This talk briefly reviews three types of time-asymmetry in physics, which I classify as universal, macroscopic and microscopic. Most of the talk is focused on the latter, namely the violation of T-reversal invariance in particle physics theories. In sum tests of microscopic T-invariance, or observations of its violation, are limited by the fact that, while we can measure many processes, only in very few cases can we construct a matched pair of process and inverse process and observe it with sufficient sensitivity to make a test. In both the cases discussed here we can achieve an observable T violation making use of flavor tagging, and in the second case also using the quantum properties of an antisymmetric coherent state of two B mesons to construct a CP-tag. Both these tagging properties depend only on very general properties of the flavor and/or CP quantum numbers and so provide model independent tests for T-invariance violations. The microscopic laws of physics are very close to T-symmetric. There are small effects that give CP- and T-violating processes in three-generation-probing weak decays. Where a T-violating observable can be constructed we see the relationships between T-violation and CP-violation expected in a CPT conserving theory. These microscopic …

We present a measurement of the top quark pair production cross section in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV using approximately 1 fb{sup -1} of data collected with the D0 detector. We consider decay channels containing two high p{sub T} charged leptons where one lepton is identified as an electron or a muon while the other lepton can be an electron, a muon or a hadronically decaying {tau} lepton. For a mass of the top quark of 170 GeV, the measured cross section is 7.5{sub -1.0}{sup +1.0}(stat){sub -0.06}{sup +0.7}(syst){sub -0.5}{sup 0.6}(lumi) pb. Using {ell}{sub {tau}} events only, they measure: {sigma}{sub t{bar t}} x B(t{bar t} {yields} {ell}{sub {tau}}b{bar b}) = 0.13{sub -0.08}{sup +0.09}(stat){sub -0.06}{sup 0.06}(syst)+{sub -0.02}{sup +0.02}(lumi) pb. Comparing the measured cross section as a function of the mass of the top quark with a partial next-to-next-to leading order Quantum Chromodynamics theoretical prediction, we extract a mass of the top quark of 171.5{sub -8.8}{sup +9.9} GeV, in agreement with direct measurements.

New technologies will be a critical component--perhaps the critical component--of our efforts to tackle the related challenges of energy security, climate change, and air pollution, all the while maintaining a strong economy. But just developing new technologies is not enough. Our ability to accelerate the market penetration of clean energy, enabling, and other climate-related technologies will have a determining impact on our ability to slow, stop, and reverse the growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Title XVI, Subtitle A, of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) directs the Administration to report on its strategy to promote the commercialization and deployment (C&D) of GHG intensity-reducing technologies and practices. The Act also requests the Administration to prepare an inventory of climate-friendly technologies suitable for deployment and to identify the barriers and commercial risks facing advanced technologies. Because these issues are related, they are integrated here within a single report that we, representing the Committee on Climate Change Science and Technology Integration (CCCSTI), are pleased to provide the President, the Congress, and the public. Over the past eight years, the Administration of President George W. Bush has pursued a series of policies and measures aimed at encouraging the development and deployment …

In this paper we report on large scale multi-physics simulation of beam dynamics in electron linacs for next generation free electron lasers (FELs). We describe key features of a parallel macroparticle simulation code including three-dimensional (3D) space-charge effects, short-range structure wake fields, longitudinal coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) wake fields, and treatment of radiofrequency (RF) accelerating cavities using maps obtained from axial field profiles. A macroparticle up-sampling scheme is described that reduces the shot noise from an initial distribution with a smaller number of macroparticles while maintaining the global properties of the original distribution. We present a study of the microbunching instability which is a critical issue for future FELs due to its impact on beam quality at the end of the linac. Using parameters of a planned FEL linac at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), we show that a large number of macroparticles (beyond 100 million) is needed to control numerical shot noise that drives the microbunching instability. We also explore the effect of the longitudinal grid on simulation results. We show that acceptable results are obtained with around 2048 longitudinal grid points, and we discuss this in view of the spectral growth rate predicted from linear theory. As an …

In 2000 the Hanford Tank Farms had one of the worst safety records in the Department of Energy Complex. By the end of FY08 the safety performance of the workforce had turned completely around, resulting in one of the best safety records in the DOE complex for operations of its kind. This paper describes the variety of programs and changes that were put in place to accomplish such a dramatic turn-around. The U.S. Department of Energy's 586-square-mile Hanford Site in Washington State was established during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to develop nuclear materials to end the war. For the next several decades it continued to produce plutonium for the nation's defense, leaving behind vast quantities of radioactive and chemical waste. Much of this waste, 53,000,000 gallons, remains stored in 149 aging single-shell tanks and 28 newer double-shell tanks. One of the primary objectives at Hanford is to safely manage this waste until it can be prepared for disposal, but this has not always been easy. These giant underground tanks, many of which date back to the beginning of the Manhattan Project, range in size from 55,000 gallons up to 1.1 million gallons, and are buried …

The goals of this project were to (1) explore ways of bridging the gap between fundamental molecular nucleation theories and phenomenological approaches based on thermodynamic reasoning, (2) test and improve binary nucleation theory, and (3) provide the theoretical underpinning for a powerful new experimental technique, small angle neutron scattering (SANS) from nanodroplet aerosols, that can probe the compositional structure of nanodroplets. This report summarizes the accomplishments of this project in realizing these goals. Publications supported by this project fall into three general categories: (1) theoretical work on nucleation theory (2) experiments and modeling of nucleation and condensation in supersonic nozzles, and (3) experimental and theoretical work on nanodroplet structure and neutron scattering. These publications are listed and briefly summarized in this report.

A consumer guide about solar electricity for the home. Includes information about types of solar electric systems, how to choose a system, financing, and costs.

The work reported here embodies a device-physics approach based on careful measurement and interpretation of data from CIGS and CdTe solar cells.

The overall objectives for this project were: (1) to identify a suitable PdCu tri-metallic alloy membrane with high stability and commercially relevant hydrogen permeation in the presence of trace amounts of carbon monoxide and sulfur; and (2) to identify and synthesize a water gas shift catalyst with a high operating life that is sulfur and chlorine tolerant at low concentrations of these impurities. This work successfully achieved the first project objective to identify a suitable PdCu tri-metallic alloy membrane composition, Pd{sub 0.47}Cu{sub 0.52}G5{sub 0.01}, that was selected based on atomistic and thermodynamic modeling alone. The second objective was partially successful in that catalysts were identified and evaluated that can withstand sulfur in high concentrations and at high pressures, but a long operating life was not achieved at the end of the project. From the limited durability testing it appears that the best catalyst, Pt-Re/Ce{sub 0.333}Zr{sub 0.333}E4{sub 0.333}O{sub 2}, is unable to maintain a long operating life at space velocities of 200,000 h{sup -1}. The reasons for the low durability do not appear to be related to the high concentrations of H{sub 2}S, but rather due to the high operating pressure and the influence the pressure has on the WGS reaction …

Identifying the symmetry of the superconducting order parameter in the recently-discovered ferrooxypnictide family of superconductors, RFeAsO{sub 1-x}F{sub y}, where R is a rare earth, is a high priority. Many of the proposed order parameters have internal {pi} phase shifts, like the d-wave order found in the cuprates, which would result in direction-dependent phase shifts in tunneling. In dense polycrystalline samples, these phase shifts in turn would result in spontaneous orbital currents and magnetization in the superconducting state. We perform scanning SQUID microscopy on a dense polycrystalline sample of NdFeAsO{sub 0.94}F{sub 0.06} with T{sub c} = 48K and find no such spontaneous currents, ruling out many of the proposed order parameters.

Subsystems of the 2008 Lexus 600h hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) were studied and tested as part of an intensive benchmarking effort carried out to produce detailed information concerning the current state of nondomestic alternative vehicle technologies. Feedback provided by benchmarking efforts is particularly useful to partners of the Vehicle Technologies collaborative research program as it is essential in establishing reasonable yet challenging programmatic goals which facilitate development of competitive technologies. The competitive nature set forth by the Vehicle Technologies program not only promotes energy independence and economic stability, it also advocates the advancement of alternative vehicle technologies in an overall global perspective. These technologies greatly facilitate the potential to reduce dependency on depleting natural resources and mitigate harmful impacts of transportation upon the environment.

The production of energy feedstocks and fuels requires substantial water input. Not only do biofuel feedstocks like corn, switchgrass, and agricultural residues need water for growth and conversion to ethanol, but petroleum feedstocks like crude oil and oil sands also require large volumes of water for drilling, extraction, and conversion into petroleum products. Moreover, in many cases, crude oil production is increasingly water dependent. Competing uses strain available water resources and raise the specter of resource depletion and environmental degradation. Water management has become a key feature of existing projects and a potential issue in new ones. This report examines the growing issue of water use in energy production by characterizing current consumptive water use in liquid fuel production. As used throughout this report, 'consumptive water use' is the sum total of water input less water output that is recycled and reused for the process. The estimate applies to surface and groundwater sources for irrigation but does not include precipitation. Water requirements are evaluated for five fuel pathways: bioethanol from corn, ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks, gasoline from Canadian oil sands, Saudi Arabian crude, and U.S. conventional crude from onshore wells. Regional variations and historic trends are noted, as are opportunities …

Light-front holography allows hadronic amplitudes in the AdS/QCD fifth dimension to be mapped to frame-independent light-front wavefunctions of hadrons in physical space-time, thus providing a relativistic description of hadrons at the amplitude level. The AdS coordinate z is identified with an invariant light-front coordinate {zeta} which separates the dynamics of quark and gluon binding from the kinematics of constituent spin and internal orbital angular momentum. The result is a single-variable light-front Schroedinger equation for QCD which determines the eigenspectrum and the light-front wavefunctions of hadrons for general spin and orbital angular momentum. A new method for computing the hadronization of quark and gluon jets at the amplitude level using AdS/QCD light-front wavefunctions is outlined.

On October 9, 2008, NREL hosted a workshop to provide an opportunity for external stakeholders to offer insights and recommendations on the design and functionality of DOE's planned Energy Systems Infrastructure Facility (ESIF). The goal was to ensure that the planning for the ESIF effectively addresses the most critical barriers to large-scale energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE) deployment. This technical report documents the ESIF workshop proceedings.

The Heavy-Ion Fusion Sciences Virtual National Laboratory is pursuing an approach to target heating experiments in the Warm Dense Matter regime, using space-charge-dominated ion beams that are simultaneously longitudinally bunched and transversely focused. Longitudinal beam compression by large factors has been demonstrated in the LBNL Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment (NDCX) experiment with controlled ramps and forced neutralization. The achieved peak beam current and energy can be used in experiments to heat targets and create warm dense matter. Using an injected 30 mA K{sup +} ion beam with initial kinetic energy 0.3 MeV, axial compression leading to {approx}50x current amplification and simultaneous radial focusing to beam radii of a few mm have led to encouraging energy deposition approaching the intensities required for eV-range target heating experiments. We discuss experiments that are under development to reach the necessary higher beam intensities and the associated beam diagnostics.

Publication quality results were obtained for several experiments and materials systems including: (i) Patterning and smoothening of sapphire surfaces by energetic Ar+ ions. Grazing Incidence Small Angle X-ray Scattering (GISAXS) experiments were performed in the system at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) X21 beamline. Ar+ ions in the energy range from 300 eV to 1000 eV were used to produce ripples on the surfaces of single-crystal sapphire. It was found that the ripple wavelength varies strongly with the angle of incidence of the ions, which increase significantly as the angle from normal is varied from 55° to 35°. A smooth region was found for ion incidence less than 35° away from normal incidence. In this region a strong smoothening mechanism with strength proportional to the second derivative of the height of the surface was found to be responsible for the effect. The discovery of this phase transition between stable and unstable regimes as the angle of incidence is varied has also stimulated new work by other groups in the field. (ii) Growth of Ge quantum dots on Si(100) and (111). We discovered the formation of quantum wires on 4° misoriented Si(111) using real-time GISAXS during the deposition of Ge. …

Voro++ is a free software library for the computation of three dimensional Voronoi cells. It is primarily designed for applications in physics and materials science, where the Voronoi tessellation can be a useful tool in the analysis of densely-packed particle systems, such as granular materials or glasses. The software comprises of several C++ classes that can be modified and incorporated into other programs. A command-line utility is also provided that can use most features of the code. Voro++ makes use of a direct cell-by-cell construction, which is particularly suited to handling special boundary conditions and walls. It employs algorithms which are tolerant for numerical precision errors, and it has been successfully employed on very large particle systems.

The author reports on a Dalitz plot analysis of B{sup -} {yields} D{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup -} decays, based on a sample of about 383 million {Upsilon}(4S) {yields} B{bar B} decays collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy B Factory at SLAC. They find the total branching fraction of the three-body decay: {Beta}(B{sup -} {yields} D{sup +} {pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup -}) = (1.08 {+-} 0.01 {+-} 0.05) x 10{sup -3}. the masses and widths of D*{sub 2}{sup 0} and D*{sub 0}{sup 0}, the 2{sup +} and 0{sup +} c{bar u} P-wave states decaying to D{sup +}{pi}{sup -}, are measured: m{sub D*{sub 2}{sup 0}} = (2460.4 {+-} 1.2 {+-} 1.2 {+-} 1.9) MeV/c{sup 2}, {Lambda}{sub D*{sub 2}{sup 0}} = (41.8 {+-} 2.5 {+-} 2.1 {+-} 2.0) MeV, m{sub D*{sub 0}{sup 0}} = (2297 {+-} 8 {+-} 5 {+-} 19) MeV/c{sup 2} and {Lambda}{sub D*{sub 0}{sup 0}} = (273 {+-} 12 {+-} 17 {+-} 45) MeV. The stated errors reflect the statistical and systematic uncertainties, and the uncertainty related to the assumed composition of signal events and the theoretical model.

Coupled bunch longitudinal stability in the presence of high frequency impedances is considered. A frequency domain technique is developed and compared with simulations. The frequency domain technique allows for absolute stability tests and is applied to the problem of longitudinal stability in RHIC with the new 56 MHz RF system.

'Static' structure functions are the probabilistic distributions computed from the square of the light-front wavefunctions of the target hadron. In contrast, the 'dynamic' structure functions measured in deep inelastic lepton-hadron scattering include the effects of rescattering associated with the Wilson line. Initial- and final-state rescattering, neglected in the parton model, can have a profound effect in QCD hard-scattering reactions, producing single-spin asymmetries, diffractive deep inelastic scattering, diffractive hard hadronic reactions, the breakdown of the Lam-Tung relation in Drell-Yan reactions, nuclear shadowing, and non-universal nuclear antishadowing|novel leading-twist physics not incorporated in the light-front wavefunctions of the target computed in isolation. I also review how 'direct' higher-twist processes--where a proton is produced in the hard subprocess itself--can explain the anomalous proton-to-pion ratio seen in high centrality heavy ion collisions.

The order parameter of the recently-discovered ferric arsenide family of superconductors remains uncertain. Some early experiments on polycrystalline samples suggested line nodes in the order parameter, however later experiments on single crystals have strongly supported fully-gapped superconductivity. An absence of nodes does not rule out unconventional order: {pi} phase shifts between the separate Fermi sheets and time-reversal symmetry-breaking components in the order parameter remain possibilities. One test for unconventional order is scanning magnetic microscopy on well-coupled polycrystalline samples: d- or p-wave order would result in orbital frustration, leading to spontaneous currents and magnetization in the superconducting state. We have performed scanning SQUID microscopy on SmFeAsO{sub 0.85} and NdFeAsO{sub 0.94}F{sub 0.06}, and in neither material do we find spontaneous orbital currents, ruling out p- or d-wave order.

Prior to the dissolution of Pu-containing materials in HB-Line, highly enriched uranium (HEU) solutions stored in Tanks 11.1 and 12.2 of H-Canyon must be transferred to provide storage space. The proposed plan is to centrifuge the solutions to remove solids which may present downstream criticality concerns or cause operational problems with the 1st Cycle solvent extraction due to the formation of stable emulsions. An evaluation of the efficiency of the H-Canyon centrifuge concluded that a sufficient amount (> 90%) of the solids in the Tank 11.1 and 12.2 solutions will be removed to prevent any problems. We based this conclusion on the particle size distribution of the solids isolated from samples of the solutions and the calculation of particle settling times in the centrifuge. The particle size distributions were calculated from images generated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The mean particle diameters for the distributions were 1-3 {micro}m. A significant fraction (30-50%) of the particles had diameters which were < 1 {micro}m; however, the mass of these solids is insignificant (< 1% of the total solids mass) when compared to particles with larger diameters. It is also probable that the number of submicron particles was overestimated by the software used …

Assimilation of radar velocity and precipitation fields into high-resolution model simulations can improve precipitation forecasts with decreased 'spin-up' time and improve short-term simulation of boundary layer winds (Benjamin, 2004 & 2007; Xiao, 2008) which is critical to improving plume transport forecasts. Accurate description of wind and turbulence fields is essential to useful atmospheric transport and dispersion results, and any improvement in the accuracy of these fields will make consequence assessment more valuable during both routine operation as well as potential emergency situations. During 2008, the United States National Weather Service (NWS) radars implemented a significant upgrade which increased the real-time level II data resolution to 8 times their previous 'legacy' resolution, from 1 km range gate and 1.0 degree azimuthal resolution to 'super resolution' 250 m range gate and 0.5 degree azimuthal resolution (Fig 1). These radar observations provide reflectivity, velocity and returned power spectra measurements at a range of up to 300 km (460 km for reflectivity) at a frequency of 4-5 minutes and yield up to 13.5 million point observations per level in super-resolution mode. The migration of National Weather Service (NWS) WSR-88D radars to super resolution is expected to improve warning lead times by detecting small scale …

The SRS sludge that was to become a major fraction of Sludge Batch 5 (SB5) for the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) contained a large fraction of H-Modified PUREX (HM) sludge, containing a large fraction of aluminum compounds that could adversely impact the processing and increase the vitrified waste volume. It is beneficial to reduce the non-radioactive fraction of the sludge to minimize the number of glass waste canisters that must be sent to a Federal Repository. Removal of aluminum compounds, such as boehmite and gibbsite, from sludge can be performed with the addition of NaOH solution and heating the sludge for several days. Preparation of SB5 involved adding sodium hydroxide directly to the waste tank and heating the contents to a moderate temperature through slurry pump operation to remove a fraction of this aluminum. The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) was tasked with demonstrating this process on actual tank waste sludge in our Shielded Cells Facility. This paper evaluates some of the impacts of aluminum dissolution on sludge washing and DWPF processing by comparing sludge processing with and without aluminum dissolution. It was necessary to demonstrate these steps to ensure that the aluminum removal process would not adversely impact …