Direct imaging of extrasolar planets is an important, but challenging, next step in planetary science. Most planets identified to date have been detected indirectly--not by emitted or reflected light but through the effect of the planet on the parent star. For example, radial velocity techniques measure the doppler shift in the spectrum of the star produced by the presence of a planet. Indirect techniques only probe about 15% of the orbital parameter space of our solar system. Direct methods would probe new parameter space, and the detected light can be analyzed spectroscopically, providing new information about detected planets. High contrast adaptive optics systems, also known as Extreme Adaptive Optics (ExAO), will require contrasts of between 10{sup -6} and 10{sup -7} at angles of 4-24 {lambda}/D on an 8-m class telescope to image young Jupiter-like planets still warm with the heat of formation. Contrast is defined as the intensity ratio of the dark wings of the image, where a planet might be, to the bright core of the star. Such instruments will be technically challenging, requiring high order adaptive optics with > 2000 actuators and improved diffraction suppression. Contrast is ultimately limited by residual static wavefront errors, so an extrasolar planet …

Leptoquarks (LQ) are particles with both color and lepton number predicted in some gauge theories and composite models. Current theory suggests that leptoquarks would come in three different generations. We report on a search for charge 1/3 third generation leptoquarks produced in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV using data collected by the D0 detector at Fermilab. Such leptoquarks would decay into a tau-neutrino plus a b-quark with branching fraction B. We present preliminary results on an analysis where both leptoquarks decay into neutrinos giving a final state with missing energy and two b-jets. Using 425(recorded) pb{sup -1} of data, we place limits on {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} LQ{ovr LQ})B{sup 2} as a function of the leptoquark mass. Assuming B = 1, we excluded at the 95% confidence level scalar third generation leptoquarks with M{sub LQ} < 219 GeV.

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Superaustenitic stainless steels constitute a group of Fe-based alloys that are compositionally balanced to have a purely austenitic matrix and exhibit favorable pitting and crevice corrosion resistant properties and mechanical strength. However, intermetallic precipitates such as sigma and Laves can form during casting or exposure to high-temperature processing, which degrade the corrosion and mechanical properties of the material. The goal of this study was to accurately characterize the solid-solid phase transformations seen in cast superaustenitic stainless steels. Heat treatments were performed to understand the time and temperature ranges for intermetallic phase formations in alloys CN3MN and CK3MCuN. Microstructures were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and energy and wavelength dispersive spectroscopy (EDS, WDS). The equilibrium microstructures, composed primarily of sigma and Laves within purely austenitic matrices, showed slow transformation kinetics. Factors that determine the extent of transformation, including diffusion, nucleation, and growth, are discussed.

Technicolor theory (TC) accomplishes the necessary electroweak symmetry breaking responsible for the mass of the elementary particles. TC postulates the existence of a new SU(N{sub TC}) gauge theory. Like QCD the exchange of gauge bosons causes the existence of a non-vanishing chiral condensate which dynamically breaks the SU(N{sub TC}){sub L} x SU(N{sub TC}){sub R} symmetry. This gives rise to N{sub TC}{sup 2}-1 Nambu-Goldstone Bosons. Three of these Goldstone Bosons become the longitudinal components of the W{sup {+-}} and Z which therefore acquire mass; the remaining ones are new particles (technihadrons) that can be produced at the high energy colliders and detected. The Technicolor Straw Man Model (TCSM) is a version of the dynamical symmetry breaking with a large number of technifermions and a relative low value of their masses. One of the processes predicted by the TCSM is q{bar q} {yields} V{sub T} {yields} W{pi}{sub T}, where V{sub T} is the Technicolor equivalent of the QCD vector meson and {pi}{sub T} is the equivalent of the pion. W is the electroweak gauge boson of the Standard Model. This dissertation describes the search for W{pi}{sub T} with the D0 detector, a multi-purpose particle detector located at one of the collision points …

This analysis describes a search for a standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a Z boson through the decay mode ZH {yields} e{sup +}e{sup -}b{bar b} in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The data sample used in this analysis corresponds to 452 pb{sup -1} of integrated luminosity accumulated with the D{null} detector. Agreement between data and standard model predictions is observed. A 95% confidence level upper exclusion limit for the {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} ZH) x BR(H {yields} b{bar b}) channel is set between 3.2-8.2 pb for Higgs masses of 105 to 145 GeV.

A search for neutral supersymmetric Higgs bosons and work relating to the improvement of the b-tagging and trigger capabilities at the D0 detector during Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron collider is presented. The search for evidence of the Higgs sector in the Standard Model (SM) and supersymmetric extensions of the SM are a high priority for the D0 collaboration, and b-tagging and good triggers are a vital component of these searches. The development and commissioning of the first triggers at D0 which use b-tagging is outlined, along with the development of a new secondary vertex b-tagging tool for use in the Level 3 trigger. Upgrades to the Level 3 trigger hit finding code, which have led to significant improvements in the quality and efficiency of the tracking code, and by extension the b-tagging tools, are also presented. An offline Neural Network (NN) b-tagging tool was developed, trained on Monte Carlo and extensively tested and measured on data. The new b-tagging tool significantly improves the b-tagging performance at D0, for a fixed fake rate relative improvements in signal efficiency range from {approx} 40% to {approx} 15%. Fake rates, for a fixed signal efficiency, are typically reduced to between a quarter …

The authors present a search for single top quarks produced in the s-channel electroweak production mode. The search is performed in the electron+jets decay channels, with one or more secondary-vertex tagged jets to indicate the presence of a b-jet and hence improving the signal:background ratio. Separation between signal and background is further enhanced by the use of Feed Forward Neural networks. 360 pb{sup -1} of Run II data used for this analysis was delivered by the Tevatron, and collected by D0 between August 2002 and August 2004. The resulting 95% confidence level upper limit is 4 pb.

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I present time-varying Reeb graphs as a topological framework to support the analysis of continuous time-varying data. Such data is captured in many studies, including computational fluid dynamics, oceanography, medical imaging, and climate modeling, by measuring physical processes over time, or by modeling and simulating them on a computer. Analysis tools are applied to these data sets by scientists and engineers who seek to understand the underlying physical processes. A popular tool for analyzing scientific datasets is level sets, which are the points in space with a fixed data value s. Displaying level sets allows the user to study their geometry, their topological features such as connected components, handles, and voids, and to study the evolution of these features for varying s. For static data, the Reeb graph encodes the evolution of topological features and compactly represents topological information of all level sets. The Reeb graph essentially contracts each level set component to a point. It can be computed efficiently, and it has several uses: as a succinct summary of the data, as an interface to select meaningful level sets, as a data structure to accelerate level set extraction, and as a guide to remove noise. I extend these uses …

The G0 (G-Zero) forward angle experiment completed in Hall C of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) has measured the parity violating asymmetries in elastic electron-proton scattering over a Q2 range of 0.12 < Q2 < 1.0 (GeV/c)2. A linear combination of the strange electric (GsE) and magnetic (GsM) form factors calculated from these asymmetries indicate a non-zero contribution of the strange quark to the charge and magnetization structure of the proton in the above kinematic range at a 89% confidence level. The results show a previously unmeasured Q2 dependence of the strange form factors. Combining the G0 results with previous parity violating experiments show that at Q2 = 0.1 (GeV/c)2 GsM = 0.62+-0.31 GsE = -0.013+-0.028 At intermediate Q2 of about 0.23 (GeV/c)2, a consistent value of GsM is seen compared to previous experiments, together with a measurement that may imply a negative value of GsE. For Q2 above 0.5 (GeV/c)2 a consistently positive value for the linear combination of the strange form factors is seen.

The top quark is the most massive fundamental particle observed so far, and the study of its properties is interesting for several reasons ranging from its possible special role in electroweak symmetry breaking to its sensitivity to physics beyond the standard model (SM). In particular, the measurement of the top quark pair production cross section {sigma}{sub t{bar t}} is of interest as a test of QCD predictions. Recent QCD calculations done with perturbation theory to next-to-leading order predict {sigma}{sub t{bar t}} with an uncertainty of less than 15%, which motivate measurements of comparable precision. In this thesis, the author reports a measurement of the cross section for pair production of top quarks in the lepton+jets channel in 318 pb{sup -1} of p{bar p} collision data at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. The data were recorded between March 2002 and September 2004, during Run II of the Tevatron, by the CDF II detector, a general purpose detector which combines charged particle trackers, sampling calorimeters, and muon detectors. processes in which a W boson is produced in association with several jets with large transverse momentum can be misidentified at t{bar t}, since they have the same signature. In order to separate the t{bar …

The authors present a measurement of the cross section of b hadron (H{sub b}) production in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV using the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. They use 83 pb{sup -1} of data taken between october 2002 and May 2003 that was collected with a trigger sensitive to high momentum muons and displaced tracks. They use partially reconstructed decays in the following modes: H{sub b} {yields} {mu}{sup -} {bar {nu}}{sub {mu}}D{sup 0}X, D{sup 0} {yields} K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}, and H{sub b} {yields} {mu}{sup -}{bar {nu}}{sub {mu}}D*{sup +} X, D*{sup +} {yields} D{sup 0}{pi}{sup +}, D{sup 0} {yields} K{sup -} {pi}{sup +}, and their charge conjugates. They correct for the backgrounds from c{bar c} and b{bar b} decays, for trigger and reconstruction efficiencies, and for detector acceptance. They report the total cross section above a minimum transverse momentum (p{sub T}) of 9 GeV/c for the rapidity range |y| {le} 0.6.

Arynes are among the most intensively studied systems in chemistry. However, many aspects of the chemistry of these reactive intermediates are not well understood yet and their use as reagents in synthetic organic chemistry has been somewhat limited, due to the harsh conditions needed to generate arynes and the often uncontrolled reactivity exhibited by these species. Recently, o-silylaryl triflates, which can generate the corresponding arynes under very mild reaction conditions, have been found very useful in organic synthesis. This thesis describes several novel and useful methodologies by employing arynes, which generate from o-silylaryl triflates, in organic synthesis. An efficient, reliable method for the N-arylation of amines, sulfonamides and carbamates, and the O-arylation of phenols and carboxylic acids is described in Chapter 1. Amines, sulfonamides, phenols, and carboxylic acids are good nucleophiles, which can react with arynes generated from a-silylaryl triflates to afford the corresponding N- and O-arylated products in very high yields. The regioselectivity of unsymmetrical arynes has also been studied. A lot of useful, functional groups can tolerate our reaction conditions. Carbazoles and dibenzofurans are important heteroaromatic compounds, which have a variety of biological activities. A variety of substituted carbazoles and dibenzofwans are readily prepared in good to excellent …

We search for third generation vector leptoquarks (V LQ3) produced in colliding p{bar p} beams operating at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV at the CDF experiment in Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron. We use 322 pb{sup -1} of data to search for the V LQ3 signal in the di-tau plus di-jet channel. For the first time, the full matrix element is used in the Monte Carlo simulation of this signal. With no events observed in the signal region, we set a 95% C.L. upper limit on the V LQ3 pair production cross section of {sigma} &lt; 344fb, assuming Yang-Mills couplings and Br(V LQ3 {yields} b{tau}) = 1, and a lower limit on the V LQ3 mass of m{sub V LQ3} &gt; 317 GeV=c{sup 2}. If theoretical uncertainties on the cross section are applied in the least favorable manner the results are {sigma} &lt; 360fb and m{sub V LQ3} &gt; 294 GeV=c{sup 2}. The Minimal coupling V LQ3 result is an upper limit on the cross section of {sigma} &lt; 493fb ({sigma} &lt; 610fb) and the lower limit on the mass is m{sub V LQ3} &gt; 251 GeV=c{sup 2} (m{sub V LQ3} &gt; 223 GeV=c{sup 2}) for the nominal (1{sigma} varied) …

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The study of thermal decomposition in high explosive (HE) charges has been an ongoing process since the early 1900s. This work is specifically directed towards the analysis of PBX 9501. In the early 1970s, Dwight Jaeger of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) developed a single-step, two-species kinetics system that was used in the development of one of the first finite element codes for thermal analyses known as EXPLO. Jaeger's research focused on unconfined spherical samples of HE charges to determine if varied heating ramps would cause detonation or deflagration. Tarver and McGuire of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) followed soon after with a three-step, four-species kinetics system that was developed for confined spheres under relatively fast heating conditions. Peter Dickson et al. of LANL then introduced a kinetics system with four steps and five species that included bimolecular products to capture the effects of the endothermic phase change that the HE undergoes. The results of four experiments are examined to study the effectiveness of these kinetics systems. The experiments are: (1) The LLNL scaled thermal explosion (STEX) experiments on confined cylindrical charges with long heating ramps in the range of 90 hours. (2) The LLNL one-dimensional time to explosion (ODTX) …

The authors present a measurement of the mass of the top quark. The event sample is selected from proton-antiproton collisions, at 1.96 TeV center-of-mass energy, observed with the CDF detector at Fermilab's Tevatron. They consider a 318 pb{sup -1} dataset collected between March 2002 and August 2004. They select events that contain one energetic lepton, large missing transverse energy, exactly four energetic jets, and at least one displaced vertex b tag. The analysis uses leading-order t{bar t} and background matrix elements along with parameterized parton showering to construct event-by-event likelihoods as a function of top quark mass. From the 63 events observed with the 318 pb{sup -1} dataset they extract a top quark mass of 172.0 {+-} 2.6(stat) {+-} 3.3(syst) GeV/c{sup 2} from the joint likelihood. The mean expected statistical uncertainty is 3.2 GeV/c{sup 2} for m{sub t} = 178 GTeV/c{sup 2} and 3.1 GeV/c{sup 2} for m{sub t} = 172.5 GeV/c{sup 2}. The systematic error is dominated by the uncertainty of the jet energy scale.

Laser vibrometry is a technique used to detect vibrations on objects using the interference of coherent light with itself. Most vibrometry systems process only one target location at a time, but processing multiple locations simultaneously provides improved detection capabilities. Traditional laser vibrometry systems employ oversampling to sample the incoming modulated-light signal, however as the number of channels increases in these systems, certain issues arise such a higher computational cost, excessive heat, increased power requirements, and increased component cost. This thesis describes a novel approach to laser vibrometry that utilizes undersampling to control the undesirable issues associated with over-sampled systems. Undersampling allows for significantly less samples to represent the modulated-light signals, which offers several advantages in the overall system design. These advantages include an improvement in thermal efficiency, lower processing requirements, and a higher immunity to the relative intensity noise inherent in laser vibrometry applications. A unique feature of this implementation is the use of a parallel architecture to increase the overall system throughput. This parallelism is realized using a hierarchical multi-channel architecture based on off-the-shelf programmable logic devices (PLDs).

The castor bean plant (Ricinus communis) is a member of the family Euphorbiaceae. In spite of its common name, the castor plant is not a true bean (i.e., leguminous plants belonging to the family, Fabaceae). Ricinus communis is native to tropical Africa, but because the plant was recognized for its production of oil with many desirable properties, it has been introduced and cultivated in warm temperate regions throughout the world (Armstrong 1999 and Brown 2005). Castor bean plants have also been valued by gardeners as an ornamental plant and, historically, as a natural rodenticide. Today, escaped plants grow like weeds throughout much of the southwestern United States, and castor seeds are even widely available to the public for order through the Internet. In this study, multiple loci of chloroplast noncoding sequence data and a few nuclear noncoding regions were examined to identify DNA polymorphisms present among representatives from a geographically diverse panel of Ricinus communis cultivated varieties. The primary objectives for this research were (1) to successfully cultivate castor plants and extract sufficient yields of high quality DNA from an assortment of castor cultivated varieties, (2) to use PCR and sequencing to screen available universal oligos against a small panel …

In order to understand the physical processes associated with fs-laser waveguide writing in glass, the effects of the laser repetition rate, the material composition and feature size were studied. The resulting material changes were observed by collecting Raman and fluorescence spectra with a confocal microscope. The guiding behavior of the waveguides was evaluated by measuring near field laser coupling profiles in combination with white light microscopy. Waveguides and Bragg gratings were fabricated in fused silica using pulse repetition rates from 1 kHz to 1 MHz and a wide range of scan speeds and pulse energies. Two types of fluorescence were detected in fused silica, depending on the fabrication conditions. Fluorescence from self trapped exciton (E{prime}{sub {delta}}) defects, centered at 550 nm, were dominant for conditions with low total doses, such as using a 1 kHz laser with a scan speed of 20 {micro}m/s and pulse energies less than 1 {micro}J. For higher doses a broad fluorescence band, centered at 650 nm, associated with non-bridging oxygen hole center (NBOHC) defects was observed. Far fewer NBOHC defects were formed with the 1 MHz laser than with the kHz lasers possibly due to annealing of the defects during writing. We also observed an …

Results obtained from a search for the trilepton signature {mu}{mu}{ell} (with {ell} = e, or {mu}) are combined with two complementary searches for the trilepton signatures ee{ell} and eer and interpreted in the framework of R-parity violating Supersymmetry. Pairwise, R-parity conserving production of the supersymmetric particles is assumed, followed by R-parity violating decays via an LL{bar E}-operator with one dominant coupling {lambda}{sub 122}. An LL{bar E}-operator couples two weak isospin doublet and one singlet (s)lepton fields and thus violates lepton number conservation. The data, collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab proton-antiproton collider Tevatron, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of {integral} L dt = 360 {+-} 23 pb{sup -1}. No evident is observed, while 0.41 {+-} 0.11(stat) {+-} 0.07(sys) events are expected from Standard Model processes. The resulting 95% confidence level cross section limits on new physics producing a {mu}{mu}{ell} signature in the detector are of the order of 0.020 to 0.136 pb. They are interpreted in two different supersymmetry scenarios: the mSUGRA and the MSSM model. The corresponding lower limits on the masses of the lightest neutralino ({tilde {chi}}{sub 1}{sup 0}) and the lightest chargino ({tilde {chi}}{sub 1}{sup {+-}}) in case of the mSUGRA model are found to …

Quarks, along with leptons and force carrying particles, are predicted by the Standard Model to be the fundamental constituents of nature. In distinction from the leptons, the quarks interact strongly through the chromodynamic force and are bound together within the hadrons. The familiar proton and neutron are bound states of the light ''up'' and ''down'' quarks. The most massive quark by far, the ''top'' quark, was discovered by the CDF and D0 experiments in March, 1995. The new quark was observed in p{bar p} collisions at 1.8 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron. The mass of the top quark was measured to be 176 {+-} 13 GeV/c{sup 2} and the cross section 6.8{sub -2.4}{sup +3.6} pb. It is the Q = 2/3, T{sub 3} = +1/2 member of the third generation weak-isospin doublet along with the bottom quark. The top quark is the final Standard Model quark to be discovered. Along with whatever is responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking, top quark physics is considered one of the least understood sectors of the Standard Model and represents a front line of our understanding of particle physics. Currently, the only direct measurements of top quark properties come from the CDF and D0 experiments …

This thesis consists of six sections. The first section gives the basic research background on the ionic conduction mechanism in glass, polarization in the glass, and the method of determining the mobile carrier density in glass. The proposed work is also included in this section. The second section is a paper that characterizes the structure of MI + M{sub 2}S + (0.1 Ga{sub 2}S{sub 3} + 0.9 GeS{sub 2}) (M = Li, Na, K and Cs) glasses using Raman and IR spectroscopy. Since the ionic radius plays an important role in determining the ionic conductivity in glasses, the glass forming range for the addition of different alkalis into the basic glass forming system 0.1 Ga{sub 2}S{sub 3} + 0.9 GeS{sub 2} was studied. The study found that the change of the alkali radius for the same nominal composition causes significant structure change to the glasses. The third section is a paper that investigates the ionic conductivity of MI + M{sub 2}S + (0.1Ga{sub 2}S{sub 3} + 0.9 GeS{sub 2}) (M = Li, Na, K and Cs) glasses system. Corresponding to the compositional changes in these fast ionic conducting glasses, the ionic conductivity shows changes due to the induced structural changes. …