FIRST RESULTS FROM CHEMCAM LASER

FROM: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

ChemCam Laser First Analyses Yield Beautiful Results

Curiosity beams back strong, clear data from ‘scour’ area on Martian surface

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, August 23, 2012—Members of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover ChemCam team, including Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists, squeezed in a little extra target practice after zapping the first fist-sized rock that was placed in the laser’s crosshairs last weekend.

Much to the delight of the scientific team, the laser instrument has fired nearly 500 shots so far that have produced strong, clear data about the composition of the Martian surface.

"The spectrum we have received back from Curiosity is as good as anything we looked at on Earth," said Los Alamos National Laboratory planetary scientist Roger Wiens, Principal Investigator of the ChemCam Team. "The entire MSL team was very excited about this and we popped a little champagne."

When ChemCam fires its extremely powerful laser pulse, it briefly focuses the energy of a million light bulbs onto an area the size of a pinhead. The laser blast vaporizes a small amount of its target up to seven meters (23 feet) away. The resultant flash of glowing plasma is viewed by the system’s 4.3-inch aperture telescope, which sends the light down an optical fiber to a spectrometer located in the body of the rover. There, the colors of light from the flash are recorded and then sent to Earth, enabling scientists to determine the elemental composition of the vaporized material.

Scientists tested the system on Earth in a chamber that simulated the Martian atmosphere. Some of the initial spectral data from Mars look similar to some of the terrestrial standards at first glance. In the coming weeks, ChemCam researchers will pore over the data to look for tiny variations among the peaks and valleys within spectral data captured on Earth and on Mars. These comparisons will allow the team to fine tune and calibrate the instrument, ensuring that every spectral signature gathered by the rover is accurate.

Each element on the Periodic Table has a unique spectral signature. ChemCam scientists will be able to use these spectral fingerprints to decipher the composition of Martian geology, including information about whether Mars rocks ever existed in a watery environment or underwent changes due to interactions with biological organisms.

With regard to Coronation rock (the rock formerly known as N-165), ChemCam’s inaugural target, "at first glance it appears consistent with a basaltic composition," Wiens said.

"What’s more interesting, however, is whether the rock had dust on it or some other kind of surface coating," he said. "ChemCam saw peaks of hydrogen and magnesium during the first shots that we didn’t see in subsequent firings. This could mean the rock surface was coated with dust or some other material."

With Coronation’s analyses complete, the science team had a chance to pick new targets.

"After Coronation, we got to shoot at a group of ugly-looking rocks in the area named ‘Goulburn,’" Wiens said. "That is one of the areas near the rover that was blasted by the thrusters of the landing vehicle, but these rocks were much farther away from the rover than Coronation, providing a bit more of a test for the ChemCam’s laser."

The ChemCam system is one of 10 instruments mounted on the MSL mission’s Curiosity rover—a six-wheeled mobile laboratory that will roam more than 12 miles of the planet’s surface during the course of one Martian year (98 Earth weeks). The system is designed to capture as many as 14,000 observations throughout the mission.

"We are just jubilant," Wiens said. "This mission is absolutely amazing. Everything is working so well. The same applies to our instrument."

ChemCam’s laser, telescope, and camera were provided by the French space agency, CNES, while the spectrometers, electronics, and software were built at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which leads the investigation. The spectrometers were developed with the aid of Ocean Optics, Incorporated, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory assisted with various aspects of development.

The Curiosity science team plans next to take the rover out for a short spin to test out other systems. As the mission progresses, researchers will study the Martian environment in the vicinity of Mount Sharp, a towering peak with a summit nearly three miles above the rover. Mount Sharp appears to contain layers of sedimentary history dating back several billion years. These layers are like pages of a book that could teach researchers much about the geological history of the planet, including whether the Martian environment ever was, or ever may be, suitable for life as we know it.

LASER RESEARCH MAY YIELD CANCER TREATMENT

FROM: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

Laser Research Shows Promise for Cancer Treatment
New insights gained on how lasers generate ions in dense plasmas

　
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, August 20, 2012—Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have observed for the first time how a laser penetrates dense, electron-rich plasma to generate ions. The process has applications for developing next generation particle accelerators and new cancer treatments.
　
The results, published online August 19 in Nature Physics, also confirm predictions made more than 60 years ago about the fundamental physics of laser-plasma interaction. Plasmas dense with electrons normally reflect laser light like a mirror. But a strong laser can drive those electrons to near the speed of light, making the plasma transparent and accelerating the plasma ions.
　
"That idea has been met with some skepticism in the field," said Rahul Shah of LANL’s plasma physics group. "We think that we’ve settled that controversy."
　
The team, which also included researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany and Queens University in Belfast, UK, used the 200 trillion-watt short-pulse TRIDENT laser at Los Alamos National Laboratory to observe the transparency phenomenon at 50 femtosecond resolution. Until now, those dynamics have been witnessed only in computer simulations.
　
The team found close agreement between the model and their experiments, which confirms what Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have long suspected—that directing a short-pulse laser at a very thin carbon foil target will make the foil transparent to the laser.
　
"In a sense it also validates the simulation code that researchers have been using for some time," said Sasi Palaniyappan of LANL’s plasma physics group. "At the same time it also tells us that we’re doing an experiment that’s as close as possible to simulation."
　
The results will help advance work to control the shape and timing of laser pulses, precision that is necessary for developing next-generation, laser-driven particle accelerators, he said. The researchers have recently been awarded internal laboratory funding from the office of Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) to pursue these applications.
　
They now plan to add a second foil target, which could benefit from further focusing and faster turn-on of the laser light transmitted through the first foil. One application of the resulting ultra-short ion bunches is to rapidly heat material and study the ensuing dynamics.
　
Particles accelerated by conventional accelerators aren’t fast enough for such physics experiments. Also, energetic ions are applicable to cancer therapy. A more compact, laser-driven ion source would make treatment less expensive and more accessible to patients.
　
This work was sponsored by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Office of Fusion Energy Sciences and the U.S. Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. The paper is titled "Dynamics of relativistic transparency and optical shuttering in expanding overdense plasmas."

CURIOSITY LASER READIES FOR MARTIAN TARGETS

FROM: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
RIGHT:  Chem Cam Calibration PreLaunch.  PHOTO CREDIT: Los Alamos National Laboratory
ChemCam Laser Sets its Sights on First Martian Target
Rock zapper ready after beaming back images of calibration targets

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, August 17, 2012—Members of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover ChemCam team have received the first photos from the instrument’s remote micro imager. The successful capture of ChemCam’s first 10 photos sets the stage for the first test bursts of the instrument’s rock-zapping laser in the near future.
　
"The successful delivery of these photos means we can begin efforts in earnest for the first images of Mars rocks by the ChemCam instrument and the first use of the instrument’s laser," said Los Alamos National Laboratory planetary scientist Roger Wiens, Principal Investigator of the ChemCam Team. "We anticipate these next steps over the weekend."
　
The next tasks for ChemCam—the inaugural laser burst and spectral reading—will help scientists determine the integrity of the ChemCam system and the pointing capability of the rover’s mast, which supports ChemCam’s laser and telescope. Scientists and engineers from NASA’s Curiosity rover mission have selected ChemCam’s first target, a three-inch rock designated N-165 located near the rover.
　
"Rock N-165 looks like your typical Mars rock, about three inches (seven centimeters) wide and it's about 10 feet away," Wiens said. "We are going to hit it with 14 milliJoules of energy 30 times in 10 seconds. It is not only going to be an excellent test of our system, but it should be pretty cool too."
　
The ChemCam system is one of 10 instruments mounted on the MSL mission’s Curiosity rover—a six-wheeled mobile laboratory that will roam more than 12 miles of the planet’s surface during the course of one Martian year (98 Earth weeks).
　
When ChemCam fires its extremely powerful laser pulse, it briefly focuses the energy of a million light bulbs onto an area the size of a pinhead. The laser blast vaporizes a small amount of its target up to seven meters (23 feet) away.
　
The resultant flash of glowing plasma is viewed by the system’s 4.3-inch aperture telescope, which sends the light down an optical fiber to a spectrometer located in the body of the rover. There the colors of the light from the flash are recorded, enabling scientists to determine the elemental composition of the vaporized material. ChemCam also has a high-resolution camera that provides close-up images of an analyzed location. It can image a human hair from seven feet away.
　
The ChemCam system is designed to capture as many as 14,000 observations throughout the mission.
　
The laser, telescope, and camera were provided by the French space agency, CNES, while the spectrometers, electronics, and software were built at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which leads the investigation. The spectrometers were developed with the aid of Ocean Optics, Incorporated, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory assisted with various aspects of development.

RECORD AMOUNT OF RADIATION CONTAMINATED ITEMS SENT TO WIPP

Photo Credit:  Los Alamos National Laboratory
FROM:  LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
LANL Sets Waste Shipping Record for Fourth Consecutive Year
Lab has sent 172 shipments so far this year; aiming for 200 by September 30

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, August 6, 2012—For the fourth consecutive year, Los Alamos National Laboratory’s TRU Waste Program has shipped a record number of transuranic (TRU) waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M, for permanent disposal.

The Laboratory’s 172nd shipment of TRU waste this year left Los Alamos bound for WIPP on August 2. With two months left in the fiscal year, the Laboratory has already beat last year’s fiscal year record of 171 shipments.

"Our goal this fiscal year is 184 shipments and we are on track to surpass that by a substantial margin," said Lee Bishop, TRU waste manager at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos Site Office. "We expect to send in the neighborhood of 200 shipments to WIPP this year."

The Laboratory has transported more than 1,000 shipments to WIPP since that facility opened in 1999.

Additional emphasis was placed on Area G shipments after last year’s Las Conchas Fire. Although the fire did not pose an immediate threat and protective measures were in place, the State of New Mexico, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and the Laboratory made removing the waste stored above ground at Area G one of their top environmental priorities.

In an agreement between the New Mexico Environment Department and DOE, the Laboratory will remove 3,706 cubic meters of waste from Area G by June 30, 2014.

"We are pleased with the progress we’ve made in our first year of accelerated shipping and we plan to more than double the volume of waste we ship next year," said Dan Cox, deputy associate director of environmental programs at the Laboratory.

The Laboratory plans to ship more than 800 cubic meters of waste to WIPP this year; 1,800 cubic meters next year; and the remaining 1,106 cubic meters by June 30, 2014.

"We are committed to removing the waste stored above ground at Area G as quickly and safely as possible," said Pete Maggiore, assistant manager for environmental operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Site Office. "We broke our all-time shipping record this year and we plan to set the bar even higher next year."


What is transuranic, or TRU, waste?

TRU waste consists of clothing, tools, rags, debris, soil and other items contaminated with radioactive material, mostly plutonium. Transuranic elements such as plutonium have an atomic number greater than uranium, so they are labeled transuranic, for "beyond uranium" on the periodic table of elements.

About 90 percent of the current TRU waste inventory is a result of decades of nuclear research and weapons production at the Laboratory and is often referred to as "legacy" waste.

PREDICTING WILDFIRE BEHAVIOR AND BARK BEETLES

Photo:  Wildfire.  From:  U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service
FROM:  LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
High-Tech Tool Predicts Fire Behavior in Bark Beetle-Ravaged Forests
Rocky Mountain Research Station and LANL build better computer models

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO AND FORT COLLINS, CO, August 9, 2012—Fire fighters facing fast-moving wildfires need better tools to predict erratic fire behavior, especially in forests with dead trees caused by massive outbreaks of bark beetles whose predations create an abundance of dead fuel and changes in the tree canopy structure.

Tools typically available to incident commanders and fire crews are not designed for these potentially highly variable conditions and may not provide accurate fire behavior predictions, scientists have determined. When the High Park Fire in Colorado burned through rugged terrain and populated areas last month, the forest was already ravaged by bark beetles and the fire took advantage.

A high-tech computer model called HIGRAD/FIRETEC, the cornerstone of a collaborative effort between US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station and Los Alamos National Laboratory, provides insights that are essential for front-line fire fighters. The science team is looking into levels of bark beetle-induced conditions that lead to drastic changes in fire behavior and how variable or erratic the behavior is likely to be. The research team, led by Carolyn Sieg at RMRS and Rodman Linn at LANL, includes colleagues from Colorado State University, RMRS’ Fire Laboratory in Missoula, and USFS Forest Health Management. The work is also supported by National Fire Plan funding from US Forest Service Research and Development Washington Office.

HIGRAD/FIRETEC is a physics-based, 3-D computer code designed to simulate the constantly changing, interactive relationship between fire and its environment. It does so by representing the interactions among fire, fuels, atmosphere and topography on a landscape scale. HIGRAD is a computational fluid-dynamics model that represents airflow and its adjustments to terrain, different types of fuel (vegetation) and the fire itself. FIRETEC combines physics models that represent combustion, heat transfer, aerodynamic drag and turbulence.

To model fire behavior, researchers used data collected in forests and woodlands that have been attacked by a variety of bark beetles. A current focus is on better understanding which changes in fire behavior are due to increased dead fuel versus changes in canopy structure that allow high wind speeds to push the fire more easily.

By discovering the ways that highly variable rates and patterns of tree death affect fire behavior it will be possible to better predict the likelihood of dangerous changes in the wildfire’s activity. This ongoing research is important, as most fire models are not well suited to explain fire behavior associated with fluctuating winds in highly variable fuels.

HIGRAD/FIRETEC simulates the dynamic processes that occur within a fire and the way those processes feed off and alter each other. The simulation thus provides much more realistic fire behavior predictions. The model realistically incorporates low fuel-moisture contents of dead needles on the trees. This is particularly important when fires burn through vegetation in which there are patches of dead trees. In this situation dead trees serve as catalysts for tree-top "crown" fires that subsequently consume live trees. Determining the conditions where such behavior exists has not been possible using approaches that assumed the forest conditions had average moisture conditions and were homogenous.

Using advanced computational resources at LANL, the research team believes it can better understand processes that lead to improved operational models of fires. Ultimately, the goal is to gain greater insights from modeling that will lead to greater safety for fire fighters and better protection of people in the path of wildfires.

CURIOSITY GOES TO MARS

Curiosity and Descent Stage, Artist's Concept NASA, CAL-TECH
FROM: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Bradbury Science Museum Gets Martian Fever!
Public invited to Curiosity rover landing party Sunday night at new Mars exhibit
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, July 31, 2012—Curious about Curiosity, the SUV-sized rover scheduled to touch down on Mars on Sunday? Then come on down to an opening party for a new exhibit about it this Sunday at the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos.

The public is invited to a special opening reception beginning at 10 p.m. Sunday (August 5, 2012) to celebrate Los Alamos National Laboratory technologies aboard the six-wheeled mobile science laboratory. The Curiosity rover, the centerpiece of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet Sunday at 11:31 p.m. local (Mountain Daylight) time. The museum plans to show the landing via NASA TV live that evening.

While waiting for the nail-biting news about the successful landing of the Curiosity rover, visitors to the new museum exhibit can learn about LANL technologies on board, view a nearly life-sized 3-dimensional stereo poster of Curiosity, and use their iPhone or iPad to interact with it. Light refreshments will be served.

"This is an exhibit about LANL technology on Mars. We’re really excited to showcase LANL’s scientific and technologic expertise while also providing an educational and fun experience for the public," said Bradbury Science Museum Director Linda Deck. "We’ve been thinking about this for months and intensely working on it about four weeks," she said, adding that the exhibit will remain in place indefinitely in the museum’s TechLab.

Museum visitors will find display models of ChemCam—the rock-zapping laser that will help characterize Martian geology—CheMin, which uses X-ray diffraction to determine the composition of mineral samples collected and dropped into a funnel on the Curiosity rover; and simulated radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), the tiny plutonium canisters that provide heat and power sources that give Curiosity several times as much electricity as previous-generation rovers—a necessity for the much larger and more-advanced payload on Curiosity.

LARGEST EVER NEUTRON BEAM CREATED AT LOS ALAMOS

FROM LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

Trident Target caption: Tom Hurry of Plasma Physics adjusts the target positioner and particle beam diagnostics prior to an experiment at Trident.

World Record Neutron Beam at Los Alamos National Laboratory
New Method Has Potential to Advance Materials Measurement
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, July 10, 2012— Using a one-of-a-kind laser system at Los Alamos National Laboratory, scientists have created the largest neutron beam ever made by a short-pulse laser, breaking a world record. Neutron beams are usually made with particle accelerators or nuclear reactors and are commonly used in a wide variety of scientific research, particularly in advanced materials science.

Using the TRIDENT laser, a unique and powerful 200 trillion-watt short-pulse laser, scientists from Los Alamos, the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, and Sandia National Laboratories focus high-intensity light on an ultra-thin plastic sheet infused with an isotope of hydrogen called deuterium.

The laser light — 200 quintillion watts per square centimeter, equivalent to focusing all of the light coming from the sun to the earth (120,000 terawatts) onto the tip of a pencil — interacts with the plastic sheet, creating a plasma, an electrically charged gas. A quintillion is a one with 18 zeros after it.

The plasma then accelerates large numbers of deuterons — the nucleus of the deuterium atom — into a sealed beryllium target, converting the deuterons into a neutron beam. Using a unique property of plasmas called relativistic transparency, the deuterons are accelerated in just one millimeter rather than the many meters required by standard accelerator technologies.

"So far only at TRIDENT has this new plasma acceleration mechanism been successfully implemented," said Markus Roth from the Technical University of Darmstadt, who serves as the 2012 Rosen Scholar at Los Alamos. "This result is the world’s record for short-pulse laser generated neutron flux, four quintillion neutrons per square centimeter for an object one centimeter from the source. In this generation scheme, the neutrons are emitted along the direction of the initial laser beam and can reach very high energies, in excess of 50 million electron volts."

According to Roth, the new record is five times larger than the previous record and required less than a quarter of the laser energy.

"Neutrons are a unique probe with many scientific applications," said Frank Merrill of LANL’s neutron science and technology group. "Neutrons are used to study fundamental properties of the universe, advanced materials, and have potential applications such as active interrogation of cargo containers, monitoring for clandestine nuclear explosives at border crossings, and as a test bed for fusion-relevant neutron diagnostics, the initial impetus for this study."

This record neutron beam has the speed and energy range that makes it an ideal candidate for radiography and a wide variety of high-energy-density physics studies.

"An object placed one centimeter behind the source would be exposed to more than 40 neutrons per square micrometer (one millionth of a meter) in less than a nanosecond (one billionth of a second) making it an impressive probe for radiography applications," said Merrill.

"Also, for the first time, in these experiments a neutron image driven by a short-pulse laser was realized and showed excellent agreement with numerical calculations," said Roth. Using short-pulse lasers for the production of neutrons can open the field of neutron research to universities, and a broader research community in general.

This project combined the expertise of LANL‘s Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) neutron science group with Physics division’s plasma physicists, TRIDENT laser scientists, and scientists developing neutron detection diagnostics to be fielded at the National Ignition Facility. Scientists from Sandia provided neutron yield and nuclear activation measurements.

NEW RAPID PRODUCTION OF CANCER-TREATMENT AGENT SHOWS PROMISE

FROM:  LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

Cancer Therapy Gets a Boost from New Isotope

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, April 11, 2012—A new medical isotope project at Los Alamos National Laboratory shows promise for rapidly producing major quantities of a new cancer-treatment agent, actinium 225 (Ac-225).

Using proton beams, Los Alamos and its partner Brookhaven National Laboratory could match current annual worldwide production of the isotope in just a few days, solving critical shortages of this therapeutic isotope that attacks cancer cells. A collaboration between Los Alamos, Brookhaven, and Oak Ridge national laboratories is developing a plan for full-scale production and stable supply of Ac-225.

Ac-225 emits alpha radiation. Alpha particles are energetic enough to destroy cancer cells but are unlikely to move beyond a tightly controlled target region and destroy healthy cells. Alpha particles are stopped in their tracks by a layer of skin—or even an inch or two of air.

One of the primary barriers to wider use of Ac-225 has been the lack of an economically viable supply. Scientists at the LANL Isotope Production Facility (IPF) recently completed a successful research and development project in which they explored the accelerator-based production of the isotope. Since 2005, a primary mission for IPF has been production of medical imaging isotopes such as strontium-82 for positron emission tomography, known as PET scans. In addition to medical imaging applications, IPF has had the mission of making isotopes available for national security, environmental studies and a variety of industrial and R&D applications. The Ac-225 work is a first and important step toward the addition of IPF-produced isotopes for medical therapy applications.

The development of new cancer therapies such as Ac-225 was recognized by President Barack Obama in his 2012 State of the Union address, in which he cited the development of such new cancer therapies as Ac-22: “Today, the discoveries taking place in our federally financed labs and universities could lead to new treatments that kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones untouched.”

New sources for the isotope are desperately needed, experts note. Ac-225 has historically been produced in an annual volume of between 600 and 800 millicuries through the natural decay of thorium 229 from uranium 233. But the current need for Ac-225 far outstrips the supply made possible by the traditional method of production, and annual demand could reach 100 times as much, perhaps 50,000 millicuries by 2014. In fact, the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee’s isotope group recently cited the gap between production and demand, saying that the United States should “invest in new production approaches of alpha emitters with highest priority for 225Ac.”

The work by Los Alamos helps address the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee’s recommendation has focused on production of research-scale quantities of Ac-225. Production is done by a specialized particle accelerator at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), by irradiating thorium target foils. Scientists use a 100 MeV (million-electron-volt) proton beam supplied to the Lab’s Isotope Production Facility and a 200-800 MeV beam supplied to LANL’s Weapons Neutron Research Facility—both of which are part of LANSCE.

“Preliminary experiments indicate that accelerator-based production will be viable at the scale required to support clinical applications,” said Meiring Nortier, the lead LANL scientist on the project.

The Los Alamos proof-of-concept work received recognition at a meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency consultants meeting in 2011. There Nortier presented details about Ac-225 production using accelerators, and he described the nuclear data needs for medical isotope production.

The Ac-225 effort is now shifting to the development of high-power targetry and bulk-scale radiochemical processing to potentially provide this material as a routinely available medical isotope. Los Alamos will be pursuing this goal in conjunction with research teams at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The research indicates that it will be possible to match current annual worldwide production of Ac-225 in just two to five days using the accelerator at Los Alamos and similar facilities at Brookhaven. Estimates are that two to three years of production scale-up and process development will be required before Ac-225 can be produced routinely.

This project was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science via an award from Office of Nuclear Physics, Isotope Development and Production for Research and Applications. The Los Alamos Isotope Program has generated isotopes since the 1970s, with production since 2005 coming from the IPF.