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.

Previous Issues are available.


ALSNews           Vol. 65           November 13, 1996

Table of Contents


    1. OPERATIONS UPDATE
    2. INTERACTIVE ALS BIOGRAPHIES DEBUT IN MICROWORLDS
    3. NEW ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM POSTER
    4. PUBLICATION FORMS, ABSTRACT REQUESTS ON THE WAY
    5. LONG-TERM SCHEDULE UPDATE AND CORRECTION
    6. CALL FOR INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATOR PROPOSALS

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

Beam availability for the last two weeks was 91.8% overall and 90.8% for user shifts. All outages were of short duration.

Operations Summary for November 13 - December 9

Nov 13, 00:00-08:00           User scrubbing and special operations
                                (1.1-GeV/400-mA/304-bunch requested)
Nov 13, 08:00- Nov 18, 07:15  1.5 GeV/400-mA/304-bunch user operations,
                                with one bunch filled to 20 mA
Nov 18, 07:30- Nov 19, 24:00  Maintenance and startup
Nov 20, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator physics
Nov 21, 00:00-08:00           User scrubbing and special operations
Nov 21, 08:00- Nov 27, 23:15  1.9-GeV/300-mA/304-bunch user operations,
                                with one bunch filled to 20 mA
Nov 28, 00:00- Dec 02, 07:30  Thanksgiving holiday wknd, no operations
Dec 02, 07:30-24:00           Maintenance and startup
Dec 03, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator physics
Dec 04, 00:00-08:00           User scrubbing and special operations
Dec 04, 08:00- Dec 09, 07:15  1.9-GeV/300-mA/304-bunch user operations

Weekly operations scheduling meetings: Fridays at 3:30 p.m. in the Building 6 conference room. There will be no meeting on November 29, so the November 22 meeting will include scheduling for two weeks. 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.

2. INTERACTIVE ALS BIOGRAPHIES DEBUT IN MICROWORLDS
(contact: jccross@lbl.gov)
(http://www.lbl.gov/MicroWorlds/brightbusy/)

One of the first questions students and teachers often ask at the start of an ALS tour is "What do you do at the ALS?" The popularity of this question stems from the fact that most have never been to a large research facility such as the ALS and many are somewhat surprised to find out that "real" people (much like themselves) work here. Often they are curious about the kinds of jobs and careers that are possible in such a place. This summer we asked student Andrea Macfie (now a senior at San Francisco's University High School) to create a way to try to bring some of the people at the ALS and what they do "to life" for students and teachers as her summer research project. The result is "The Bright and the Busy"-- a series of interactive biographies of people at the ALS now available as part of MicroWorlds, the educational internet magazine about research and science related to the ALS. Many thanks to Richard DeMarco, the brave volunteer for the first biography and a member of the ALS survey and alignment crew.

Through these interactive biographies, students can ask the person featured their own questions or submit an answer to a puzzle which relates to what the person does at the ALS. A new biography will be posted each month along with student questions and answers with the students' names, schools, and email addresses. We encourage you to pass on the web address for MicroWorlds to students and teachers and encourage their participation (http://www.lbl.gov/MicroWorlds/).

3. NEW ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM POSTER
(contact: jccross@lbl.gov)

A new addition to the outreach materials available from the ALS is our Electromagnetic Spectrum poster, a full size version of the EM spectrum originally created as part of our popular "Inside the ALS" poster. The new EM poster is an excellent teaching resource for both elementary and high school science classes. Anyone wishing a copy should send an email message containing their complete mailing address to alsuser@lbl.gov with "Please send EM Poster" in the subject line.

Other educational materials available from the ALS include:
- Moving Electrons - a hands-on activity unit
- Puzzling Polarizers - a hands-on activity unit
- "Inside the ALS" - an informative poster for teachers and students with a hand-out on suggestions for using the poster in the classroom
- Top Ten Questions People Ask about the ALS (a fun trivia sheet of cool facts)
- Mass, Energy, The Speed of Light - It's Not Intuitive!
- A Day in the Life of an ALS Electron - a lighter look at what an electron does at the ALS

For copies of any of these materials, contact the ALS User Office [(510) 486-7745].

4. PUBLICATION FORMS, ABSTRACT REQUESTS ON THE WAY
(contact: alsuser@lbl.gov)

The ALS needs users' help in keeping up-to-date records of all publications, preprints, and conference presentations based on research done (in whole or in part) at the ALS. ALS Publication forms are being sent this week to each known user with a list of publications already submitted from that user. We ask that you return the completed publication forms, with copies of any publications or abstracts attached, no later than December 6, 1996.

** LOOKING AHEAD: COMPENDIUM OF ALS EXPERIMENT ABSTRACTS **
In March 1997, we will be publishing a volume of experiment abstracts submitted by users, describing work done (in whole or in part) at the ALS. This volume, which will be as comprehensive as possible, is intended to complement the existing ALS Activity Report. All users will be sent a set of guidelines and will be asked to provide brief abstracts of the work they have done at the ALS in 1995 and 1996, including works in progress and work already published. We anticipate a deadline of early January 1997 for receipt of these abstracts; the guidelines and submission information will be sent to all users within the next few weeks.

5. LONG-TERM SCHEDULE UPDATE AND CORRECTION
(contact: fred_schlachter@lbl.gov)

The next ALS shutdown will begin on April 28, 1997, as previously announced. This shutdown will primarily be for installation of a small-gap vacuum chamber in sector 8, allowing operation at lower photon energies. The shutdown's duration has been fixed at five weeks plus one week startup; user operations are thus scheduled to begin again on June 10.

A second shutdown is planned in 1997 (provisionally for late autumn) for installation of a new U10 undulator to serve a relocated Beamline 9.0.1. This beamline will continue to be used for high-resolution gas-phase research and will also be used for new high-resolution materials studies. Beamline 9.0.2 will continue to occupy sector 9.

We have corrected an error in the long-term schedule last circulated regarding the date of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in January. The holiday will extend from 8:00 a.m. on January 20 to 8:00 a.m. on January 21, not January 13-14 as previously stated. The long-term schedule is kept current on the ALS Operations Web page (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_ops/ops_home.html).

6. CALL FOR INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATOR PROPOSALS

The ALS has two cycles per year for soliciting proposals from scientists who wish to conduct research at the facility as independent investigators: April-September and October-March. The next submission deadline is December 1, 1996, for beamtime from June 1997 to September 1997. (The ALS will be in a scheduled shutdown during May 1997, so April was scheduled in the last round of proposals.)

To request a proposal form, contact:
Elizabeth Saucier, ALS Administrator
Tel: (510) 486-6166
Fax: (510) 486-4960
Email: alsuser@lbl.gov

For beamline and Participating Research Team information, contact:
Fred Schlachter, ALS Scientific Outreach
Tel: (510) 486-4892
Fax: (510) 486-6499
Email: fred_schlachter@lbl.gov