Measuring the neutron's mean square charge radius using neutron interferometry
The neutron is electrically neutral, but its substructure consists of charged quarks so it may have an internal charge distribution. In fact it is known to have a negative mean square charge radius (MSCR), the second moment of the radial charge density. In other words the neutron has a positive core and negative skin. In the first Born approximation the neutron MSCR can be simply related to the neutron–electron scattering length b ne . In the past this important quantity has been extracted from the energy dependence of the total transmission cross-section of neutrons on high-Z targets, a very difficult and complicated process. A few years ago S.A. Werner proposed a novel approach to measuring b ne from the neutron's dynamical phase shift in a perfect crystal close to the Bragg condition. We are conducting an experiment based on this method at the NIST neutron interferometer which may lead to a five-fold improvement in precision of b ne and hence the neutron MSCR.

title: Pionic and electromagnetic excitation of A* resonances
abstract: The nuclear excitation spectrum in the Delta (3,3) energy range is studied by comparing elastic pion scattering with coherent neutral pion photoproduction. The corresponding multipole excitation strength distributions are found to be quite different. This emphasises the role of the electromagnetic excitations of nuclei for the investigation of the A* resonances which is complementary to their mesonic excitation. Results are presented for 12C( gamma , pi 0) 12C(GS); they are compared with those of the phenomenological isobar doorway model and of DWIA calculations.

title: Unified Description of Pion-Photo-Production and Elastic Pion Scattering on the Deuteron in the Isobar-Doorway Model
abstract: It has been recognized recently1 that the strong dominance of the Δ(1236) isobar in nuclear reactions at medium energies advocates an explicit treatment of this degree of freedom in nuclei (in contrast to its implicit incorporation in an optical model description). Such a model, phrased commonly as isobar doorway or A* model1 has two particularly interesting features, (i) it forms a natural basis for a unified description of different isobar dominated scattering processes; (ii) it offers a more or less direct test of the isobar self energy in nuclei or, equivalently, of the ΔN interaction. An ideal testing ground for such a model seems to be deuteron: with all many-body complications being absent, predictions for scattering reactions on the deuteron should reflect and in this way allow direct investigation of the various ingredients of the model.

title: COLLECTIVE TREATMENT OF THE GIANT RESONANCES IN SPHERICAL NUCLEI.
abstract: In a collective treatment the energies of the giant resonances are given by the boundary conditions at the nuclear surface, which is subject to vibration in spherical nuclei. The general form of the coupling between these two collective motions is given by angular-momentum and parity conservation. The coupling constants are completely determined within the hydrodynamical model. In the present treatment the influence of the surface vibrations on the total photon-absorption cross section is calculated. It turns out that in most of the spherical nuclei this interaction leads to a pronounced structure in the cross section. The agreement with the experiments in medium-heavy nuclei is striking; many of the experimental characteristics are reproduced by the present calculations. In some nuclei, however, there seem to be indications of single-particle excitations which are not yet contained in this work.

title: Quark excitations of nuclei - A new frontier in nuclear research -
abstract: The investigation of nuclei in the energy domain of the elementary N*-resonances (i.e. for 200 MeV < Eexc < 2 GeV) opens up a new and important domain of nuclear research for essentially two reasons: (i) the quark structure of the nuclear constituent, the nucleon, leads to new nuclear phenomena; their investigation appears to be of fundamental importance for the understanding of complex hadronic systems; (ii) the nucleus can be used as a unique laboratory to test QCD in the nonasymptotic region where perturbative approaches fail. This is of particular interest, e.g. for the confinement problem. — Some specific aspects of subnuclear research are discussed in connection with the analysis of recent experiments and, in particular, in view of a possible strategy for a systematic investigation of nuclear quark excitations.

title: SHORT-RANGE CORRELATIONS AND ELASTIC ELECTRON SCATTERING.

title: Position dependence in the CDMS II ZIP detectors
abstract: The Ge and Si detectors developed by the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) II experiment rely on the simultaneous detection of athermal phonons and ionization produced by interactions in the crystal. The athermal phonons provide both the total energy deposited in an interaction and the information about the position of the interaction. We describe extracting this information from the pulse shapes in the four phonon sensors. We present the result of measurements made on a Si detector from the first CDMS II production batch. We also investigate ways of using the event position information to extract further information about the phonon signal.

title: Exclusion limits on the WIMP-nucleon cross section from the first run of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search in the Soudan Underground Laboratory
abstract: The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS-II) employs low-temperature Ge and Si detectors to seek Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) via their elastic scattering interactions with nuclei. Simultaneous measurements of both ionization and phonon energy provide discrimination against interactions of background particles. For recoil energies above 10 keV, events due to background photons are rejected with > 99.99% efficiency. Electromagnetic events very near the detector surface can mimic nuclear recoils because of reduced charge collection, but these surface events are rejected with > 96% efficiency by using additional information from the phonon pulse shape. Efficient use of active and passive shielding, combined with the 2090 m.w.e. overburden at the experimental site in the Soudan mine, makes the background from neutrons negligible for this first exposure. All cuts are determined in a blind manner from in situ calibrations with external radioactive sources without any prior knowledge of the event distribution in the signal region. Resulting efficiencies are known to {approx}10%. A single event with a recoil of 64 keV passes all of the cuts and is consistent with the expected misidentification rate of surface-electron recoils. Under the assumptions for a standard dark matter halo, these data exclude previously unexplored parameter space for both spin-independent and spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering. The resulting limit on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic-scattering cross-section has a minimum of 4 x 10{sup -43} cm{sup 2} at a WIMP mass of 60 GeV c{sup -2}. The minimum of the limit for the spin-dependent WIMP-neutron elastic-scattering cross-section is 2 x 10{sup -37} cm{sup 2} at a WIMP mass of 50 GeV c{sup -2}.

title: Searching for Variability in the Globular Cluster Messier 4
abstract: Time-series data taken with the Hubble Space Telescope of a field six core radii (~5') from the center of the globular cluster Messier 4, and covering a period of about 10 weeks in early 2001, have been analyzed in search of variable objects. Various criteria were employed to select candidate variable stars. Period searches were performed on the selected candidates using phase dispersion minimization (PDM). The reliability of the PDM search results was tested using synthetic light curves of eclipsing binary stars and sinusoidal light curves of different periods. Results from this analysis showed that there are probably no eclipsing binary stars or periodic variables in our field with periods on the order of a few hours to a few days, down to limiting magnitudes of V ~ 25 and I ~ 24, which is consistent with the absence of contact binaries such as W Ursae Majoris systems. However, one candidate variable star does show an increase in brightness of ~0.1 mag in both bandpasses, which seems to last for a few days. Possible explanations concerning the nature of this object include a binary system with a white dwarf primary and a low-mass main-sequence secondary or a BY Draconis variable star. We are able to set an upper limit to the observed fraction of photometric variability in this data set of 0.05%.

title: Search for axions with the CDMS experiment.
abstract: We report on the first axion search results from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment at the Soudan Underground Laboratory. An energy threshold of 2 keV for electron-recoil events allows a search for possible solar axion conversion into photons or local galactic axion conversion into electrons in the germanium crystal detectors. The solar axion search sets an upper limit on the Primakov coupling g(agammagamma) of 2.4x10(-9) GeV-1 at the 95% confidence level for an axion mass less than 0.1 keV/c2. This limit benefits from the first precise measurement of the absolute crystal plane orientations in this type of experiment. The galactic axion search analysis sets a world-leading experimental upper limit on the axioelectric coupling g(aee) of 1.4x10(-12) at the 90% confidence level for an axion mass of 2.5 keV/c2.

title: The FSVS Cluster Catalogue: galaxy clusters and groups in the Faint Sky Variability Survey
abstract: We describe a large sample of 598 galaxy clusters and rich groups discovered in the data of the Faint Sky Variability Survey (FSVS). The clusters have been identified using a fully automated, semiparametric technique based on a maximum likelihood approach applied to Voronoi tessellation, and enhanced by colour discrimination. The sample covers a wide range of richness, has a density of ∼28 clusters deg -2 , and spans a range of estimated redshifts of 0.05 0.6, the catalogue contributes substantially to the current total of optically selected, intermediate-redshift clusters, and complements the existing, usually X-ray selected, samples. The FSVS fields are accessible for observation throughout the whole year, making them particularly suited for large follow-up programmes. The construction of this FSVS Cluster Catalogue completes a fundamental component of our continuing programmes to investigate the environments of quasars and the chemical evolution of galaxies. We publish here the list of all clusters with their basic parameters, and discuss some illustrative examples in more detail. The full FSVS Cluster Catalogue, together with images and lists of member galaxies etc., will be issued as part of the 'NOAO (National Optical Astronomy Observatories) data products', and accessible at http://www.noao.edu/dpp/. We describe the format of these data and access to them.