Identity Among Chinese American Adolescents in a Culturally Relevant Children’s Choir

The purpose of this case study was to explore ways that the cultural identity of Chinese American adolescents was mediated through participation in a children’s choir that sings repertoire from both Western and Eastern countries of the world. The study examined a children’s choir where a majority of members identify as Chinese American adolescents. The primary question guiding the inquiry was: How do Chinese American adolescents describe the experience of singing in a children’s choir on their emerging cultural identity? Sub questions included the following: How is identity created or described by Chinese American youth in a children’s choir? How does social interaction with fellow choir members affect their identity development? What is the impact of singing Chinese folksongs on the development of their identity? How might the findings apply to other music education settings? Data collection included 12 hours of observations over the course of five weeks, and interviewing five students, the director, and the founding director of the children’s choir. Findings suggest positive role models that are also culture bearers, singing popular Chinese folksongs, and having a positive, family-like environment aids in the development of cultural identity among Chinese American adolescents.Master of ArtsMusic EducationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111749/1/LINDL_Thesis-Final.pd

X-ray Raman compression via two-stream instability in dense plasmas

A Raman compression scheme suitable for x-rays, where the Langmuir wave is created by an intense beam rather than the pondermotive potential between the seed and pump pulses, is proposed. The required intensity of the seed and pump pulses enabling the compression could be mitigated by more than a factor of 100, compared to conventionally available other Raman compression schemes. The relevant wavelength of x-rays ranges from 1 to 10 nm

Suppression of Landau damping via electron band gap

The pondermotive potential in the X-ray Raman compression can generate an electron band gap which suppresses the Landau damping. The regime is identified where a Langmuir wave can be driven without damping in the stimulated Raman compression. It is shown that the partial wave breaking and the frequency detuning due to the trapped particles would be greatly reduced.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Theory of plasmon decay in dense plasmas and warm dense matter

The decay of the Langmuir waves in dense plasmas is not accurately predicted by the prevalent Landau damping theory. A dielectric function theory is introduced, predicting much higher damping than the Landau damping theory. This strong damping is in better agreement with the experimentally observed data in metals. It is shown that the strong plasmon decay leads to the existence of a parameter regime where the backward Raman scattering is unstable while the forward Raman scattering is stable. This regime may be used to create intense x-ray pulses, by means of the the backward Raman compression. The optimal pulse duration and intensity is estimated

Photonic band gap and x-ray optics in warm dense matter

Photonic band gaps for the soft x-rays, formed in the periodic structures of solids or dense plasmas, are theoretically investigated. Optical manipulation mechanisms for the soft x-rays, which are based on these band gaps, are computationally demonstrated. The reflection and amplification of the soft x-rays, and the compression and stretching of chirped soft x-ray pulses are discussed. A scheme for lasing with atoms with two energy levels, utilizing the band gap, is also studied.Comment: 3 figures, will be published on Po

X-ray diffraction from shock-loaded polycrystals

X-ray diffraction was demonstrated from shock-compressed polycrystalline metal on nanosecond time scales. Laser ablation was used to induce shock waves in polycrystalline foils of Be, 25 to 125 microns thick. A second laser pulse was used to generate a plasma x-ray source by irradiation of a Ti foil. The x-ray source was collimated to produce a beam of controllable diameter, and the beam was directed at the Be sample. X-rays were diffracted from the sample, and detected using films and x-ray streak cameras. The diffraction angle was observed to change with shock pressure. The diffraction angles were consistent with the uniaxial (elastic) and isotropic (plastic) compressions expected for the loading conditions used. Polycrystalline diffraction will be used to measure the response of the crystal lattice to high shock pressures and through phase changes

Stochastic homogenization of the laser intensity to improve the irradiation uniformity of capsules directly driven by thousands laser beams

Illumination uniformity of a spherical capsule directly driven by laser beams has been assessed numerically. Laser facilities characterized by ND = 12, 20, 24, 32, 48 and 60 directions of irradiation with associated a single laser beam or a bundle of NB laser beams have been considered. The laser beam intensity profile is assumed super-Gaussian and the calculations take into account beam imperfections as power imbalance and pointing errors. The optimum laser intensity profile, which minimizes the root-mean-square deviation of the capsule illumination, depends on the values of the beam imperfections. Assuming that the NB beams are statistically independents is found that they provide a stochastic homogenization of the laser intensity associated to the whole bundle, reducing the errors associated to the whole bundle by the factor  , which in turn improves the illumination uniformity of the capsule. Moreover, it is found that the uniformity of the irradiation is almost the same for all facilities and only depends on the total number of laser beams Ntot = ND × NB

Non-Gaussian Statistics of Multiple Filamentation

We consider the statistics of light amplitude fluctuations for the propagation of a laser beam subjected to multiple filamentation in an amplified Kerr media, with both linear and nonlinear dissipation. Dissipation arrests the catastrophic collapse of filaments, causing their disintegration into almost linear waves. These waves form a nearly-Gaussian random field which seeds new filaments. For small amplitudes the probability density function (PDF) of light amplitude is close to Gaussian, while for large amplitudes the PDF has a long power-like tail which corresponds to strong non-Gaussian fluctuations, i.e. intermittency of strong optical turbulence. This tail is determined by the universal form of near singular filaments and the PDF for the maximum amplitudes of the filaments