FAST CARS: Engineering a Laser Spectroscopic Technique for Rapid Identification of Bacterial Spores

Airborne contaminants, e.g., bacterial spores, are usually analyzed by time consuming microscopic, chemical and biological assays. Current research into real time laser spectroscopic detectors of such contaminants is based on e.g. resonant Raman spectroscopy. The present approach derives from recent experiments in which atoms and molecules are prepared by one (or more) coherent laser(s) and probed by another set of lasers. The connection with previous studies based on "Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy" (CARS) is to be noted. However generating and utilizing maximally coherent oscillation in macromolecules having an enormous number of degrees of freedom is much more challenging. This extension of the CARS technique is called FAST CARS (Femtosecond Adaptive Spectroscopic Techniques for Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy), and the present paper proposes and analyses ways in which it could be used to rapidly identify pre-selected molecules in real time.Comment: 43 pages, 21 figures; replacement with references added. Submitted to the Proceedings of National Academy of Science

Momentum and Energy Distributions of Nucleons in Finite Nuclei due to Short-Range Correlations

The influence of short-range correlations on the momentum and energy distribution of nucleons in nuclei is evaluated assuming a realistic meson-exchange potential for the nucleon-nucleon interaction. Using the Green-function approach the calculations are performed directly for the finite nucleus $^{16}$O avoiding the local density approximation and its reference to studies of infinite nuclear matter. The nucleon-nucleon correlations induced by the short-range and tensor components of the interaction yield an enhancement of the momentum distribution at high momenta as compared to the Hartree-Fock description. These high-momentum components should be observed mainly in nucleon knockout reactions like $(e,e'p)$ leaving the final nucleus in a state of high excitation energy. Our analysis also demonstrates that non-negligible contributions to the momentum distribution should be found in partial waves which are unoccupied in the simple shell-model. The treatment of correlations beyond the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approximation also yields an improvement for the calculated ground-state properties.Comment: 12 pages RevTeX, 7 figures postscript files appende

Use And Development Of Insect Traps At ICRISAT

Several types of insect traps are being used by entomologists at ICRISAT in their pest-management research on sorghum, millet, groundnut, pigeonpea, and chickpea. The various traps most of which have been developed or adapted at ICRISAT, are described. The utility of these traps for monitoring and pest management is discussed

Observation of a large parity nonconserving analyzing power in Xe

A large parity nonconserving longitudinal analyzing power was discovered in polarized-neutron transmission through Xe. An analyzing power of 4.3±0.2% was observed in a p-wave resonance at En=3.2 eV. The measurement was performed with a liquid Xe target of natural isotopic abundance that was placed in the polarized epithermal neutron beam, flight path 2, at the Manuel Lujan Neutron Science Center. This apparatus was constructed by the TRIPLE Collaboration, and has been used for studies of parity symmetry in compound nuclear resonances. Part of the motivation of the experiment was to discover a nucleus appropriate for a sensitive test of time-reversal invariance in polarized-neutron transmission. The large analyzing power of the observed resonance may make it possible to design a test of time reversal invariance using a polarized-Xe target

High-Efficiency Resonant RF Spin Rotator with Broad Phase Space Acceptance for Pulsed Polarized Cold Neutron Beams

We have developed a radio-frequency resonant spin rotator to reverse the neutron polarization in a 9.5 cm x 9.5 cm pulsed cold neutron beam with high efficiency over a broad cold neutron energy range. The effect of the spin reversal by the rotator on the neutron beam phase space is compared qualitatively to RF neutron spin flippers based on adiabatic fast passage. The spin rotator does not change the kinetic energy of the neutrons and leaves the neutron beam phase space unchanged to high precision. We discuss the design of the spin rotator and describe two types of transmission-based neutron spin-flip efficiency measurements where the neutron beam was both polarized and analyzed by optically-polarized 3He neutron spin filters. The efficiency of the spin rotator was measured to be 98.0+/-0.8% on resonance for neutron energies from 3.3 to 18.4 meV over the full phase space of the beam. As an example of the application of this device to an experiment we describe the integration of the RF spin rotator into an apparatus to search for the small parity-violating asymmetry A_gamma in polarized cold neutron capture on para-hydrogen by the NPDGamma collaboration at LANSCE

Precision Measurement of PArity Violation in Polarized Cold Neutron Capture on the Proton: the NPDGamma Experiment

The NPDGamma experiment at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) is dedicated to measure with high precision the parity violating asymmetry in the $\gamma$ emission after capture of spin polarized cold neutrons in para-hydrogen. The measurement will determine unambiguously the weak pion-nucleon-nucleon ($\pi NN$) coupling constant {\it f$^1_{\pi}$}Comment: Proceedings of the PANIC'05 Conference, Santa Fe, NM, USA, October 24-28, 2005, 3 pages, 2 figure

Nuclear structure studies with the 7Li(e,e'p) reaction

Experimental momentum distributions for the transitions to the ground state and first excited state of 6He have been measured via the reaction 7Li(e,e'p)6He, in the missing momentum range from -70 to 260 MeV/c. They are compared to theoretical distributions calculated with mean-field wave functions and with variational Monte Carlo (VMC) wave functions which include strong state-dependent correlations in both 7Li and 6He. These VMC calculations provide a parameter-free prediction of the momentum distribution that reproduces the measured data, including its normalization. The deduced summed spectroscopic factor for the two transitions is 0.58 +/- 0.05, in perfect agreement with the VMC value of 0.60. This is the first successful comparison of experiment and ab initio theory for spectroscopic factors in p-shell nuclei.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Effects of Short-Range Correlations in (e,e'p) reactions and nuclear overlap functions

A study of the effects of short-range correlations over the (e,e'p) reaction for low missing energy in closed shell nuclei is presented. We use correlated, quasi-hole overlap functions extracted from the asymptotic behavior of the one-body density matrix, containing central correlations of Jastrow type, up to first-order in a cluster expansion, and computed in the very high asymptotic region, up to 100 fm. The method to extract the overlap functions is checked in a simple shell model, where the exact results are known. We find that the single-particle wave functions of the valence shells are shifted to the right due to the short-range repulsion by the nuclear core. The corresponding spectroscopic factors are reduced only a few percent with respect to the shell model. However, the (e,e'p) response functions and cross sections are enhanced in the region of the maximum of the missing momentum distribution due to short-range correlations.Comment: 45 pages, 15 figure