During the summer 2000, I was given the opportunity to work for about three months as a technical trainee at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, or LLNL as I will refer to it hereafter. University of California runs this Department of Energy laboratory, which is located 70 km east of San Francisco, in the small city of Livermore. This master thesis in Radioecology is based on the work I did here. LLNL, as a second U.S.-facility for development of nuclear weapons, was built in Livermore in the beginning of the 1950's (Los Alamos in New Mexico was the other one). It has since then also become a 'science center' for a number of areas like magnetic and laser fusion energy, non-nuclear energy, biomedicine, and environmental science. The Laboratory's mission has changed over the years to meet new national needs. The following two statements were found on the homepage of LLNL (http://www.llnl.gov), at 2001-03-05, where also information about the laboratory and the scientific projects that takes place there, can be found. 'Our primary mission is to ensure that the nation's nuclear weapons remain safe, secure, and reliable and to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons worldwide'. 'Our goal is to …

The Adaptive Landscape Classification Procedure (ALCP), which links the advanced geospatial analysis capabilities of Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and particularly Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs), is proposed as a method for establishing and reducing complex data relationships. Its adaptive and evolutionary capability is evaluated for situations where varying types of data can be combined to address different prediction and/or management needs such as hydrologic response, water quality, aquatic habitat, groundwater recharge, land use, instrumentation placement, and forecast scenarios. The research presented here documents and presents favorable results of a procedure that aims to be a powerful and flexible spatial data classifier that fuses the strengths of geoinformatics and the intelligence of SOMs to provide data patterns and spatial information for environmental managers and researchers. This research shows how evaluation and analysis of spatial and/or temporal patterns in the landscape can provide insight into complex ecological, hydrological, climatic, and other natural and anthropogenic-influenced processes. Certainly, environmental management and research within heterogeneous watersheds provide challenges for consistent evaluation and understanding of system functions. For instance, watersheds over a range of scales are likely to exhibit varying levels of diversity in their characteristics of climate, hydrology, physiography, ecology, and anthropogenic …

In Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), a microcantilever is raster scanned across the surface of a sample in order to obtain a topographical image of the sample's surface. In a traditional, optical AFM, the sample rests on a bulk piezoelectric tube and a control loop is used to control the tip-sample separation by actuating the piezo-tube. This method has several disadvantages--the most noticeable one being that response time of the piezo-tube is rather long which leads to slow imaging speeds. One possible solution aimed at improving the speed of imaging is to incorporate a thin piezoelectric film on top of the cantilever beam. This design not only improves the speed of imaging because the piezoelectric film replaces the piezo-tube as an actuator, but the film can also act as a sensor. In addition, the piezoelectric film can excite the cantilever beam near its resonance frequency. This project aims to fabricate piezoelectric microcantilevers for use in the AFM. Prior to fabricating the cantilevers and also part of this project, a systematic study was performed to examine the effects of deposition conditions on the quality of piezoelectric ZnO thin films deposited by RF sputtering. These results will be presented. The deposition parameters that …

The accurate and efficient simulation of coupled neutron-photon problems is necessary for several important radiation detection applications. Examples include the detection of nuclear threats concealed in cargo containers and prompt gamma neutron activation analysis for nondestructive determination of elemental composition of unknown samples.

The use of boron neutron capture to boost tumor dose in fast neutron therapy has been investigated at several fast neutron therapy centers worldwide. This treatment is termed boron neutron capture enhanced fast neutron therapy (BNCEFNT). It is a combination of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) and fast neutron therapy (FNT). It is believed that BNCEFNT may be useful in the treatment of some radioresistant brain tumors, such as glioblastoma multiform (GBM). A boron neutron capture enhanced fast neutron therapy assembly has been designed for the Fermilab Neutron Therapy Facility (NTF). This assembly uses a tungsten filter and collimator near the patient's head, with a graphite reflector surrounding the head to significantly increase the dose due to boron neutron capture reactions. The assembly was designed using Monte Carlo radiation transport code MCNP version 5 for a standard 20x20 cm{sup 2} treatment beam. The calculated boron dose enhancement at 5.7-cm depth in a water-filled head phantom in the assembly with a 5x5 cm{sup 2} collimation was 21.9% per 100-ppm {sup 10}B for a 5.0-cm tungsten filter and 29.8% for a 8.5-cm tungsten filter. The corresponding dose rate for the 5.0-cm and 8.5-cm thick filters were 0.221 and 0.127 Gy/min, respectively; about …

The consideration of compliant mechanisms as Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) is the focus of this research endeavor. MEMS are micron to millimeter devices that combine electrical, mechanical, and information processing capabilities on the same device. These MEMS need some mechanical motion or parts that move relative to each other. This relative motion, using multiple parts, is not desired because of the assembly requirement and the friction introduced. Compliant devices limits or eliminates friction and the need for multi-component assembly. Compliant devices improve designs by creating single piece mechanisms. The purpose of this research is to validate surface micromachining as a viable fabrication process for compliant MEMS designs. Specifically, this research has sought to fabricate a micro-compliant gripper and a micro-compliant clamp to illustrate the process. While other researchers have created compliant MEMS, most have used comb-drive actuation methods and bulk micromachining processes. This research focuses on fully-compliant devices that use device flexibility for motion and actuation. Validation of these compliant MEMS is achieved by structural optimization of device design and functional performance testing. This research contributes to the ongoing research in MEMS by evaluating the potential of using surface micromachining as a process for fabricating compliant micro-mechanisms.

The Fermilab Tevatron is currently the world's highest energy colliding beam facility. Its counter-rotating proton and antiproton beams collide at 2 TeV center-of-mass. Delivery of such intense beam fluxes to experiments has required improved knowledge of the Tevatron's beam optical lattice. An oscillating dipole magnet, referred to as an AC dipole, is one of such a tool to non-destructively assess the optical properties of the synchrotron. We discusses development of an AC dipole system for the Tevatron, a fast-oscillating (f {approx} 20 kHz) dipole magnet which can be adiabatically turned on and off to establish sustained coherent oscillations of the beam particles without affecting the transverse emittance. By utilizing an existing magnet and a higher power audio amplifier, the cost of the Tevatron AC dipole system became relatively inexpensive. We discuss corrections which must be applied to the driven oscillation measurements to obtain the proper interpretation of beam optical parameters from AC dipole studies. After successful operations of the Tevatron AC dipole system, AC dipole systems, similar to that in the Tevatron, will be build for the CERN LHC. We present several measurements of linear optical parameters (beta function and phase advance) for the Tevatron, as well as studies of …

Both academia and industry alike have paid close attention to the mechanisms of microstructural selection during the solidification process. The forces that give rise to and the principles which rule the natural selection of particular morphologies are important to understanding and controlling new microstructures. Interfacial properties play a very crucial role to the selection of such microstructure formation. In the solidification of a metallic alloy, the solid-liquid interface is highly mobile and responds to very minute changes in the local conditions. At this interface, the driving force must be large enough to drive solute diffusion, maintain local curvature, and overcome the kinetic barrier to move the interface. Therefore, the anisotropy of interfacial free energy with respect to crystallographic orientation is has a significant influence on the solidification of metallic systems. Although it is generally accepted that the solid-liquid interfacial free energy and its associated anisotropy are highly important to the overall selection of morphology, the confident measurement of these particular quantities remains a challenge, and reported values are scarce. Methods for measurement of the interfacial free energy include nucleation experiments and grain boundary groove experiments. The predominant method used to determine anisotropy of interfacial energy has been equilibrium shape measurement. …

A direct measurement of the W boson total decay width is presented in proton-antiproton collisions at √s = 1.96 TeV using data collected by the CDF II detector. The measurement is made by fitting a simulated signal to the tail of the transverse mass distribution in the electron and muon decay channels. An integrated luminosity of 350 pb^-1 is used, collected between February 2002 and August 2004. Combining the results from the separate decay channels gives the decay width as 2.038 ± 0.072 GeV in agreement with the theoretical prediction of 2.093 ± 0.002 GeV. A system is presented for the management of detector calibrations using a relational database schema. A description of the implementation and monitoring of a procedure to provide general users with a simple interface to the complete set of calibrations is also given.

We discuss two examples of duality. The first arises in the context of toroidal compactification of the discrete light cone quantization of M-theory. In the presence of nontrivial moduli coming from the M-theory three form, it has been conjectured that the system is described by supersymmetric Yang-Mills gauge theory on a noncommutative torus. We are able to provide evidence for this conjecture, by showing that the dualities of this M-theory compactification, which correspond to T-duality in Type IIA string theory, are also dualities of the noncommutative supersymmetric Yang-Mills description. One can also consider this as evidence for the accuracy of the Matrix Theory description of M-theory in this background. The second type of duality is the self-duality of theories with U(1) gauge fields. After discussing the general theory of duality invariance for theories with complex gauge fields, we are able to find a generalization of the well known U(1) Born-Infeld theory that contains any number of gauge fields and which is invariant under the maximal duality group. We then find a supersymmetric extension of our results, and also show that our results can be extended to find Born-Infeld type actions in any even dimensional spacetime.

This thesis presents a measurement of the cross-section of the purely electromagnetic production of e{sup +}e{sup -} pairs accompanied by mutual nuclear Coulomb excitation AuAu {yields} Au*Au* + e{sup +}e{sup -}, in ultra-peripheral gold-gold collisions at RHIC at the center-of-mass collision energy of {radical}S{sub NN} = 200 GeV per nucleon. These reactions were selected by detecting neutron emission by the excited gold ions in the Zero Degree Calorimeters. The charged tracks in the e{sup +}e{sup -} events were reconstructed with the STAR Time Projection Chamber. The detector acceptance limits the kinematical range of the observed e{sup +}e{sup -} pairs; therefore the measured cross-section is extrapolated to 4{pi} with the use of Monte Carlo simulations. We have developed a Monte Carlo simulation for ultra-peripheral e{sup +}e{sup -} production at RHIC based on the Equivalent Photon Approximation, the lowest-order QED e{sup +}e{sup -} production cross-section by two real photons and the assumption that the mutual nuclear excitations and the e{sup +}e{sup -} production are independent (EPA model). We compare our experimental results to two models: the EPA model and a model based on full QED calculation of the e{sup +}e{sup -} production, taking the photon virtuality into account. The measured differential cross-section …

In Part I, three independent models of Fermilab's Booster synchrotron are presented. All three models are constructed to investigate and explore the effects of unavoidable machine errors on a proton beam under the influence of space-charge effects. The first is a stochastic noise model. Electric current fluctuations arising from power supplies are ubiquitous and unavoidable and are a source of instabilities in accelerators of all types. A new noise module for generating the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (O-U) stochastic noise is first created and incorporated into the existing Object-oriented Ring Beam Injection and Tracking (ORBIT-FNAL) package. After being convinced with a preliminary model that the noise, particularly non-white noise, does matter to beam quality, we proceeded to measure directly current ripples and common-mode voltages from all four Gradient Magnet Power Supplies (GMPS). Then, the current signals are Fourier-analyzed. Based upon the power spectra of current signals, we tune up the Ornstein-Uhlnbeck noise model. As a result, we are able to closely match the frequency spectra between current measurements and the modeled O-U stochastic noise. The stochastic noise modeled upon measurements is applied to the Booster beam in the presence of the full space-charge effects. This noise model, accompanied by a suite of beam …

We present results of a search for single top quark production in p{bar p} collisions using a dataset of approximately 1 fb{sup -1} collected with the D0 detector. This analysis considers the muon+jets and electron+jets final states and makes use of Bayesian neural networks to separate the expected signals from backgrounds. The observed excess is associated with a p-value of 0.081%, assuming the background-only hypothesis, which corresponds to an excess over background of 3.2 standard deviations for a Gaussian density. The p-value computed using the SM signal cross section of 2.9 pb is 1.6%, corresponding to an expected significance of 2.2 standard deviations. Assuming the observed excess is due to single top production, we measure a single top quark production cross section of {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} tb + X, tqb + X) = 4.4 {+-} 1.5 pb.

The present work was initially motivated by the desire to continue the study of complex metamagnetism in relation to the crystal structure of various compounds; this study already included tetragonal compounds like HoNi{sub 2}B{sub 2}C (Canfield 1997b; Kalatsky 1998) and DyAgSb{sub 2} (Myers 1999), in which the rare earths occupy unique tetragonal positions. We intended to find hexagonal systems suited for such a study, with complex metamagnetic properties, and the search for extremely anisotropic hexagonal compounds turned into a rewarding exploration. We identified and grew most of the heavy rare earth members of two isostructural series, RAgGe and RPtIn, both belonging to the hexagonal Fe{sub 2}P family of materials. In each of these series we found one compound, TmAgGe, and TbPtIn respectively, that was suitable for a simple study of angular dependent metamagnetism: they had three rare earth ions in the unit cell, positioned at a unique crystallographic site with orthorhombic point symmetry. The magnetization of both TmAgGe and TbPtIn was extremely anisotropic, with larger values for the in-plane orientation of the applied field than in the axial direction. Complex metamagnetic transitions existed for field within the ab-plane, and, similar to the case of the tetragonal compounds RNi{sub 2}B{sub 2}C …

We report on two searches performed at the D0 detector at the Fermi National Laboratory. The first is a search for Z di-boson production with a theoretical cross section of 1.4 pb. The search was performed on 2.6 fb{sup -1} of data and contributed to the first observation of ZZ production at a hadron collider. The second is a search for a low mass Standard Model Higgs in 4.2 fb{sup -1} of data. The Higgs boson is produced in association with a Z boson where the Higgs decays hadronically and the Z decays to two leptons. The ZZ search was performed in both the di-electron and di-muon channels. For the ZH search, we will focus on the muonic decays where we expanded the traditional coverage by considering events in which one of the two muons fails the selection requirement, and is instead reconstructed as an isolated track. We consider Higgs masses between 100 and 150 GeV, with theoretical cross sections ranging from 0.17 to 0.042 pb, and set upper limits on the ZH production cross-section at 95% confidence level.

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Jefferson Lab experiment E89009 is the first experiment to study hypernuclear spectroscopy by (e,e' K{sup +}) reaction. The 12 / LambdaB spectrum was observed from carbon target with the best energy resolution ever achieved from direct measurement of hypernuclear spectrum. The comparisons of the 12 / LambdaB spectrum with theoretical predictions were provided in terms of excitation strength and level separations. The overall excitation is in accord with theoretical calculations. The binding energies of p-shell and s-shell Lambda states were extracted. The photo-production cross section of the 12 / LambdaB ground state was also extracted. The experiment is also the pioneer in detecting scattered electrons at near zero degrees. The benefit and lessons learned from this method was also discussed.

Hypernuclei, with one nucleon converted into a hyperon and coupled back to the residual nuclear core, provide a new probe to study the hyperon-nucleon interaction and an additional strangeness degree of freedom to test the limit of our conventional nuclear models in solving the many body system. The First Lambda electroproduction experiment E89009(HNSS) at JLAB focusing on the Lambda hypernuclear spectroscopy in p-shell achieved the best resolution( FWHM: 500-600 keV) ever reached in this field. The unnatural parity (spin-flip) states were observed for the first time on the 12 / Lambda B missing mass spectrum. The detailed hypernuclear structure of 9 / Lambda Be produced through (k{sup -}, pi{sup -}) reaction in BNL-AGS, was studied with the hypernuclear gamma-ray spectroscopy by using a large acceptance germanium detector (Hyperball) in experiment E-930.

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This thesis is concerned with both the application and the extension of quantum chemical methods. Each chapter of the thesis represents a paper that has been published in or will be submitted to a scientific journal. The first three chapters of this thesis describe contributions made to chemistry through the use of quantum chemical methods, while the final two chapters illustrate the development of new methods. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 characterize a study of the electronic structure and magnetic properties of homodinuclear titanium(III) complexes, in order to determine trends related to their potential use as molecular magnets. Chapter 2 focuses on hydride and halide bridging and terminal ligands, while Chapter 3 explores bridging ligands from other groups in the periodic table. Chapter 4 portrays a study of the solvation of glycine. Microsolvation and continuum solvation approaches are investigated in order to study the structures of small glycine-water clusters and determine the energy difference between the zwitterionic and nonionized forms of glycine, the simplest amino acid. Chapters 5 and 6 describe the implementation of analytic gradients, which are required for efficient molecular geometry optimizations, for two open-shell second-order perturbation theory methods. Chapter 5 discusses gradients for unrestricted Moeller-Plesset perturbation theory, …

Alkali metal aluminohydrides have high potential as solid hydrogen storage materials. They have been known for their irreversible dehydrogenation process below 100 atm until Bogdanovic et al [1, 2] succeeded in the re-hydrogenation of NaAlH{sub 4} below 70 atm. They achieved 4 wt.% H{sub 2} reversible capacity by doping NaAlH{sub 4} with Ti and/or Fe organo-metalic compounds as catalysts. This suggests that other alkali and, possibly alkaline earth metal aluminohydrides can be used for reversible hydrogen storage when modified by proper dopants. In this research, Zr{sub 27}Ti{sub 9}Ni{sub 38}V{sub 5}Mn{sub 16}Cr{sub 5}, LaNi{sub 4.85}Sn{sub 0.15}, Al{sub 3}Ti, and PdCl{sub 2} were combined , LaNi4.85Sn0.15, Al3Ti, and PdCl2 were combined with LiAlH{sub 4} by ball-milling to study whether or not LiAlH{sub 4} is capable to both absorb and desorb hydrogen near ambient conditions. X-ray powder diffraction, differential thermal analysis, and scanning electron microscopy were employed for sample characterizations. All four compounds worked as catalysts in the dehydrogenation reactions of both LiAlH{sub 4} and Li{sub 3}AlH{sub 6} by inducing the decomposition at lower temperature. However, none of them was applicable as catalyst in the reverse hydrogenation reaction at low to moderate hydrogen pressure.

The Run II physics program at the Tevatron started in the spring of 2001 with protons and antiprotons colliding at an energy of {radical}s = 1.96 TeV, and is continuing with about 1.2 fb{sup -1} of data currently collected by the CDF and D0 experiments. A measurement of the b-jet cross section as function of jet transverse momentum p{perpendicular} has been performed using 312 pb{sup -1} of D0 data. The results for this measurement were obtained and are presented herein. A neural network algorithm was used to identify b jets.

This thesis presents an indirect measurement of the width of the W boson using data collected at the D0 experiment, a multipurpose particle detector utilizing the Fermilab Tevatron. The W width was determined from the ratio of W {yields} {mu}{nu} to Z {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} cross sections to be {Gamma}{sub W} = 2168 {+-} 22(stat) {+-} 62(syst){sub -16}{sup +24}(pdf) {+-} 4(other) MeV, in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction and other experimental measurements. In addition there is a description of how work made towards this measurement has been used to improve the parameterized detector simulation, a vital tool in the obtention of physics results from signals observed in the detector, and in estimating the uncertainty due to choice of PDF, which is of interest for all measurements made at hadron colliders.

In a cellular array, a range of primary spacing is found to be stable under given growth conditions. Since a strong coupling of solute field exists between the neighboring cells, primary spacing variation should also influence other microstructure features such as cell shape and cell length. The existence of multiple solutions is examined in this study both theoretically as well as experimentally. A theoretical model is developed that identifies and relates four important microstructural lengths, which are found to be primary spacing, tip radius, cell width and cell length. This general microstructural relationship is shown to be valid for different cells in an array as well as for other cellular patterns obtained under different growth conditions. The unique feature of the model is that the microstructure correlation does not depend on composition or growth conditions since these variables scale microstructural lengths to satisfy the relationship obtained in this study. Detailed directional solidification experimental studies have been carried out in the succinonitrile-salol system to characterize and measure these four length scales. Besides the validation of the model, experimental results showed additional scaling laws to be present. In the regime where only a cellular structure is formed, the shape of the cell, …