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. 85           September 3, 1997

Table of Contents


    1. OPERATIONS UPDATE
    2. USERS' MEETING AND WORKSHOPS, CALL FOR POSTERS
    3. ALS WELCOMES VISITORS TO OPEN HOUSE

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

Beam reliability for the last four weeks was 87.6% overall and 86.1% for user shifts. The averages are lower than usual for this four-week period because it included two weeks of two-bunch operation. In this mode, we refill every two hours and perform a beam cleanup process at each fill to eliminate any trailing bunches. Beam reliability for users during two-bunch operations was 82%. During the two weeks of multibunch operations, reliability was 90.25%.The only significant outage during the four-week period was caused by a power dip on August 29 that interrupted operations for a little more than three hours.

Operations Summary for September 3 - September 22

Sep 03, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator physics
Sep 04, 00:00-08:00           1.9-GeV/400-mA/288-bunch user operations
                              (no special operations requested)
Sep 04, 08:00- Sep 08, 07:15  1.9-GeV/400-mA/288-bunch user operations
Sep 08, 07:30-24:00           Maintenance & startup
Sep 09, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator physics
Sep 10, 00:00-08:00           User scrubbing & special operations
Sep 10, 08:00- Sep 15, 07:15  1.9-GeV/400-mA/288-bunch user operations
Sep 15, 07:30-24:00           Maintenance & startup
Sep 16, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator physics
Sep 17, 00:00-08:00           User scrubbing & special operations
Sep 17, 08:00- Sep 22, 07:15  1.9-GeV/400-mA/288-bunch user operations

2. USERS' MEETING AND WORKSHOPS, CALL FOR POSTERS
(contact: alsuser@lbl.gov)

The Annual Meeting of the ALS Users' Association will take place October 13-14. Participants may register in advance (with a deadline of October 3) or at the door. Read on for information about workshops to be held in conjunction with the meeting and the poster abstract submission deadline.

** MAILING ON THE WAY **
A packet including registration forms for the Users' Meeting and workshops and instructions for proposing a poster was mailed on September 2. If you would like a packet and have not received it in due time, please send an email message to alsuser@lbl.gov with your name and either your fax number or your complete mailing address, and put "request Users' Meeting packet" in the subject line.

** WORKSHOPS TO BE HELD OCTOBER 15-16 **
On the day after the Users' Meeting, there will be one tutorial in the morning and four parallel workshops in the afternoon. Registration by September 30 is required to attend these workshops.

09:00-12:00  High-Brightness Photon Beams for ALS Users 
               (tutorial presented by Accelerator Physics and
                 Experimental Systems Groups)
13:30-17:00  Four workshops to choose from:
               Protein Crystallography (organized by Thomas Earnest)
               Atomic and Molecular Physics (organized by Nora Berrah)
               Magnetic Materials (organized by Jeffrey Kortright 
                 and James Tobin)
               Theory and Computation for Synchrotron Applications
                 (organized by Michel Van Hove)

** POSTER ABSTRACTS DUE SEPTEMBER 22 **
A poster session will be held in conjunction with vendor exhibits on Tuesday, October 14, 12:00-3:00 p.m. To propose a poster, please mail or fax a one-page abstract to ALS Administration by September 22. In the upper right-hand corner of the abstract, please include the associated ALS beamline number and the phone number, fax number, and email address of the first author. The poster board size is 1.2 m (4 feet) square. Push pins will be provided.

The number of posters accepted will be limited by the space available. All first authors will be notified by October 3 whether their abstracts have been accepted or declined. Please submit abstracts and address any additional questions to

    Elizabeth Saucier
    ALS Program Administrator
    Advanced Light Source
    MS 80-101
    Berkeley Lab
    Berkeley, CA 94720
    Phone: 510-486-6166
    Fax: 510-486-4960
    Email: alsuser@lbl.gov

3. ALS WELCOMES VISITORS TO OPEN HOUSE
(contact: fred_schlachter@lbl.gov)

Come one, come all to the ALS on Saturday, October 18, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., when the Berkeley Lab hosts its second lab-wide Open House! All over the Lab, the public will have the opportunity to share the excitement of ALS staff and users about their work.

Plans are under way at the ALS for many educational and fun-filled activities. Grown-ups and kids of all ages are sure to enjoy the tent exhibit, "Inside the ALS," where they can explore the secrets of nature and the marvels of engineering that underlie the operation of the facility: What is the electromagnetic spectrum? What is an electron? How is light produced at the ALS? How do we use this light?

Once through this "big top" of basic physics, visitors can embark on an interactive tour of the ALS experimental floor and see for themselves the magnificent instrumentation of the beamlines. ALS staff will be on hand every step of the way to explain the research under way at the beamlines and the high-tech engineering that makes it possible, and to answer any questions. What's more, scientists and engineers will preside over hands-on activities that demonstrate some of the physics applied at the ALS. Among them are "puzzling polarizers," "discovering diffraction," and the "electronics petting zoo."

Just outside the ALS building, ALS staff will present "Cool Science Demos," guaranteed to capture visitors' attention as they witness the fate of objects dipped in liquid nitrogen or speculate on the speed of falling objects in vacuum. Kids can join an "Electron Adventure," in which they play the role of speeding electrons at the ALS. Or they can try "Soapy Science," in which the swirling colors in giant soap bubbles reveal properties of light such as interference and wavelength.

Visitors are sure to learn about the ALS and have fun doing it! And no one will leave empty-handed. All who join the fun will take home a free souvenir--a large color poster showing how the ALS works.

ALS users are welcome to join the Open House activities by presenting demonstrations or standing by at their beamlines to answer questions. Users who are interested in taking this opportunity to explain their research to the public should contact Ruth Pepe (510-486-6793 or rdpepe@lbl.gov).

Note that, for reasons of visitor safety, there will be no beam on October 18 during the day shift, and parking and vehicle traffic will be restricted.