Winds of change : exploring students' definitions of spirituality and their experiences of spiritual development at a public institution

This thesis is a report of a phenomenological-informed study of public university student spiritual development. The research was based primarily upon semi-structured personal interviews and a focus group with undergraduate students at a large, public research institution on the west coast. Since the introduction of scientific objectivity into the academy in the 1850s, public higher education has struggled to address student spiritual development in a way that balances personal expression with institutional establishment (Clark, 20 01; Hartley, 2004; Jacobsen & Jacobsen, 2012; Lowery, 2004). Recently, higher education professionals have begun to recognize that students are going through a young adult process of defining their meaning and purpose, wrestling with questions about their inner-selves, and about how to make sense of the world around them (Astin, 2004; Baxter Magolda, 2000; Palmer, Zajonc, & Scribner, 2010; Parks, 2000). Researchers in this study recorded individual interviews to explore how public university students define spirituality and the relationship between the students' spiritual development and their public institution. A focus group of several participants explored how students discuss spiritual development within a mentoring community. The theoretical foundations of Parks' (2000) young adult faith development and the spirituality measures of Astin, Astin, & Lindholm (2011) inform the interpretation of the emerging phenomenological themes

The performance of reflectometers at continuous wave and pulsed-neutron sources

To quantify gains from time-of-flight (TOF) methods, identical reflectometers viewing a continuous wave (CW) neutron source and a variety of pulsed-neutron sources were simulated using a Monte Carlo technique. Reflectivity profiles obtained for a simple thin-film, reflecting,sample were nearly identical in all simulations, and models fitted to the simulated data yielded parameters (film thickness, surface roughness, and scattering length density) that were equally accurate and precise in all cases. The simulations confirm the power of the TOF method and demonstrate that the performance of pulsed sources for reflectometry does not scale simply as the inverse duty factor of the source. In the case of long-pulse sources, the simulations suggest that pulse tails have little effect on results obtained from specular reflectometry and that maximum brightness of the neutron source should be the primary design criterion

Fabrication of boron-phosphide neutron detectors

Boron phosphide is a potentially viable candidate for high neutron flux neutron detectors. The authors have explored chemical vapor deposition methods to produce such detectors and have not been able to produce good boron phosphide coatings on silicon carbide substrates. However, semi-conducting quality films have been produced. Further testing is required

Using spallation neutron sources for defense research

Advanced characterization techniques and accelerated simulation are the cornerstones of the Energy Department`s science-based program to maintain confidence in the safety, reliability, and performance of the US nuclear deterrent in an era of no nuclear testing. Neutrons and protons provided by an accelerator-based facility have an important role to play in this program, impacting several of the key stockpile stewardship and management issues identified by the Department of Defense. Many of the techniques used for defense research at a spallation source have been used for many years for the basic research community, and to a lesser extent by industrial scientists. By providing access to a broad spectrum of researchers with different backgrounds, a spallation source such as the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center is able to promote synergistic interaction between defense, basic and industrial researchers. This broadens the scientific basis of the stockpile stewardship program in the short term and will provide spin-off to industrial and basic research in the longer term

Correcting Aberrations of a Transverse-Field Neutron Resonance Spin Echo Instrument

The neutron resonance spin echo (NRSE) technique has the potential to increase the Fourier time and energy resolution in neutron scattering by using radio-frequency (rf) neutron spin-flippers. However, aberrations arising from variations in the neutron path length between the rf flippers reduce the polarization. Here, we develop and test a transverse static-field magnet, a series of which are placed between the rf flippers, to correct for these aberrations. The prototype correction magnet was both simulated in an NRSE beamline using McStas, a Monte Carlo neutron ray-tracing software package, and measured using neutrons. The results from the prototype demonstrate that this static-field design corrects for transverse-field NRSE aberrations.Comment: 8 figures, 10 page

New Magnetic Excitations in the Spin-Density-Wave of Chromium

Low-energy magnetic excitations of chromium have been reinvestigated with a single-Q crystal using neutron scattering technique. In the transverse spin-density-wave phase a new type of well-defined magnetic excitation is found around (0,0,1) with a weak dispersion perpendicular to the wavevector of the incommensurate structure. The magnetic excitation has an energy gap of E ~ 4 meV and at (0,0,1) exactly corresponds to the Fincher mode previously studied only along the incommensurate wavevector.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Neutron spin echo is a "quantum tale of two paths''

We describe an experiment that strongly supports a two-path interferometric model in which the spin-up and spin-down components of each neutron propagate coherently along spatially separated parallel paths in a typical neutron spin echo small angle scattering (SESANS) experiment. Specifically, we show that the usual semi-classical, single-path treatment of the Larmor precession of a polarized neutron in an external magnetic field predicts a damping as a function of the spin-echo length of the SESANS signal obtained with a periodic phase grating when the transverse width of the neutron wave packet is finite. However, no such damping is observed experimentally, implying either that the Larmor model is incorrect or that the transverse extent of the wave packet is very large. In contrast, we demonstrate theoretically that a quantum-mechanical interferometric model in which the two mode-entangled (i.e. intraparticle entangled) spin states of a single neutron are separated in space when they interact with the grating accurately predicts the measured SESANS signal, which is independent of the wave packet width

Orientational order in dipolar fluids consisting of nonspherical hard particles

We investigate fluids of dipolar hard particles by a certain variant of density-functional theory. The proper treatment of the long range of the dipolar interactions yields a contribution to the free energy which favors ferromagnetic order. This corrects previous theoretical analyses. We determine phase diagrams for dipolar ellipsoids and spherocylinders as a function of the aspect ratio of the particles and their dipole moment. In the nonpolar limit the results for the phase boundary between the isotropic and nematic phase agree well with simulation data. Adding a longitudinal dipole moment favors the nematic phase. For oblate or slightly elongated particles we find a ferromagnetic liquid phase, which has also been detected in computer simulations of fluids consisting of spherical dipolar particles. The detailed structure of the phase diagram and its evolution upon changing the aspect ratio are discussed in detail.Comment: 35 pages LaTeX with epsf style, 11 figures in eps format, submitted to Phys. Rev.