Designing an adaptive optics (AO) system for extremely large telescopes (ELT's) will present new optical engineering challenges. Several of these challenges are addressed in this work, including first-order design of multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) systems, pyramid wavefront sensors (PWFS's), and laser guide star (LGS) spot elongation. MCAO systems need to be designed in consideration of various constraints, including deformable mirror size and correction height. The y,{bar y} method of first-order optical design is a graphical technique that uses a plot with marginal and chief ray heights as coordinates; the optical system is represented as a segmented line. This method is shown to be a powerful tool in designing MCAO systems. From these analyses, important conclusions about configurations are derived. PWFS's, which offer an alternative to Shack-Hartmann (SH) wavefront sensors (WFS's), are envisioned as the workhorse of layer-oriented adaptive optics. Current approaches use a 4-faceted glass pyramid to create a WFS analogous to a quad-cell SH WFS. PWFS's and SH WFS's are compared and some newly-considered similarities and PWFS advantages are presented. Techniques to extend PWFS's are offered: First, PWFS's can be extended to more pixels in the image by tiling pyramids contiguously. Second, pyramids, which are difficult to manufacture, can …

The corrosion resistance of Alloy 22 (UNS No.: N06022) was studied in simulated ground water of different pH values and ionic contents at various temperatures. Potentiodynamic polarization techniques were used to study the electrochemical behavior and measure the critical potentials in the various systems. Alloy 22 was found to be resistant to localized corrosion in the simulated ground waters tested.

Coherent scattering is a flavor-blind, high-rate, as yet undetected neutrino interaction predicted by the Standard Model. We propose to use a compact (kg-scale), two-phase (liquid-gas) argon ionization detector to measure coherent neutrino scattering off nuclei. In our approach, neutrino-induced nuclear recoils in the liquid produce a weak ionization signal, which is transported into a gas under the influence of an electric field, amplified via electroluminescence, and detected by phototubes or avalanche diodes. This paper describes the features of the detector, and estimates signal and background rates for a reactor neutrino source. Relatively compact detectors of this type, capable of detecting coherent scattering, offer a new approach to flavor-blind detection of man-made and astronomical neutrinos, and may allow development of compact neutrino detectors capable of nonintrusive real-time monitoring of fissile material in reactors.

When the field of modern publishing was on a collision course with telecommunications, publishing organizations had to come up to speed in fields that were, heretofore, completely foreign and technologically forbidding to them. For generations, the technology of publishing centered on offset lithography, typesetting, and photography--fields that saw evolutionary and incremental change from the time of Guttenberg. But publishing now includes making information available over the World Wide Web--Internet publishing--with its ever-accelerating rate of technological change and dependence on computers and networks. Clearly, we need a methodology to help anyone in the field of Internet publishing plan for the future, and there is a well-known, well-tested technique for just this purpose--Scenario Planning. Scenario Planning is an excellent tool to help organizations make better decisions in the present based on what they identify as possible and plausible scenarios of the future. Never was decision making more difficult or more crucial than during the years of this study, 1996-1999. This thesis takes the position that, by applying Scenario Planning, the Technical Information Department at LLNL, a large government laboratory (and organizations similar to it), could be confident that moving into the telecommunications business of Internet publishing stood a very good chance of …

Transport mirrors within the National Ignition Facility, a 192-beam 4-MJ fusion laser at 1053 nm, will be exposed to backscattered light from plasmas created from fusion targets and backlighters. This backscattered light covers the UV and visible spectrum from 351-600 nm. The transport mirror BK7 substrates will be intentionally solarized to absorb >95% of the backscattered light to prevent damage to the metallic mechanical support hardware. Solarization has minimal impact on the 351- and 1053-nm laser-induced damage threshold or the reflected wavefront of the multilayer hafnia silica coating. Radiation sources of various energies were examined for BK7 darkening efficiency within the UV and visible region with 1.1 MeV gamma rays from a Cobalt 60 source ultimately being selected. Finally, bleaching rates were measured at elevated temperatures to generate a model for predicting the lifetime at ambient conditions (20 C), before solarized BK7 substrates exceed 5% transmission in the UV and visible region. Over a 30-mm thickness, BK7 glass will bleach in 10 years to 5% transmission at 600 nm, the most transmissive wavelengths over the 351-600 nm regions.

This manuscript is meant to give a short summary of the advantages of high order schemes and suitable test problems which can properly illustrate these advantages.

The objective of this study was to measure the leaching and adsorption characteristics of uranium in six near-surface sediment samples collected from the 300 Area of the Hanford Site. Scanning electron micrographs of the samples showed that the uranium contamination in the sediments is most likely present as co-precipitates and/or discrete uranium particles. Molecular probe techniques also confirm the presence of crystalline discrete uranium bearing phases. In all cases, the uranium is present as oxidized uranium (uranyl [U(VI)]). Results from the column leach tests showed that uranium leaching did not follow a constant solubility paradigm. Four of the five contaminated sediments showed a large near instantaneous release of a few percent of the total uranium followed by a slower continual release. Steady-state uranium leachate concentrations were never measured and leaching characteristics and trends were not consistent among the samples. Dissolution kinetics were slow, and the measured leach curves most likely represent a slow kinetically controlled desorption or dissolution paradigm. Batch adsorption experiments were performed to investigate the effect of pH and uranium and carbonate solution concentrations on uranium adsorption onto the uncontaminated sediment. Uranium adsorption Kd values ranged from 0 to > 100 ml/g depending on which solution parameter was …

Solute effect on the creep resistance of two-phase lamellar TiAl with an ultrafine microstructure creep-deformed in a low-stress (LS) creep regime [where a linear creep behavior was observed] has been investigated. The resulted deformation substructure and in-situ TEM experiment revealed that interface sliding by the motion of pre-existing interfacial dislocations is the predominant deformation mechanism in LS creep regime. Solute segregation at lamellar interfaces and interfacial precipitation caused by the solute segregation result in a beneficial effect on the creep resistance of ultrafine lamellar TiAl in LS creep regime.

Optical parametric amplification is an established broadband amplification technology based on a second-order nonlinear process of difference-frequency generation (DFG). When used in chirped pulse amplification (CPA), the technology has been termed optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA). OPCPA holds a potential for producing unprecedented levels of peak and average power in optical pulses through its scalable ultrashort pulse amplification capability and the absence of quantum defect, respectively. The theory of three-wave parametric interactions is presented, followed by a description of the numerical model developed for nanosecond pulses. Spectral, temperature and angular characteristics of OPCPA are calculated, with an estimate of pulse contrast. An OPCPA system centered at 1054 nm, based on a commercial tabletop Q-switched pump laser, was developed as the front end for a large Nd-glass petawatt-class short-pulse laser. The system does not utilize electro-optic modulators or multi-pass amplification. The obtained overall 6% efficiency is the highest to date in OPCPA that uses a tabletop commercial pump laser. The first compression of pulses amplified in highly nondegenerate OPCPA is reported, with the obtained pulse width of 60 fs. This represents the shortest pulse to date produced in OPCPA. Optical parametric amplification in {beta}-barium borate was combined with laser amplification …

The capsule targets for ignition experiments at the National Ignition Facility must meet very exacting requirements. Primary among them is an extremely high degree of symmetry at all length scales for the 2-mm-diameter 150-{micro}m-walled capsule. At LLNL work is in progress to produce both polyimide and sputtered beryllium targets that meet these specifications. Both of these targets require a thin-walled spherical-shell plastic mandrel upon which the beryllium or polyimide ablator is deposited. In this paper we report on recent progress in developing NIF capsules that meet the demanding design requirements.

We are investigating the evaporation of pore water representative of the designated high-level-nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NV to predict the range of brine compositions that may contact waste containers. These brines could form potentially corrosive thin films on the containers and impact their long-term integrity. Here we report the geochemistry of a relatively complex synthetic Topopah Spring Tuff pore water that was progressively evaporated in a series of experiments. The experiments were conducted in a closed vessel, heated to 95 C, and purged with atmospheric CO{sub 2}. Aqueous samples of the evaporating solution were taken and analyzed to determine the evolving water chemistry, and the final solid precipitate was analyzed by X-ray diffraction. The synthetic Topopah Spring Tuff water evolved towards a complex brine that contains about 3 mol% SO{sub 4}, and 2 mol% Ca, 3 mol% K, 5 mol% NO{sub 3}, 40 mol% Cl, and 47 mol% Na. Trends in the solution data and identification of CaSO{sub 4} solids (anhydrite and bassanite) suggest that fluorite, carbonate, sulfate, and Mg-silicate precipitation minimize the corrosion potential of ''sulfate type pore water'' by removing F, Ca, and Mg during the early stages of evaporation.

For flows that contain significant structure, high order schemes offer large advantages over low order schemes. Fundamentally, the reason comes from the truncation error of the differencing operators. If one examines carefully the expression for the truncation error, one will see that for a fixed computational cost that the error can be made much smaller by increasing the numerical order than by increasing the number of grid points. One can readily derive the following expression which holds for systems dominated by hyperbolic effects and advanced explicitly in time: flops = const * p{sup 2} * k{sup (d+1)(p+1)/p}/E{sup (d+1)/p} where flops denotes floating point operations, p denotes numerical order, d denotes spatial dimension, where E denotes the truncation error of the difference operator, and where k denotes the Fourier wavenumber. For flows that contain structure, such as turbulent flows or any calculation where, say, vortices are present, there will be significant energy in the high values of k. Thus, one can see that the rate of growth of the flops is very different for different values of p. Further, the constant in front of the expression is also very different. With a low order scheme, one quickly reaches the limit of …

Sum-frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy (SFG-VS) and kinetic measurements using gas chromatography have been used to study the surface reaction intermediates during the hydrogenation of three {alpha},{beta}-unsaturated aldehydes, acrolein, crotonaldehyde, and prenal, over Pt(111) at Torr pressures (1 Torr aldehyde, 100 Torr hydrogen) in the temperature range of 295K to 415K. SFG-VS data showed that acrolein has mixed adsorption species of {eta}{sub 2}-di-{sigma}(CC)-trans, {eta}{sub 2}-di-{sigma}(CC)-cis as well as highly coordinated {eta}{sub 3} or {eta}{sub 4} species. Crotonaldehyde adsorbed to Pt(111) as {eta}{sub 2} surface intermediates. SFG-VS during prenal hydrogenation also suggested the presence of the {eta}{sub 2} adsorption species, and became more highly coordinated as the temperature was raised to 415K, in agreement with its enhanced C=O hydrogenation. The effect of catalyst surface structure was clarified by carrying out the hydrogenation of crotonaldehyde over both Pt(111) and Pt(100) single crystals while acquiring the SFG-VS spectra in situ. Both the kinetics and SFG-VS showed little structure sensitivity. Pt(100) generated more decarbonylation 'cracking' product while Pt(111) had a higher selectivity for the formation of the desired unsaturated alcohol, crotylalcohol.

Compilation of Advanced Light Source newsletter, ALSNews, for 2008, Volumes 283-293.

The impact of possible sources of lepton-flavor mixing on K {yields} {pi}{nu}{bar {nu}} decays is analyzed. At the one-loop level lepton-flavor mixing originated from non-diagonal lepton mass matrices cannot generate a CP-conserving K{sub L} {yields} {pi}{sup 0}{nu}{bar {nu}} amplitude. The rates of these modes are sensitive to leptonic flavor violation when there are at least two different leptonic mixing matrices. New interactions that violate both quark and lepton universalities could enhance the CP-conserving component of {Lambda}(K{sub L} {yields} {pi}{sup 0}{nu}{bar {nu}}) and have a substantial impact. Explicit examples of these effects in the context of supersymmetric models, with and without R-parity conservation, are discussed.

We report precision measurements of the Feynman-x (x{sub F}) dependence, and first measurements of the transverse momentum (p{sub T}) dependence, of transverse single spin asymmetries for the production of {pi}{sup 0} mesons from polarized proton collisions at {radical}s = 200 GeV. The x{sub F} dependence of the results are in fair agreement with perturbative QCD (pQCD) model calculations that identify orbital motion of quarks and gluons within the proton as the origin of the spin effects. Results for the p{sub T} dependence at fixed x{sub F} are not consistent with these same pQCD-based calculations.

We present a calculable supersymmetric theory of a composite"fat'" Higgs boson. Electroweak symmetry is broken dynamically through a new gauge interaction that becomes strong at an intermediate scale. The Higgs mass can easily be 200-450 GeV along with the superpartner masses, solving the supersymmetric little hierarchy problem. We explicitly verify that the model is consistent with precision electroweak data without fine-tuning. Gauge coupling unification can be maintained despite the inherently strong dynamics involved in electroweak symmetry breaking. Supersymmetrizing the Standard Model therefore does not imply a light Higgs mass, contrary to the lore in the literature. The Higgs sector of the minimal Fat Higgs model has a mass spectrum that is distinctly different from the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.

Two dimensional (2-D) images of electron temperature fluctuations with high temporal and spatial resolution have been employed to study the sawtooth oscillation (m/n=1/1 mode) in Toroidal EXperiment for Technology Oriented Research (TEXTOR) tokamak plasmas. 2-D imaging data revealed new physics which were not available in previous studies based on the 1-D electron temperature measurement and X-ray tomography. Review of the physics of the sawtooth oscillation is given by comparative studies with prominent theoretical models suggest that a new physics paradigm is needed to describe the reconnection physics of the sawtooth oscillation. The new insights are: A pressure driven instability (not a ballooning mode) leads to the X-point reconnection process. The reconnection process is identified as a random 3-D local reconnection process with a helical structure. The reconnection time scale is similar for different types of sawtooth oscillation ("kink" and tearing type) and is significantly faster than the resistive time scale. Heat flow from the core to the outside of the inversion radius during the reconnection process is highly collective rather than stochastic.

The main goal of the project, "Asymptotically Optimal, High-Order Accurate Algorithms for the Solution of Certain Elliptic PDE's" (DE-FG02-03ER25577) was to develop fast, high-order algorithms for the solution of scattering problems and spectral problems of photonic crystals theory. The results we obtained lie in three areas: (1) asymptotically fast, high-order algorithms for the solution of eigenvalue problems of photonics, (2) fast, high-order algorithms for the solution of acoustic and electromagnetic scattering problems in the inhomogeneous media, and (3) inversion formulas and fast algorithms for the inverse source problem for the acoustic wave equation, with applications to thermo- and opto- acoustic tomography.

This paper describes the results of a year-long project, sponsored by the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) and designed to improve overall electrical safety performance throughout Department of Energy (DOE)-owned sites and laboratories. As evidenced by focused metrics, the Project was successful primarily due to the joint commitment of contractor and DOE electrical safety experts, as well as significant support from DOE and contractor senior management. The effort was managed by an assigned project manager, using classical project-management principles that included execution of key deliverables and regular status reports to the Project sponsor. At the conclusion of the Project, the DOE not only realized measurable improvement in the safety of their workers, but also had access to valuable resources that will enable them to do the following: evaluate and improve electrical safety programs; analyze and trend electrical safety events; increase electrical safety awareness for both electrical and non-electrical workers; and participate in ongoing processes dedicated to continued improvement.

The goal of this project was to perform simulations of beam transport in linear colliders, with an emphasis on emittance dilution, spin polarization transport, and development and testing of beam based tuning algorithms. Our simulations are based on an existing object-oriented particle-tracking library, Bmad. To facilitate the efficient development of simulations, an accelerator design and analysis program based on Bmad has been developed called Tao (Tool for Accelerator Optics). The three beam-based alignment algorithms, Dispersion Free Steering, Ballistic Alignment (BA), and the Kubo Method have been implemented in Tao. We have studied the effects of magnet misalignments, BPM resolution, beam jitter, stray fields, BPM and steering magnet failure and the effects of various cavity shape wakefields. A parametric study has been conducted in the presence of the above types of errors for all three alignment algorithms. We find that BPM resolution has only modest impact on the effectiveness of beam based alignment. The DFS correction algorithm was found to be very robust in situations where there were BPM and/or steering magnet failures. The wakefields in the main linac are very weak and cause negligible emittance growth. Spin tracking was extended to study all accelerator components between the damping ring and …

Remote Systems Engineering (RSE) of the Savannah River National Lab (SRNL) in combination with the Defense Waste Processing Facility(DWPF) Engineering and Operations has evaluated the existing equipment and processes used in the facility sample cells for 'pulling' samples from the radioactive waste stream and performing equipment in-cell repairs/replacements. RSE has designed and tested equipment for improving remote in-cell sampling evolutions and reducing the time required for in-cell maintenance of existing equipment. The equipment within the present process tank sampling system has been in constant use since the facility start-up over 17 years ago. At present, the method for taking samples within the sample cells produces excessive maintenance and downtime due to frequent failures relative to the sampling station equipment and manipulator. Location and orientation of many sampling stations within the sample cells is not conducive to manipulator operation. The overextension of manipulators required to perform many in-cell operations is a major cause of manipulator failures. To improve sampling operations and reduce downtime due to equipment maintenance, a Portable Sampling Station (PSS), wireless in-cell cameras, and new commercially available sampling technology has been designed, developed and/or adapted and tested. The uniqueness of the design(s), the results of the scoping tests, and …

By harvesting waste heat from engine exhaust and storing it in light-weight high-capacity modules, it is believed that the need for energy transport by convoys can be lowered significantly. By storing this power during operation, substantial electrical power can be provided during long periods of silent operation, while the engines are not operating. It is proposed to investigate the potential of installing efficient thermoelectric generators on the exhaust systems of trucks and other vehicles to generate electrical power from the waste heat contained in the exhaust and to store that power in advanced power packs comprised of polymer-gel lithium ion batteries. Efficient inexpensive methods for production of the thermoelectric generator are also proposed. The technology that exists at LLNL, as well as that which exists at industrial partners, all have high technology readiness level (TRL). Work is needed for integration and deployment.

Tank 5 at the Savannah River Site has been used to store high level waste and is currently undergoing waste removal processes in preparation for tank closure. Samples were taken from two locations to determine the contents in support of Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) development for chemical cleaning. These samples were obtained through the use of the Drop Core Sampler and the Snowbank Sampler developed by the Engineered Equipment & Systems (EES) group of the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL).