ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users and other interested parties informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your name and complete internet address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content.

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ALSNews           Vol. 42           December 13, 1995

Table of Contents


    1. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
    2. OPERATIONS UPDATE
    3. A MOVING EXPERIENCE
    4. CALL FOR INSTRUMENTATION PROPOSALS UNDER FACILITIES INITIATIVE
    5. USERS' EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTION RESULTS
    6. SCHEDULING MEETING WILL BE JANUARY 19

1. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The 34 issues of ALSNews published in 1995 represent the combined efforts of a large number of people. We would like to express our appreciation to the many users who have willingly and patiently worked with us to write the science highlights, the ALS staff who have contributed material and acted as our review and editorial board, and the readers who have given us guidance and positive feedback (greatly appreciated). Special thanks to William Jaquith, the electronic postmaster at LBNL, who manages our electronic mailing list and distribution.

To give everyone a rest and to save energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, including the ALS, will shut down from December 23 to January 2. We wish everyone a pleasant holiday and a happy new year; we will send the next issue of ALSNews on January 10.

2. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(contact: rmmiller@lbl.gov)

Beam availability for the last two weeks was 82.5% overall and 88.4% during user shifts. Causes of lost beamtime included water leaks and flow restrictions in linac modulator 1, and beam losses (due to crossing a tune resonance) while ramping between 1.5 GeV and 1.9 GeV.

Operations Summary for December 13 - January 14

Dec 13, 00:00-08:00           Scrubbing & Tests
Dec 13, 08:00- Dec 18, 08:00  1.3-GeV/400-mA/320-bunch user operations
Dec 18, 08:00-24:00           Maintenance & Startup
Dec 19, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator Physics
Dec 20, 00:00- Dec 22, 24:00  1.5-GeV/400-mA/320-bunch user operations
Dec 23, 00:00- Jan 02, 08:00  Holiday break
Jan 02, 08:00-24:00           Maintenance & Startup
Jan 03, 00:00-16:00           Accelerator Physics
Jan 03, 16:00- Jan 08, 08:00  1.5-GeV/400-mA/320-bunch user operations
Jan 08, 08:00-24:00           Maintenance & Startup
Jan 09, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator Physics
Jan 10, 00:00-08:00           Scrubbing & Tests
Jan 10, 08:00- Jan 14, 24:00  1.5-GeV/400-mA/320-bunch user operations

3. A MOVING EXPERIENCE
(contact: ajackson@lbl.gov)

At 3:12 p.m. on Friday, December 1, there was an earthquake of magnitude 3.7 (Richter scale) near Richmond, northwest of Berkeley. The electron beam in the storage ring survived the experience (no current was lost), but it did shudder! There are three highly sensitive electron beam position monitors in the storage ring, two in straight 7 and one in straight 4, and these recorded beam motion at the time of the quake. The horizontal monitors recorded a twitch of up to 100 microns which recovered immediately. The vertical detectors showed an orbit shift of about 20 microns (verified by motion observed on diagnostic beamline 3.1) which lasted for 40 minutes before reverting to the original state... most puzzling. It appears that none of the experiments on the ALS experimental floor noticed this earth-moving event. One experimenter exclaimed, "When we picked ourselves up off the floor [poetic license, we think], we went over to check the I-zero [intensity downstream of the monochromator] and were amazed to find not a glitch!"

One possible explanation put forward for the bizarre electron beam behavior is buried in quantum mechanics. If you consider the electron beam closed orbit to be the ground state of its motion, the absorption of a graviton by the beam sets up an excited state that subsequently decays, presumably by the emission of one or more gravitons (which everyone thought was just an aftershock). If one calculates the mass of the "macro-particle beam" system from the decay constant, an extremely difficult calculation, one arrives at an answer of 194,705 kg, which is remarkably close (perhaps not too surprisingly) to the total weight of magnets in the storage ring. The next event is predicted to occur exactly four calendar months from this last one. [Editors' note-- sounds like late-night quantum physics humor to us....]

4. CALL FOR INSTRUMENTATION PROPOSALS UNDER FACILITIES INITIATIVE

The Scientific Facilities Initiative, an effort to gain increased funding for U.S. user facilities like the ALS, has officially been approved. The funding coming to the ALS from the Initiative includes three basic components. First, there is an increase in our operating budget; this has already allowed the ALS to increase its user shifts from 9 to 16 per week. Additional operators, technicians, and other staff are being brought in to support the additional operating time. Second, the initiative includes capital equipment money which will allow the ALS to continue its aggressive instrumentation building program. By the end of calendar 1996, we should have six out of ten insertion-device straight sections filled.

Third, and of immediate importance to many present and prospective ALS users, is a share of initiative funding for users pursuing new instrumentation. This share is estimated at $5 million during fiscal 1996. The Department of Energy (DOE) will grant these funds to academic and government-lab-based users (collaborations with industry are encouraged) to support fundamental research which will include the upgrade and/or development of new instrumentation to optimize the use of the DOE national user facilities. The deadline for receipt of the three-page pre-application for this funding is December 29, 1995, with final proposals to follow by February 8, 1996. Interested ALS users are encouraged to contact Fred Schlachter (email fred_schlachter@lbl.gov, phone 510-486-4892) or the ALS User Office (email alsuser@lbl.gov, phone 510-486-4773) at their earliest opportunity to discuss linking their proposals with ALS or other user-generated proposals.

If you would like to receive the text of the DOE call for proposals and supplementary information, please send an email message to alsnews@lbl.gov (do not reply to this message). Include the text "send proposal information" in your subject line. The information is also available on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://www.er.doe.gov/production/grants/fr96_02.html

5. USERS' EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTION RESULTS

The ballots for incoming members of the Users' Executive Committee (UEC) have been tallied. The new members, who will serve for calendar years 1996-1998, are C. Richard Brundle (C. R. Brundle & Associates), Werner Meyer-Ilse (Center for X-Ray Optics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), and Arthur G. Suits (Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).

The continuing members of the UEC are Harald W. Ade (North Carolina State U.), Nora Berrah (Western Michigan U.), Chair Jeffrey Bokor (U. of California, Berkeley), Past Chair Thomas A. Callcott (U. of Tennessee), Marjorie A. Olmstead (U. of Washington), Eli Rotenberg (U. of Oregon), Mahesh G. Samant (IBM Almaden Research Center), and Louis J. Terminello (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory).

The UEC will meet next on January 19, 1996, led by incoming Chair Jeffrey Bokor (U. of California, Berkeley, email: jbokor@eecs.berkeley.edu).

6. SCHEDULING MEETING WILL BE JANUARY 19
(contact: fred_schlachter@lbl.gov)

The users' scheduling meeting to discuss operations following the April, 1996 shutdown has been rescheduled for January 19 at 3:00 p.m. to coincide with the UEC meeting. The regular weekly scheduling meeting will occupy the first few minutes of the meeting; likely agenda items for the remainder of the meeting include operating energies, use of the longitudinal feedback system, and an update on accelerator physics. The regular weekly scheduling meeting will take place at 3:00, followed by the rest of the meeting agenda.