Construction of the experiment cavern on the 27th level of the SOUDAN iron mine in northern Minnesota began early this year and will be complete early in 1985. The first 1200 tons of the detector itself is also under construction in the US and UK; installation will begin in mid 1985. Physics exploitation will begin early in 1986 and the first 1200 ton module will be complete early in 1987. The detector may be expanded to between 3 and 5 such modules in the cavern. The detector is an iron tracking calorimeter (rho = 2) consisting of stacks of corrugated steel sheets each 1.2 mm thick. The corrugations form hexagonal channels 1 m long and 16 mm in diameter. A uniform electric field along these channels is provided by the voltage grading arising from the constant standing current in the Hytrel tubes (rho = 2 x 10/sup 12/ ..cap omega.. cm) that line each channel. The tubes are insulated from the steel by sheets of mylar. Ionization in the gas in the tubes drifts in the uniform field to the end of the tube where it is amplified linearly and detected by a matrix of anode wires and cathode strips. …

Alignment of the Nova laser requires control of hundreds of optical components in the ten beam paths. Extensive application of computer technology makes daily alignment practical. The control system is designed in a manner which provides both centralized and local manual operator controls integrated with automatic closed loop alignment. Menudriven operator consoles using high resolution color graphics displays overlaid with transport touch panels allow laser personnel to interact efficiently with the computer system. Automatic alignment is accomplished by using image analysis techniques to determine beam references points from video images acquired along the laser chain. A major goal of the design is to contribute substantially to rapid experimental turnaround and consistent alignment results. This paper describes the computer-based control structure and the software methods developed for aligning this large laser system.

Practical, sensitive, and effective human cellular assays for detecting somatic and germinal mutations would have great value in environmental mutagenesis and carcinogenesis studies. Such assays would fill the void between human mutagenicity and the data that exist from short-term tests and from mutagenicity in other species. This paper discusses the following possible human cellular assays: (1) HPRT (hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase) somatic cell mutation based on 6-thioguanine resistance; (2) hemoglobin somatic cell mutation assay; (3) glycophorin somatic cell mutation assay; and (4) LDH-X sperm cell mutation assay. 18 references.

We have derived absolute dipole strength-function information for /sup 176/Lu from an average resonance capture study of /sup 175/Lu with 2-keV neutrons, and from neutron capture cross-section measurements with neutrons from 30 keV to about 1 MeV. We found that we needed to increase our previous estimate of the relative M1/E1 strengths near 5 MeV by a factor of 3, and to revise downward the absolute magnitude of our E1 strength function. We accomplished the latter, while still maintaining continuity with the photonuclear data, by adjusting the one free parameter in our line shape. The present E1 and M1 strengths now seem correct both near the neutron separation energy and also around 1 MeV.

We have calculated isomer ratios for the /sup 175/Lu(n,..gamma..), /sup 175/Lu(n,2n), /sup 237/Np(n,2n), /sup 241/Am(n,..gamma..), and /sup 243/Am(n,..gamma..) reactions using modeled level structures in the deformed, odd-odd product nuclei. We find: that the hundreds of discrete levels and their gamma-ray branching ratios provided by the modeling are necessary to achieve agreement with experiment, that many rotational bands must be included in order to obtain a sufficiently representative selection of K quantum numbers, and that the levels of each band must be extended to appropriately high values of angular momentum. 8 references.

The source of the Earth-orbit-crossing asteroids has been much debated. (This class of asteroidal bodies includes the Apollo, Aten, and some Amor objects, each with its own orbital characteristics; we shall use the term Apollo objects to mean all Earth-crossers.) It is difficult to find a mechanism which would create new Apollo objects at a sufficient rate to balance the loss due to collision with planets and ejection from the solar system, and thus explain the estimated steady-state number. A likely source is the main asteroid belt, since it has similar photometric characteristics. There are gaps in the main belt which correspond to orbits resonant with the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and it has been shown that the resonances can perturb a body into an Earth-crossing orbit. Apollo objects could thus be generated when random collisions between asteroids in the main belt sent fragments into these resonant orbits. Calculations of the creation rate from these random collisions, however, yielcl numbers too low by a factor of four. This rate could be significantly lower given the uncertainty in the efficiency of the resonance mechanism. As an alternative, it was suggested that the evaporation of a comet's volatile mantle as it …

We have demonstrated that thin (10 to 25 ..mu..m diameter) capillaries can be fabricated in suitably configured insulators for use in pulse power machines. Large currents can be used to heat these capillaries which produce photons with an energies greater than 1 keV.