Reliability History and Improvements to the ANL 50 MEV H- Accelerator

The H- Accelerator consists of a 750 keV Cockcroft Walton preaccelerator and an Alvarez type 50 MeV linac. The accelerator has been in operation since 1961. Since 1981, it has been used as the injector for the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS), a national user facility for neutron scattering. The linac delivers about 3.5x1012 H- ions per pulse, 30 times per second (30 Hz), for multi-turn injection to a 450 MeV Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS). IPNS presently operates about 4,000 hours per year, and operating when scheduled is critical to meeting the needs of the user community. For many years the IPNS injector/RCS has achieved an average reliability of 95%, helped in large part by the preaccelerator/linac which has averaged nearly 99%. To maintain and improve system reliability, records need to show what each subsystem contributes to the total down time. The history of source and linac subsystem reliability, and improvements that have been made to improve reliability, will be described. Plans to maintain or enhance this reliability for at least another ten years of operation, will also be discussed.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figur

Tree-body loss of of trapped ultracold 87^{87}Rb atoms due to a Feshbach resonance

The loss of ultracold trapped atoms in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance is treated as a two-stage reaction, using the Breit-Wigner theory. The first stage is the formation of a resonant diatomic molecule, and the second one is its deactivation by inelastic collisions with other atoms. This model is applied to the analysis of recent experiments on $^{87}$Rb, leading to an estimated value of $7\times 10^{-11}$ cm$^{3}/$s for the deactivation rate coefficient.Comment: LaTeX, 4 pages with 1 figures, uses REVTeX4, uses improved experimental dat

Stability of fermionic Feshbach molecules in a Bose-Fermi mixture

In the wake of successful experiments in Fermi condensates, experimental attention is broadening to study resonant interactions in degenerate Bose-Fermi mixtures. Here we consider the properties and stability of the fermionic molecules that can be created in such a mixture near a Feshbach resonance (FR). To do this, we consider the two-body scattering matrix in the many-body environment, and assess its complex poles. The stability properties of these molecules strongly depend on their centre-of-mass motion, because they must satisfy Fermi statistics. At low centre-of-mass momenta the molecules are more stable than in the absence of the environment (due to Pauli-blocking effects), while at high centre-of-mass momenta nontrivial many body effects render them somewhat less stable

Characterization of elastic scattering near a Feshbach resonance in rubidium 87

The s-wave scattering length for elastic collisions between 87Rb atoms in the state |f,m_f>=|1,1> is measured in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance near 1007 G. Experimentally, the scattering length is determined from the mean-field driven expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a homogeneous magnetic field. The scattering length is measured as a function of the magnetic field and agrees with the theoretical expectation. The position and the width of the resonance are determined to be 1007.40 G and 0.20 G, respectively.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures minor revisions: added Ref.6, included error bar

Microscopic Dynamics in a Strongly Interacting Bose-Einstein Condensate

An initially stable 85Rb Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) was subjected to a carefully controlled magnetic field pulse in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance. This pulse probed the strongly interacting regime for the condensate, with calculated values for the diluteness parameter (na^3) ranging from 0.01 to 0.5. The field pulse was observed to cause loss of atoms from the condensate on remarkably short time scales (>=10 microsec). The dependence of this loss on magnetic field pulse shape and amplitude was measured. For triangular pulses shorter than 1 ms, decreasing the pulse length actually increased the loss, until extremely short time scales (a few tens of microseconds) were reached. Such time scales and dependencies are very different from those expected in traditional condensate inelastic loss processes, suggesting the presence of new microscopic BEC physics.Comment: 4 pages in latex2E, 4 eps figures; revised Fig.1, revised scatt.lengths, added discussion, new refs., resubmitted to PR

Multiwavelength characterization of faint ultra steep spectrum radio sources: a search for high-redshift radio galaxies

Context. Ultra steep spectrum (USS) radio sources are one of the efficient tracers of powerful high-z radio galaxies (HzRGs). In contrast to searches for powerful HzRGs from radio surveys of moderate depths, fainter USS samples derived from deeper radio surveys can be useful in finding HzRGs at even higher redshifts and in unveiling a population of obscured weaker radio-loud AGN at moderate redshifts. Aims. Using our 325 MHz GMRT observations (5σ ∼ 800 μJy) and 1.4 GHz VLA observations (5σ ∼ 80−100 μJy) available in two subfields (VLA-VIMOS VLT Deep Survey (VLA-VVDS) and Subaru X-ray Deep Field (SXDF)) of the XMM-LSS field, we derive a large sample of 160 faint USS radio sources and characterize their nature. Methods. The optical and IR counterparts of our USS sample sources are searched using existing deep surveys, at respective wavelengths. We attempt to unveil the nature of our faint USS sources using diagnostic techniques based on mid-IR colors, flux ratios of radio to mid-IR, and radio luminosities. Results. Redshift estimates are available for 86/116 (∼74%) USS sources in the VLA-VVDS field and for 39/44 (∼87%) USS sources in the SXDF fields with median values (zmedian) ∼1.18 and ∼1.57, respectively, which are higher than estimates for non-USS radio sources (zmedian non−USS ∼ 0.99 and ∼0.96), in the two subfields. The MIR color–color diagnostic and radio luminosities are consistent with most of our USS sample sources at higher redshifts (z > 0.5) being AGN. The flux ratio of radio to mid-IR (S 1.4 GHz/S 3.6 μm) versus redshift diagnostic plot suggests that more than half of our USS sample sources distributed over z ∼ 0.5 to 3.8 are likely to be hosted in obscured environments. A significant fraction (∼26% in the VLA-VVDS and ∼13% in the SXDF) of our USS sources without redshift estimates mostly remain unidentified in the existing optical, IR surveys, and exhibit high radio to mid-IR flux ratio limits similar to HzRGs, and so, can be considered as potential HzRG candidates. Conclusions. Our study shows that the criterion of ultra steep spectral index remains a reasonably efficient method to select high-z sources even at sub-mJy flux densities. In addition to powerful HzRG candidates, our faint USS sample also contains populations of weaker radio-loud AGNs potentially hosted in obscured environments

Topology-Induced Critical Current Enhancement in Josephson Networks

We investigate the properties of Josephson junction networks with inhomogeneous architecture. The networks are shaped as "quare comb" planar lattices on which Josephson junctions link superconducting islands arranged in the plane to generate the pertinent topology. Compared to the behavior of reference linear arrays, the temperature dependencies of the Josephson currents of the branches of the network exhibit relevant differences. The observed phenomena evidence new and surprising behavior of superconducting Josephson arrays as well as remarkable similarities with bosonic junction arrays.Comment: improved figures (added magnetic pattern and single junction switching) some changes in the text and in the titl