet level. The initial analyses and results are clearly able to identify malicious network traffic from normal traffic at the packet level with a very high confidence level across multiple ports and traffic streams. Statistical differentiation between infected and normal traffic level was possible using a modified data compression technique at the 99% probability level for all data analyzed. However, the conditions tested were rather limited …

QCD and Spin physics are playing important role in our understanding of hadron structure. I will give a short overview of origin of hadron structure in QCD and highlight modern understanding of the subject. Jefferson Laboratory is undergoing an upgrade that will increase the energy of electron beam up to 12 GeV. JLab is one of the leading facilities in nuclear physics studies and once operational in 2015 JLab 12 will be crucial for future of nuclear physics. I will briefly discuss future studies in four experimental halls of Jefferson Lab.

The ability to better characterize and quantify safety margins is important to improved decision making about nuclear power plant design, operation, and plant life extension. As research and development (R&D) in the light-water reactor (LWR) Sustainability (LWRS) Program and other collaborative efforts yield new data, sensors, and improved scientific understanding of physical processes that govern the aging and degradation of plant SSCs needs and opportunities to better optimize plant safety and performance will become known. The purpose of the Risk Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Pathway R&D is to support plant decisions for risk-informed margin management with the aim to improve economics, reliability, and sustain safety of current NPPs. In this paper, we describe the RISMC analysis process illustrating how mechanistic and probabilistic approaches are combined in order to estimate a safety margin. We use the scenario of a “station blackout” wherein offsite power and onsite power is lost, thereby causing a challenge to plant safety systems. We describe the RISMC approach, illustrate the station blackout modeling, and contrast this with traditional risk analysis modeling for this type of accident scenario.

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