Nuclear rocket propulsion. NASA plans and progress, FY 1991

NASA has initiated planning for a technology development project for nuclear rocket propulsion systems for space explorer initiative (SEI) human and robotic missions to the moon and Mars. An interagency project is underway that includes the Department of Energy National Laboratories for nuclear technology development. The activities of the project planning team in FY 1990 and 1991 are summarized. The progress to date is discussed, and the project plan is reviewed. Critical technology issues were identified and include: (1) nuclear fuel temperature, life, and reliability; (2) nuclear system ground test; (3) safety; (4) autonomous system operation and health monitoring; and (5) minimum mass and high specific impulse

Comparison of Nucleon Form Factors from Lattice QCD Against the Light Front Cloudy Bag Model and Extrapolation to the Physical Mass Regime

We explore the possibility of extrapolating state of the art lattice QCD calculations of nucleon form factors to the physical regime. We find that the lattice results can be reproduced using the Light Front Cloudy Bag Model by letting its parameters be analytic functions of the quark mass. We then use the model to extend the lattice calculations to large values of Q^{2} of interest to current and planned experiments. These functions are also used to define extrapolations to the physical value of the pion mass, thereby allowing us to study how the predicted zero in G_{E}(Q^{2})/G_{M}(Q^{2}) varies as a function of quark mass.Comment: 31 pages, 22 figure

Shapes of the Proton

A model proton wave function, constructed using Poincare invariance, and constrained by recent electromagnetic form factor data, is used to study the shape of the proton. Spin-dependent quark densities are defined as matrix elements of density operators in proton states of definite spin-polarization, and shown to have an infinite variety of non-spherical shapes. For high momentum quarks with spin parallel to that of the proton, the shape resembles that of a peanut, but for quarks with anti-parallel spin the shape is that of a bagel.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. C This corrects a few typos and explains some further connections with experiment

Nuclear Quasi-Elastic Electron Scattering Limits Nucleon Off-Mass Shell Properties

The use of quasi-elastic electron nucleus scattering is shown to provide significant constraints on models of the proton electromagnetic form factor of off-shell nucleons. Such models can be constructed to be consistent with constraints from current conservation and low-energy theorems, while also providing a contribution to the Lamb shift that might potentially resolve the proton radius puzzle in muonic hydrogen. However, observations of quasi-elastic scattering limit the overall strength of the off-shell form factors to values that correspond to small contributions to the Lamb shift.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. Resubmission to improve the clarity, and correct possible misconception

New Hope for the Working Poor: Effects After Eight Years for Families and Children

Implemented in 1994 in Milwaukee, New Hope provided full-time, low-wage workers with several benefits for three years: an earnings supplement, low-cost health insurance, and subsidized child care. A random assignment study shows positive effects for both adults and children, some of which persisted five years after the program ended

Experimental studies of perceptual processes, section three Progress report, Jan. 1 - Sep. 30, 1965

Interrelations of signal detection and operant researc

Crop Insurance and Disaster Payments.

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Direct simulation of proton-coupled electron transfer across multiple regimes

The coupled transfer of electrons and protons is a central feature of biological and molecular catalysis, yet fundamental aspects of these reactions remain poorly understood. In this study, we extend the ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) method to enable direct simulation of proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) reactions across a wide range of physically relevant regimes. In a system-bath model for symmetric, co-linear PCET in the condensed phase, RPMD trajectories reveal distinct kinetic pathways associated with sequential and concerted PCET reaction mechanisms, and it is demonstrated that concerted PCET proceeds by a solvent-gating mechanism in which the reorganization energy is mitigated by charge cancellation among the transferring particles. We further employ RPMD to study the kinetics and mechanistic features of concerted PCET reactions across multiple coupling regimes, including the fully non-adiabatic (both electronically and vibrationally non-adiabatic), partially adiabatic (electronically adiabatic, but vibrationally non-adiabatic), and fully adiabatic (both electronically and vibrationally adiabatic) limits. Comparison of RPMD with the results of PCET rate theories demonstrates the applicability of the direct simulation method over a broad range of conditions; it is particularly notable that RPMD accurately predicts the crossover in the thermal reaction rates between different coupling regimes while avoiding a priori assumptions about the PCET reaction mechanism. Finally, by utilizing the connections between RPMD rate theory and semiclassical instanton theory, we show that analysis of ring-polymer configurations in the RPMD transition path ensemble enables the a posteriori determination of the coupling regime for the PCET reaction. This analysis reveals an intriguing and distinct “transient-proton-bridge” mechanism for concerted PCET that emerges in the transition between the proton-mediated electron superexchange mechanism for fully non-adiabatic PCET and the hydrogen atom transfer mechanism for partially adiabatic PCET. Taken together, these results provide a unifying picture of the mechanisms and physical driving forces that govern PCET across a wide range of physical regimes, and they raise the possibility for PCET mechanisms that have not been previously reported

Nucleon Charge Symmetry Breaking and Parity Violating Electron-Proton Scattering

The consequences of the charge symmetry breaking effects of the mass difference between the up and down quarks and electromagnetic effects for searches for strangeness form factors in parity violating electron scattering from the proton are investigated. The formalism necessary to identify and compute the relevant observables is developed by separating the Hamiltonian into charge symmetry conserving and breaking terms. Using a set of SU(6) non-relativistic quark models, the effects of the charge symmetry breaking Hamiltonian are considered for experimentally relevant alues of the momentum transfer and found to be less than about 1 percent. The charge symmetry breaking corrections to the Bjorken sum rule are also studied and shown to vanish in first-order perturbation theory.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figure