Status of the CAMD Light Source
In parallel with the increasing diversity of its research program, the CAMD Light Source has improved its beam brightness and quality. Using a well calibrated model of the lattice, the ring optic has been refined to generate a lower beam emittance of 150 nm. rad and this has been confirmed by measuring the beta values with the modulated quadrupole shunt system. The beam sizes have also been measured with an X-ray pinhole camera and compared to the calculated emittance. The beam orbit is corrected to a standard position referenced to the quadrupole centers to a precision better than 0.5 mm, using a suite of well localized bumps which can also flexibly steer the user photon beams to their requirements. Beam reliability has been improved by bringing into use a VME control system for the energy ramp.

title: Localizing particles showering in a Spaghetti Calorimeter
abstract: We report on the performance of a fine-grained 13-ton compensating lead/scintillating-fiber calorimeter, and in particular on its capability of localizing the particles that produce showers in it. The RMS position resolution was found to be 1.7 mm for electromagnetic showers and 5.1 mm for hadronic showers at 80 GeV, averaged over a tower with an effective radius of 39 mm. Pion-pion separation through analysis of the energy deposit pattern was achieved in more than 95% of the cases for distances down to 8 cm at 80 GeV. Because of the good lateral position resolution, detailed information on the longitudinal shower development could be obtained, with the help of tracking information, when single particles entered the (longitudinally unsegmented) detector at a small angle with respect to the fiber axis. This information made it possible to eliminate the effects of light attenuation in the fibers on the hadronic energy resolution and allowed e/π separation at the 10−4 level.

title: SciDAC advances in beam dynamics simulation: from light sources to colliders
abstract: In this paper, we report on progress that has been made in beam dynamics simulation, from light sources to colliders, during the first year of the SciDAC-2 accelerator project 'Community Petascale Project for Accelerator Science and Simulation (ComPASS).' Several parallel computational tools for beam dynamics simulation are described. Also presented are number of applications in current and future accelerator facilities (e.g., LCLS, RHIC, Tevatron, LHC, and ELIC).

title: STRONG FIELD EFFECTS ON PULSAR ARRIVAL TIMES: GENERAL ORIENTATIONS
abstract: A pulsar beam passing close to a black hole can provide a probe of very strong gravitational fields even if the pulsar itself is not in a strong field region. In the case that the spin of the hole can be ignored, we have previously shown that all strong field effects on the beam can be understood in terms of two 'universal' functions: F(phi{sub in}) and T(phi{sub in}) of the angle of beam emission phi{sub in}; these functions are universal in that they depend only on a single parameter, the pulsar/black hole distance from which the beam is emitted. Here we apply this formalism to general pulsar-hole-observer geometries, with arbitrary alignment of the pulsar spin axis and arbitrary pulsar beam direction and angular width. We show that the analysis of the observational problem has two distinct elements: (1) the computation of the location and trajectory of an observer-dependent 'keyhole' direction of emission in which a signal can be received by the observer; and (2) the determination of an annulus that represents the set of directions containing beam energy. Examples of each are given along with an example of a specific observational scenario.

title: Crystallization in the Thin and Ultrathin Films of Poly(ethylene-vinyl acetate) and Linear Low-Density Polyethylene
abstract: The crystallization of poly(ethylene−vinyl acetate) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) films spun-cast from the polymer/toluene solutions with as-cast thickness from 460 to 10 nm was studied. The lamellar thickness was measured using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and found to increase from 14 to 21 nm for films thinner than 100 nm. The morphology of LLDPE measured by scanning probe microscopy (SPM) showed an edge-on lamellae for the films thicker than 30 nm and flat-on lamellae for the films thinner than 15 nm. A pseudo-“shish-kebab” tiny crystal structure was observed in between the larger lamellae. Crystallinity was confirmed using attenuated total reflectance−Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy. The shear modulation force microscopy technique (SMFM) was used to measure the melting point, Tm, which was found to decrease for films thinner than 100 nm. The rate of decrease was a function of the annealing pr...

title: Dipole and spin-dipole resonances in charge-exchange reactions on 12C.
abstract: The [sup 12]C([ital n],[ital p])[sup 12]B reaction was studied using the white neutron source at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility/Weapon Neutron Research Center with a continuous incident neutron energy from 60 to 260 MeV. Double differential cross sections were measured in the angular range 11[degree][le][theta][sub lab][le]37[degree]. Using the neutron time-of-flight facility at the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility, we also studied the [sup 12]C([ital p],[ital n])[sup 12]N reaction at [ital E][sub [ital p]]=186 MeV and the [sup 12]C([ital [rvec p]],[ital [rvec n]])[sup 12]N reaction at [ital E][sub [ital [rvec p]]]=160 and 186 MeV. Double differential cross sections were measured between [theta][sub lab]=0[degree] and [theta][sub lab]=50[degree] in 5[degree] steps. Spin observables [ital D][sub [ital N][ital N]], [ital A][sub [ital Y]], and [ital P] were measured at [theta][sub lab]=5[degree],9[degree],13[degree] with [ital E][sub [ital [rvec p]]]=160 MeV and [theta][sub lab]=15[degree],20[degree] with [ital E][sub [ital [rvec p]]]=186 MeV. Angular distributions of differential cross section and spin observables for low-lying transitions in the residual nuclei are compared with disorted-wave impulse approximation (DWIA) calculations. A multipole decomposition analysis was performed to study the giant dipole and giant spin-dipole resonances. The contributions of the quasifree reaction in the giant resonance region was subtracted. The empirical results ofmore » energy distributions for dipole ([Delta][ital L]=1) transition are compared with DWIA calculations using nuclear structure information obtained with a conventional shell model and also with a random phase approximation.« less

title: DEVELOPMENT OF RADIO FREQUENCY GUNS AT NSRRC
abstract: Technologies for rf gun-based high brightness injector are being developed at NSRRC. An X-band photo-cathode rf gun has been constructed and operated successfully for coherent electromagnetic radiation research at U.C. Davis. Recent measurement of a 1.5-2 MeV beam from this gun with bunch charge at 25 pC showed that it has a normalized emittance at 1.65 mm-mrad. As a successive project, a 100 MeV electron beam injector system with a thermionic rf gun and a photo-cathode rf gun that share the same 2998 MHz rf linac is being designed as the pre-injector of the TPS (Taiwan Photon Source) booster as well as beam injector for novel light source research. For evaluation purposes, a prototype thermionic rf gun system is now under construction at NSRRC with the existing 2856 MHz high power microwave system as the driver source.

title: THE LIQUID SCINTILLATOR NEUTRINO DETECTOR AND LAMPF NEUTRINO SOURCE
abstract: A search for neutrino oscillations of the type ν μ → ν c has been conducted at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility using ν μ from muon decay at rest. Evidence for this transition has been reported previously. This paper discusses in detail the experimental setup, detector operation and neutrino source, including aspects relevant to oscillation searches in the muon decay-at-rest and pion decay in flight channels.

title: Nonparametric Bayesian Estimation of Periodic Functions
abstract: Many astronomical phenomena exhibit patterns that have periodic behavior. An important step when analyzing data from such processes is the problem of identifying the period: estimating the period of a periodic function based on noisy observations made at irregularly spaced time points. This problem is still a difficult challenge despite extensive study in different disciplines. This paper makes several contributions toward solving this problem. First, we present a nonparametric Bayesian model for period finding, based on Gaussian Processes (GPs), that does not make assumptions on the shape of the periodic function. As our experiments demonstrate, the new model leads to significantly better results in period estimation especially when the light curve does not exhibit sinusoidal shape. Second, we develop a new algorithm for parameter optimization for GP which is useful when the likelihood function is very sensitive to the parameters with numerous local minima, as in the case of period estimation. The algorithm combines gradient optimization with grid search and incorporates several mechanisms to overcome the high computational complexity of GP. Third, we develop a novel approach for using domain knowledge, in the form of a probabilistic generative model, and incorporate it into the period estimation algorithm. Experimental results validate our approach showing significant improvement over existing methods.

title: GENERATION OF ULTRA-SHORT ELECTRON BUNCHES FOR LIGHT SOURCE RESEARCH
abstract: An S-band thermionic 1.5-cell rf gun injector system is being built at NSRRC for Taiwan Photon Source (TPS) booster. At optimized field ratio, an electron beam with linear energy chirp can be generated by the rf gun. The beam is then compressed by an alpha magnet such that ultra-short electron bunches at femto-second bunch length can be obtained. Particle dynamics has been studied for an rf gun with nose cone at the cathode, simulation results show that 74 pC bunches at about 97 fs is achievable. Some of the critical components such as the rf gun and alpha magnet have been fabricated and being tested in house. Experiments for intense coherent THz radiations and tunable femto-second X-ray from ultra-short bunches are being proposed as future applications.

title: Status, new development and upgrading program at HIRFL
abstract: The operation status and new development including the accelerator and experimental stations of HIRFL facility in the last years, and the upgrading program for the next five years are presented. The new completed radioactive beam line RIBLL, the new axial injection system and the new central region for the injector, the ECR ion source development and the new frame of control system are given in some details. The new project CSR is also presented with its main parameters. A upgrading program is under studying to meet the requirement of RIBLL and CSR towards radioactive beam researches.