A High Power Hydrogen Target for Parity Violation Experiments

Parity-violating electron scattering measurements on hydrogen and deuterium, such as those underway at the Bates and CEBAF laboratories, require luminosities exceeding $10^{38}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$, resulting in large beam power deposition into cryogenic liquid. Such targets must be able to absorb 500 watts or more with minimal change in target density. A 40~cm long liquid hydrogen target, designed to absorb 500~watts of beam power without boiling, has been developed for the SAMPLE experiment at Bates. In recent tests with 40~$\mu$A of incident beam, no evidence was seen for density fluctuations in the target, at a sensitivity level of better than 1\%. A summary of the target design and operational experience will be presented.Comment: 13 pages, 9 postscript figure

All-weather ice information system for Alaskan arctic coastal shipping

A near real-time ice information system designed to aid arctic coast shipping along the Alaskan North Slope is described. The system utilizes a X-band Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) mounted aboard a U.S. Coast Guard HC-130B aircraft. Radar mapping procedures showing the type, areal distribution and concentration of ice cover were developed. In order to guide vessel operational movements, near real-time SLAR image data were transmitted directly from the SLAR aircraft to Barrow, Alaska and the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Glacier. In addition, SLAR image data were transmitted in real time to Cleveland, Ohio via the NOAA-GOES Satellite. Radar images developed in Cleveland were subsequently facsimile transmitted to the U.S. Navy's Fleet Weather Facility in Suitland, Maryland for use in ice forecasting and also as a demonstration back to Barrow via the Communications Technology Satellite

Great Lakes all-weather ice information system

A system is described which utilizes an X-band Side-Looking-Airborne-Radar (SLAR) for determining type, location, and aerial distribution of the ice cover in the Great Lakes and an airborne, S-band, short pulse radar for obtaining ice thickness. The SLAR system is currently mounted aboard a U.S. Coast Guard C-130B aircraft. Digitized SLAR data are relayed in real-time via the NOAA-GOES-1 satellite in geosynchronous orbit to the U.S. Coast Guard Ice Center in Cleveland, Ohio. SLAR images along with hand-drawn interpretative ice charts for various winter shipping areas in the Great Lakes are broadcast to facsimile recorders aboard Great Lakes vessels. The operational aspects of this ice information system are being demonstrated by NASA, U.S. Coast Guard, and NOAA/National Weather Service. Results from the 1974-75 winter season demonstrated the ability of this system to provide all-weather ice information to shippers in a timely manner

Apollo Lightcraft Project

This second year of the NASA/USRA-sponsored Advanced Aeronautical Design effort focused on systems integration and analysis of the Apollo Lightcraft. This beam-powered, single-stage-to-orbit vehicle is envisioned as the shuttlecraft of the 21st century. The five person vehicle was inspired largely by the Apollo Command Module, then reconfigured to include a new front seat with dual cockpit controls for the pilot and co-pilot, while still retaining the 3-abreast crew accommodations in the rear seat. The gross liftoff mass is 5550 kg, of which 500 kg is the payload and 300 kg is the LH2 propellant. The round trip cost to orbit is projected to be three orders of magnitude lower than the current space shuttle orbiter. The advanced laser-driven 5-speed combined-cycle engine has shiftpoints at Mach 1, 5, 11 and 25+. The Apollo Lightcraft can climb into low Earth orbit in three minutes, or fly to any spot on the globe in less than 45 minutes. Detailed investigations of the Apollo Lightcraft Project this second year further evolved the propulsion system design, while focusing on the following areas: (1) man/machine interface; (2) flight control systems; (3) power beaming system architecture; (4) re-entry aerodynamics; (5) shroud structural dynamics; and (6) optimal trajectory analysis. The principal new findings are documented. Advanced design efforts for the next academic year (1988/1989) will center on a one meter+ diameter spacecraft: the Lightcraft Technology Demonstrator (LTD). Detailed engineering design and analyses, as well as critical proof-of-concept experiments, will be carried out on this small, near-term machine. As presently conceived, the LTD could be constructed using state of the art components derived from existing liquid chemical rocket engine technology, advanced composite materials, and high power laser optics

Power Suppressed Corrections to Hadronic Event Shape Variables

For high energy processes ($M\gg \Lambda_{QCD}$) there are infrared safe hadronic shape variables that have a calculable perturbative expansion in $\alpha_s(M^2)$. However, nonperturbative power suppressed corrections to these variables are not well understood. We use the behavior of large orders of the perturbation expansion to gain insight into the nonperturbative corrections. Our results suggest that certain shape variables have nonperturbative corrections suppressed by fractional powers of $\Lambda_{QCD}^2/M^2$.Comment: (12 pages, 2 figures, uses harvmac and uufiles), UCSD/PTH 94-1

Hot Carrier Transport and Photocurrent Response in Graphene

Strong electron-electron interactions in graphene are expected to result in multiple-excitation generation by the absorption of a single photon. We show that the impact of carrier multiplication on photocurrent response is enhanced by very inefficient electron cooling, resulting in an abundance of hot carriers. The hot-carrier-mediated energy transport dominates the photoresponse and manifests itself in quantum efficiencies that can exceed unity, as well as in a characteristic dependence of the photocurrent on gate voltages. The pattern of multiple photocurrent sign changes as a function of gate voltage provides a fingerprint of hot-carrier-dominated transport and carrier multiplication.Comment: 4 pgs, 2 fg

DHODH modulates transcriptional elongation in the neural crest and melanoma

Melanoma is a tumour of transformed melanocytes, which are originally derived from the embryonic neural crest. It is unknown to what extent the programs that regulate neural crest development interact with mutations in the BRAF oncogene, which is the most commonly mutated gene in human melanoma1. We have used zebrafish embryos to identify the initiating transcriptional events that occur on activation of human BRAF(V600E) (which encodes an amino acid substitution mutant of BRAF) in the neural crest lineage. Zebrafish embryos that are transgenic for mitfa:BRAF(V600E) and lack p53 (also known as tp53) have a gene signature that is enriched for markers of multipotent neural crest cells, and neural crest progenitors from these embryos fail to terminally differentiate. To determine whether these early transcriptional events are important for melanoma pathogenesis, we performed a chemical genetic screen to identify small-molecule suppressors of the neural crest lineage, which were then tested for their effects on melanoma. One class of compound, inhibitors of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH), for example leflunomide, led to an almost complete abrogation of neural crest development in zebrafish and to a reduction in the self-renewal of mammalian neural crest stem cells. Leflunomide exerts these effects by inhibiting the transcriptional elongation of genes that are required for neural crest development and melanoma growth. When used alone or in combination with a specific inhibitor of the BRAF(V600E) oncogene, DHODH inhibition led to a marked decrease in melanoma growth both in vitro and in mouse xenograft studies. Taken together, these studies highlight developmental pathways in neural crest cells that have a direct bearing on melanoma formation