1. PFI-PEPICO DATA SUGGEST RECALIBRATION OF PROTON AFFINITIES
by Lori Tamura
(Contact: baer@unc.edu)

The transfer of a proton from one molecule to another is a basic chemical reaction and an important step in many biological processes. Thus, knowledge of a molecule's proton affinity--its tendency to grab hold of a proton--is highly useful in modeling or analyzing such reactions. Over 500 molecules have proton affinities whose values are known relative to each other. However, only a few key molecules lend themselves to measurements that can establish absolute proton affinity values. Such measurements have been made with unprecedented accuracy by chemical dynamics researchers using a combination of pulsed-field ionization (PFI) and photoelectron-photoion coincidence (PEPICO) techniques at Beamline 9.0.2 of the ALS. The results indicate that the current proton affinity scale should be shifted down by about 8 kJ/mol.

Read the full story at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/proton_affinity.html.

Publications about this research: T. Baer, Y. Song, C.Y. Ng, J. Liu, W. Chen, "The Heat of Formation of 2-C3H7+ and Proton Affinity of C3H6 Determined by Pulsed Field Ionization-Photoelectron Photoion Coincidence Spectroscopy," J. Phys. Chem. A 104(9), 1959 (2000). T. Baer, Y. Song, J. Liu, W. Chen, C.Y. Ng, "Pulsed field ionization-photoelectron photoion coincidence spectroscopy with synchrotron radiation: The heat of formation of the C2H5+ ion," Faraday Discuss. 115, 137 (2000).

2. BEAMLINES BRIGHT DESPITE ROLLING BLACKOUTS

While nearby offices may have been voluntarily darkened to conserve energy this month, beamlines at the ALS continued to deliver photons of their usual brightness. The ALS is not subject to the rolling blackouts that occurred in California earlier this month because Berkeley Lab's power is supplied through a long-term contract with the Western Area Power Administration, a DOE-run facility. Western has guaranteed that Berkeley Lab's power will not be curtailed when California's Independent System Operator (ISO), the manager of the state's electrical grid, requests that the electrical utilities initiate rolling blackouts. One reason Western can make this guarantee is that it has a number of other "interruptible" customers that voluntarily curtail their power when requested.

For the past several weeks, the state has been under daily Stage 3 alerts, meaning that power reserves are below 1.5% of available capacity. Rolling blackouts, the sequential power outages that affect whole sections of the electrical grid at a time, were ordered statewide for the first time on January 17, as demand exceeded supply. Western Area Power has requested that, during Stage 3 alerts, all of its electrical energy customers voluntarily reduce the use of nonessential electrical equipment. On-site users and staff are requested to help in this effort through the following actions:

1. Turn off lights when leaving a room for more than one minute.
2. Use task lights; turn off general and overhead lights.
3. Turn off all decorative lighting.
4. Turn off computer monitors when idle.
5. Activate and use energy-saving features on office equipment.
6. Shut off coffee pots, radios, fans, space heaters, and other nonessential appliances.

3. DEADLINE FOR COMPENDIUM ABSTRACTS EXTENDED
(Contact: LSTamura@lbl.gov)

In response to requests for extra time and to ensure that as many users as possible are represented in our annual compendium of research, we have extended the deadline for abstract submission to February 5, 2001. So far, the ALS has received about 140 abstracts for work done in the year 2000. We are currently in the process of indexing the abstracts and sending out acknowledgments; we ask for your patience as we work through the backlog of files that were received by the deadline last week. Many thanks to all those who submitted their work in a timely manner.

4. UEC CORNER: NOTES FROM THE USERS' EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
by Harald Ade
(harald_ade@ncsu.edu)

Dear ALS Users,

I would like to update you for the first time in my new role as chair of the ALS Users' Executive Committee. My tenure promises to include both exciting as well as challenging times. On the one hand, the ALS is more productive than ever, and funding for special initiatives at DOE such as the nanotechnology initiative has increased substantially. The ALS community is in great spirits and is "chugging" away, and new office and laboratory space on the ALS mezzanine is becoming available. On the other hand, core science funding at DOE has not seen any increases, and funding for the next-generation projects that will keep the ALS in an international leadership position is difficult to obtain. This is raising important issues, and unless new resources become available, a delicate balance between funding for ongoing research and investments into new projects might be required. This being the case, it is obvious that we can not rest on the "good feelings" generated by the general increase in science funding last year. We have to keep up the pressure on all fronts. I am looking forward to a productive joint effort between all users, the UEC members, the ALS, and DOE management in this regard. My perspective for the year is thus primarily outward looking, towards more cooperation with other facilities and more activism on national funding issues. At the same time, we will not neglect to provide input into important internal ALS decisions.

The new UEC members will be announced shortly. Any issues that you feel should be addressed can be brought to the attention of the UEC through any of the UEC members.

Lastly, I would like to point out that one of the first business items of the UEC this year will be a review of the ALS user policies and the UEC charter. Several changes are planned, such as providing review criteria for independent investigators and formalizing a conflict resolution process.

Best regards, Harald Ade

5. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS

Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next four weeks at the ALS.

Beamline 1.4.3
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)
Karl Nieman and Ron Sims (Utah State Univ.)
Felicia Betancourt and Bob Glaeser (Berkeley Lab and Univ. of California, Berkeley)
James Chesko (Chiron Corp.)
Said Talbi (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Tom Breunig (Univ. of California, San Francisco)
Jessica Preciado, Ralph Greif, and Boris Rubinsky (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

Beamline 7.3.1.1
Kannan Krishnan (Berkeley Lab)
Simone Anders (IBM Almaden Research Center)
Boris Sinkovic (Univ. of Connecticut)

Beamline 8.0.1
Tom Callcott (Univ. of Tennessee)
Dave Ederer (Tulane Univ.)
Alex Moewes (Univ. of Saskatchewan, Canada)
Ernst Kurmaev (Russian Academy of Sciences)
Clemens Heske and Eberhard Umbach (Univ. of Wuerzburg, Germany)

Beamline 10.0.1
Francois Wuilleumier, Denis Cubaynes, Jean-Marc Bizau, Jean-Phillipe Champeaux (Univ. Paris-Sud), and Segolene Diehl (Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, France)
Jonathan Denlinger (Berkeley Lab)
Atsushi Fujimori (Univ. of Tokyo)
Z.X. Shen, Xingjiang Zhou, Pavel Bogdanov (Stanford Univ.), and Alessandra Lanzara (Univ. of Rome)

6. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: Lampo@lbl.gov)

For the user runs of January 18 - 22 (1.5 GeV) and 23 - 28 (1.9 GeV), the beam availability was 97%. Of the scheduled beam, 87% was delivered to completion without interruption. There were no significant outages.

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Bruce Samuelson (BCSamuelson@lbl.gov, x4738) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator.

LBNL/PUB-848
Editors: lstamura@lbl.gov, alrobinson@lbl.gov, amgreiner@lbl.gov

This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.