This paper describes the status of the stadium-sized National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest laser system and first operational multi-megajoule laser. The 192-beam NIF, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), is 96% complete and scheduled for completion in March 2009. The NIF laser will produce nanosecond laser pulses with energies up to approximately 4 MJ in the infrared (laser wavelength = 1.053-{micro}m) and 2MJ in the ultraviolet (laser wavelength = 0.35-{micro}m). With these energies NIF will access conditions of pressure and temperature not previously available on earth, allowing it to conduct experiments in support of the nation's national security, energy, and fundamental science goals. First ignition experiments at NIF are scheduled for FY2010. This paper will provide an overview of the NIF laser and the ignition, energy, and fundamental science activities at NIF.

We have studied the evolution of the structural properties as well as the static and dynamic spin correlations of spin ice Ho2Ti2O7, where Ho was partially replaced by non-magnetic La. The crystal structure of diluted samples Ho2-xLaxTi2O7 was characterized by x-ray and neutron diffraction and by Ho L-III-edge and Ti K-edge extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements. It is found that the pyrochlore structure remains intact until about x = 0.3, but a systematic increase in local disorder with increasing La concentration is observed in the EXAFS data, especially from the Ti K edge.Quasi-elastic neutron scattering and ac susceptibility measurements show that, in x<= 0.4 samples at temperatures above macroscopic freezing, the spin -spin correlations are short ranged and dynamic in nature. The main difference with pure spin ice in the dynamics is the appearance of a second, faster, relaxation process.

Scoping stress corrosion cracking (SCC) tests of 304 stainless steel (SS) were performed in 75 C and 250 C aerated pressurized water (APW) and 250 C deaerated pressurized water (DPW). The 250 C APW environment was used to initiate intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) and then the water was deaerated and hydrogenated to see if IGSCC continued in 250 C DPW. Tests were performed with and without 200 ppb SO{sub 4}{sup =}. The 304 SS test materials were evaluated in either the as-received, heavily sensitized (649 C for 1 h), fully sensitized (1099 C for 1 h/water quench/621 C for 17 h) or 20% cold rolled condition. At the beginning of each test sequence, specimens were subjected to continuous cycling with a 500s rise/500s fall or a 5000s rise/500s fall to promote the transition from a transgranular (TG) precrack to an IG crack. After generating a uniform crack under continuous cycling conditions, a trapezoidal waveform with 500s rise/9000s hold/500s fall was used to characterize the SCC behavior. Crack growth rates (CGRs) were monitored continuously with the electric potential drop (EPD) method and were corrected based on physical crack length measurements obtained when specimens were destructively evaluated. Continuous cycling with a …

We examined the dose-response relationship between changes in reported vigorous exercise (running distance, {Delta}km/wk) and self-reported physician diagnosed diabetes in 25,988 men followed prospectively for (mean {+-} SD) 7.8 {+-} 1.8 years. Logistic regression analyses showed that the log odds for diabetes declined significantly in relation to men's {Delta}km/wk (coefficient {+-} SE: -0.012 {+-} 0.004, P < 0.01), which remained significant when adjusted for BMI (-0.018 {+-} 0.003, P < 0.0001). The decline in the log odds for diabetes was related to the distance run at the end of follow-up when adjusted for baseline distance, with (-0.024 {+-} 0.005, P < 0.0001) or without (-0.027 {+-} 0.005, P < 0.0001) adjustment for BMI. Baseline distance was unrelated to diabetes incidence when adjusted for the distance at the end of follow-up. Compared to men who ran <8 km/wk at the end of follow-up, incidence rates in those who ran {ge} 8 km/wk were 95% lower between 35-44 yrs old (P < 0.0001), 92% lower between 45-54 yrs old (P < 0.0001), 87% lower between 55 and 64 years old (P < 0.0001), and 46% lower between 65-75 yrs old (P = 0.30). For the subset of 6,208 men who maintained the …

The Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) is the United States’ response organization for radiological emergencies. The FRMAC is structured as an operations center and employs the combined resources of several federal agencies to respond to any disaster resulting in the release of radioactivity. The mission of the FRMAC is to support state and local authorities in the gathering of environmental data using an array of survey equipment ranging from alpha probes, beta/gamma probes, and high-purity germanium (HPGe) spectroscopy to the gathering of physical samples. Once collected, the data are projected on maps to assist public officials make protective action decisions. In addition to the accumulation of data, it is the legal obligation of the FRMAC to keep archival records of all data points and their actions. During an event, it is conceivable that hundreds to thousands of sample points will be recorded over a relatively short time. It is in the interest of the federal government and public that the information collected be put to the best use as fast as possible. Toward this end, the Remote Sensing Laboratory, working under the direction of the United States Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, is investigating the use …

Recently a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Consequence Management Response Team took part in outreaches and an exercise in different foreign countries. In Brazil and South Korea, the outreaches revolved around a nuclear power plant exercise. In Canada, participation was limited to a table top Consequence Management exercise. This talk will briefly discuss each event and resulting pertinent observations. In each case, it became evident that governments respond to disasters very differently, and that these differences are not only culturally based, but also influenced by each government’s respective experience in dealing with natural disasters.

Large fuel casks present challenges when evaluating their performance in the Hypothetical Accident Conditions (HAC) specified in the Code of Federal Regulations Title 10 part 71 (10CFR71). Testing is often limited by cost, difficulty in preparing test units and the limited availability of facilities which can carry out such tests. In the past, many casks were evaluated without testing by using simplified analytical methods. This paper presents a numerical technique for evaluating the dynamic responses of large fuel casks subjected to sequential HAC loading. A nonlinear dynamic analysis was performed for a Hanford Unirradiated Fuel Package (HUFP) [1] to evaluate the cumulative damage after the hypothetical accident Conditions of a 30-foot lateral drop followed by a 40-inch lateral puncture as specified in 10CFR71. The structural integrity of the containment vessel is justified based on the analytical results in comparison with the stress criteria, specified in the ASME Code, Section III, Appendix F [2], for Level D service loads. The analyzed cumulative damages caused by the sequential loading of a 30-foot lateral drop and a 40-inch lateral puncture are compared with the package test data. The analytical results are in good agreement with the test results.

Recent results from investigations using insertable magnetic probes at the Sustained Spheromak Physics Experiment (SSPX) [E. B. Hooper et al., Nucl. Fusion 39, 863 (1999)] are presented. Experiments were carried out during pre-programmed, constant amplitude coaxial gun current pulses, where magnetic field increases stepwise with every pulse, but eventually saturates. Magnetic traces from the probe, which is electrically isolated from the plasma and spans the flux conserver radius, indicate there is a time lag at every pulse between the response to the current rise in the open flux surfaces (intercepting the electrodes) and the closed flux surfaces (linked around the open ones). This is interpreted as the time to buildup enough helicity in the open flux surfaces before reconnecting and merging with the closed ones. Future experimental and diagnostic plans to directly estimate the helicity in the open flux surfaces and measure reconnection are briefly discussed.

The exchange of solute mass (through molecular diffusion) between fluid in fractures and fluid in the rock matrix is called matrix diffusion. Owing to the orders-of-magnitude slower flow velocity in the matrix compared to fractures, matrix diffusion can significantly retard solute transport in fractured rock, and therefore is an important process for a variety of problems, including remediation of subsurface contamination and geological disposal of nuclear waste. The effective matrix diffusion coefficient (molecular diffusion coefficient in free water multiplied by matrix tortuosity) is an important parameter for describing matrix diffusion, and in many cases largely determines overall solute transport behavior. While matrix diffusion coefficient values measured from small rock samples in the laboratory are generally used for modeling field-scale solute transport in fractured rock (Boving and Grathwohl, 2001), several research groups recently have independently found that effective matrix diffusion coefficients much larger than laboratory measurements are needed to match field-scale tracer-test data (Neretnieks, 2002; Becker and Shapiro, 2000; Shapiro, 2001; Liu et al., 2003, 2004a). In addition to the observed enhancement, Liu et al. (2004b), based on a relatively small number of field-test results, reported that the effective matrix diffusion coefficient might be scale dependent, and, like permeability and dispersivity, …

A total system performance assessment (TSPA) model has been developed to analyze the ability of the natural and engineered barriers of the Yucca Mountain repository to isolate nuclear waste over the 10,000-year period following repository closure. The principal features of the engineered barrier system (EBS) are emplacement tunnels (or ''drifts'') containing a two-layer waste package (WP) for waste containment and a titanium drip shield to protect the waste package from seeping water and falling rock, The 20-mm-thick outer shell of the WP is composed of Alloy 22, a highly corrosion-resistant nickel-based alloy. The barrier function of the EBS is to isolate the waste from migrating water. The water and its associated chemical conditions eventually lead to degradation of the waste packages and mobilization of the radionuclides within the packages. There are five possible waste package degradation modes of the Alloy 22: general corrosion, microbially influenced corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, early failure due to manufacturing defects, and localized corrosion. This paper specifically examines the incorporation of the Alloy-22 localized corrosion model into the Yucca Mountain TSPA model, particularly the abstraction and modeling methodology, as well as issues dealing with scaling, spatial variability, uncertainty, and coupling to other sub-models that are part …

Ground was broken for the National Ignition Facility, a stadium-sized complex, in 1997. When complete, the project will contain a 192-beam, 1.8-megajoule, 500-terawatt laser system adjoining a 10-meter-diameter target chamber with room for nearly 100 experimental diagnostics. NIF's beams will compress and heat small capsules containing a mixture of hydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium. These targets will undergo nuclear fusion, producing more energy than the energy in the laser pulse and achieving scientific breakeven. NIF experiments will allow scientists to study physical processes at temperatures approaching 100 million degrees Kelvin and 100 billion times atmospheric pressure--conditions that exist naturally only in the interior of stars and in nuclear weapon detonations.

We show that the QCD color transparency of higher-twist contributions to inclusive hadroproduction cross sections, where baryons are produced directly in a short distance subprocess, can explain several remarkable features of high-p{sub T} baryon production in heavy ion collisions which have recently been observed at RHIC: (a) the anomalous increase of the proton-to-pion ratio with centrality (b): the increased power-law fall-off at fixed x{sub T} = 2p{sub T}/{radical}s of the charged particle production cross section in high centrality nuclear collisions, and (c): the anomalous decrease of the number of same-side hadrons produced in association with a proton trigger as the centrality increases. We show that correlations between opposite-side hyperons and kaons can provide a clear signature of higher-twist contributions. These phenomena emphasize the importance of understanding hadronization at the amplitude level in QCD illustrate how heavy ion collisions can provide sensitive tools for interpreting and testing fundamental properties of QCD.

The photochemical disproportionation mechanism of [CpW(CO){sub 3}]{sub 2} in the presence of Lewis bases PR{sub 3} was investigated on the nano- and microsecond time-scales with Step-Scan FTIR time-resolved infrared spectroscopy. 532 nm laser excitation was used to homolytically cleave the W-W bond, forming the 17-electron radicals CpW(CO){sub 3} and initiating the reaction. With the Lewis base PPh{sub 3}, disproportionation to form the ionic products CpW(CO){sub 3}PPh{sub 3}{sup +} and CpW(CO){sub 3}{sup -} was directly monitored on the microsecond time-scale. Detailed examination of the kinetics and concentration dependence of this reaction indicates that disproportionation proceeds by electron transfer from the 19-electron species CpW(CO){sub 3}PPh{sub 3} to the 17-electron species CpW(CO){sub 3}. This result is contrary to the currently accepted disproportionation mechanism which predicts electron transfer from the 19-electron species to the dimer [CpW(CO){sub 3}]{sub 2}. With the Lewis base P(OMe){sub 3} on the other hand, ligand substitution to form the product [CpW(CO){sub 2}P(OMe){sub 3}]{sub 2} is the primary reaction on the microsecond time-scale. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations support the experimental results and suggest that the differences in the reactivity between P(OMe){sub 3} and PPh{sub 3} are due to steric effects. The results indicate that radical-to-radical electron transfer is a previously …

To investigate the extent of genetic stratification in structured microbial communities, we compared the metagenomes of 10 successive layers of a phylogenetically complex hypersaline mat from Guerrero Negro, Mexico. We found pronounced millimeter-scale genetic gradients that are consistent with the physicochemical profile of the mat. Despite these gradients, all layers displayed near identical and acid-shifted isoelectric point profiles due to a molecular convergence of amino acid usage indicating that hypersalinity enforces an overriding selective pressure on the mat community.

We present our on-going work to develop techniques for specifying source code signatures of bug patterns. Specifically, we discuss two approaches. The first approach directly analyzes a program in the intermediate representation (IR) of the ROSE compiler infrastructure using ROSE's API. The second analyzes the program using the bddbddb system of Lam, Whaley, et al.. In this approach, we store the IR produced by ROSE as a relational database, express patterns as declarative inference rules on relations in the language Datalog, and bddbddb implements the Datalog programs using binary decision diagram (BDD) techniques. Both approaches readily apply to large-scale applications, since ROSE provides full type analysis, control flow, and other available analysis information. In this paper, we primarily consider bug patterns expressed with respect to the structure of the source code or the control flow, or both. More complex techniques to specify patterns that are functions of data flow properties may be addressed by either of the above approaches, but are not directly treated here. Our Datalog-based work includes explicit support for expressing patterns on the use of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) in parallel distributed memory programs. We show examples of this on-going work as well.

Functional rotaxanes are one of the representative nanoscale molecular machines that have found applications in many areas, including molecular electronics, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), photo controllable smart surfaces, and nanovalves. With the advent of molecular recognition and self-assembly, such molecular compounds can now be obtained efficiently through template-directed synthesis. One of the common strategies of making [2]rotaxanes involves the clipping of a macrocycle around a preformed dumbbell-shaped template in a [1+1] or [2+2] manner. While early examples were based on irreversible kinetic pathway through covalent bond formation, recent advances on reversible dynamic covalent chemistry (DCC) has attracted great attention to this field. By virtue of thermodynamically controlled equilibria, DCC has provided highly efficient and versatile synthetic routes in the selection of specific products from a complex system. Among the several reversible reactions in the category of DCC reactions, the imine formation has proven to be very versatile in macrocyclization to give complex interlocked molecular compounds. Cryptands are three dimensional bicyclic hosts with preorganized cavities capable of inclusion of ions and small molecules. Replacing the nitrogen bridgeheads in common cryptands with aromatic ring systems gives cyclophane-based macrobicycles. The introduction of aromatic ring systems into a preorganized cage-like geometry facilitates ion-{pi} interactions and …

The radiological consequence of interest for a documented safety analysis (DSA) is the centerline Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE) incurred by the Maximally Exposed Offsite Individual (MOI) evaluated at the 95th percentile consequence level. An upgraded version of HotSpot (Version 2.07) has been developed with the capabilities to read site meteorological data and perform the necessary statistical calculations to determine the 95th percentile consequence result. These capabilities should allow HotSpot to join MACCS2 (Version 1.13.1) and GENII (Version 1.485) as radiological consequence toolbox codes in the Department of Energy (DOE) Safety Software Central Registry. Using the same meteorological data file, scenarios involving a one curie release of {sup 239}Pu were modeled in both HotSpot and MACCS2. Several sets of release conditions were modeled, and the results compared. In each case, input parameter specifications for each code were chosen to match one another as much as the codes would allow. The results from the two codes are in excellent agreement. Slight differences observed in results are explained by algorithm differences.

Excellent phase stability of the drive laser is a critical performance specification of photoinjectors such as Fermilab's A0 photoinjector (A0PI). Previous efforts based on the measurement of the power spectrum of the signal of a fast photodiode illuminated by the mode locked infrared laser pulse component indicated a phase jitter of less than 1.4 ps (technique limited). A recently procured dual sweep plugin unit and existing Hamamatsu C5680 streak camera were used to study the phase stability of the UV laser pulse component. Initial measurements with the synchroscan vertical sweep unit locked to 81.25 MHz showed that the phase slew through the micropulse train and the phase jitter micropulse to micropulse were two key aspects that could be evaluated. The phase slew was much less than 100 fs per micropulse, and the total phase jitter (camera, trigger, and laser) was approximately 300 fs RMS for measurements of 50-micropulse trains. Data on the macropulse phase stability were also obtained. A possible upgrade to achieve better phase stability will be also discussed.

We present significant results in recent advances in the determination of neutron energy. Neutron energy measurements are a small but very significant part of radiological emergency response applications. Mission critical information can be obtained by analyzing the neutron energy given off from radioactive materials. In the case of searching for special nuclear materials, neutron energy information from an unknown source can be of paramount importance.

Longitudinally compressed ion beam pulses are currently employed in ion-beam based warm dense matter studies [1]. Compression arises from an imposed time-dependent longitudinal velocity ramp followed by drift in a neutralized channel. Chromatic aberrations in the final focusing system arising from this chirp increase the attainable beam spot and reduce the effective fluence on target. We report recent work on fast correction optics that remove the time-dependent beam envelope divergence and minimizes the beam spot on target. We present models of the optical element design and predicted ion beam fluence.

The Advanced Photoinjector Experiment (APEX) seeks to validate the design of a proposed high-brightness, normal conducting RF photoinjector gun and bunching cavity feeding a superconducting RF linac to produce nC-scale electron bunches with sub-micron normalized emittances at MHz-scale repetition rates. The beamline design seeks to optimize the slice averaged 6D brightness of the beam prior to injection into a high gradient linac for further manipulation and delivery to an FEL undulator. Details of the proposed beamline layout and electron beam dynamics studies are presented.

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Static batch experiments were used to examine the sorption of dissolved perrhenate [Re(VII)], as a surrogate for pertechnetate [Tc(VII)], on corrosion products of A-516 carbon steel coupons contacted with synthetic groundwater or dilute water. After 109 days of contact time, the concentration of dissolved Re(VII) in the synthetic groundwater matrix decreased by approximately 26%; the dilute water matrix experienced a 99% decrease in dissolved Re(VII) over the same time period. Bulk XRD results for the corroded steel coupons showed that the corrosion products consisted primarily of maghemite, lepidocrocite, and goethite. Analyses of the coupons by SEM/EDS indicated that Re was present with the morphologically complex assemblages of Fe oxide/hydroxide corrosion products for samples spiked with the highest dissolved Re(VII) concentration (1.0 mmol/L) used for these experiments. Analyses of corroded steel coupons contacted with solutions containing 1.0 mmol/L Re(VII) by synchrotron-based methods confirmed the presence of Re sorbed with the corrosion product on the steel coupons. Analyses showed that the Re sorbed on these corroded coupons was in the +7 oxidation state, suggesting that the Re(VII) uptake mechanism did not involve reduction of Re to a lower oxidation state, such as +4. The results of our studies using Re(VII) as an …