Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

X-Ray Polarimetry With X-Calibur, Qingzhen Guo

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

X-Ray Polarimetry with X-Calibur

by

Qingzhen Guo

Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, Washington University in St. Louis,

September, 2014. Professor Henric Krawczynski, Chair

X-ray polarimetry is a prime tool to investigate the unexplored compact sources and to provide crucial information that other techniques can not produce. By measuring the degree and orientation of the polarization of radiation from a cosmic source, unique inferences about the morphology and the magnetic field structure can be made.

Krawczysnki's group at Washington University is working on a uniquely sensitive scattering polarimeter, X-Calibur, to be used in the focal plane of a focusing X-ray …

Measurement Of Polarization Observables PZ, PSZ, And PCZ In Double-Pion Photoproduction Off The Proton, Yuqing Mao

Theses and Dissertations

Meson production from excited nucleons is important in the study of baryon resonances and pion photoproduction is attracting much attention. To date a rather large amount of unpolarized cross-section measurements have been reported for both single- and double-pion photoproduction. However, polarization observables provide complementary information as they probe different combinations of transition amplitudes. The database for polarization observables remains quite sparse. Double-pion photoproduction have been studied in Hall B at Jefferson Lab with linearly polarized tagged photon beams incident on longitudinally polarized protons. The experiment covered center-of-mass energies between 1.4 GeV and 2.3 GeV. The target was a FROzen Spin …

J/Ψ Polarization In P + P Collisions At √S=200 Gev In Star, James K. Adkins, Renee H. Fatemi, Wolfgang Korsch, Suvarna Ramachandran, G. Webb, L. Adamczyk, G. Agakishiev, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, I. Alekseev, J. Alford, C. D. Anson, A. Aparin, D. Arkhipkin, E. C. Aschenauer

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report on a polarization measurement of inclusive J/ψ mesons in the di-electron decay channel at mid-rapidity at 2T/c in p+p collisions at √s=200 GeV. Data were taken with the STAR detector at RHIC. The J/ψ polarization measurement should help to distinguish between different models of the J/ψ production mechanism since they predict different p_T dependences of the J/ψ polarization. In this analysis, J/ψ polarization is studied in the helicity frame. The polarization parameter λ_θ measured at RHIC becomes smaller towards high p_T, indicating …

Theoretical And Experimental (E, 2e) Study Of Electron-Impact Ionization Of Laser-Aligned Mg Atoms, Sadek Amami, Andrew J. Murray, Al Stauffer, Kate Nixon, Gregory Armstrong, James Colgan, Don H. Madison

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We have performed calculations of the fully differential cross sections for electron-impact ionization of magnesium atoms. Three theoretical approximations, the time-dependent close coupling, the three-body distorted wave, and the distorted wave Born approximation, are compared with experiment in this article. Results will be shown for ionization of the 3s ground state of Mg for both asymmetric and symmetric coplanar geometries. Results will also be shown for ionization of the 3p state which has been excited by a linearly polarized laser which produces a charge cloud aligned perpendicular to the laser beam direction and parallel to the linear polarization. Theoretical and …

Preparation Of Oriented, Fully Hydrated Lipid Samples For Structure Determination Using X-Ray Scattering., Stephanie Tristram-Nagle

Prof. Stephanie Tristram-Nagle Ph.D.

This chapter describes a method of sample preparation called "the rock and roll method," which is basically a solvent evaporation technique with controlled manual sample movement during evaporation of solvent from lipid/solvent mixtures that produces well-oriented thick stacks of about 2000 lipid bilayers. Many lipid types have been oriented using different solvent mixtures that balance solubilization of the lipid with uniform deposition of the lipid solution onto solid substrates. These well-oriented thick stacks are then ideal samples for collection of both X-ray diffraction data in the gel phase and X-ray diffuse scattering data in the fluid phase of lipids. The …

20 Polarization, Charles G. Torre

Foundations of Wave Phenomena

Our final topic in this brief study of electromagnetic waves concerns the phenomenon of polarization, which occurs thanks to the vector nature of the waves. More precisely, the polarization of an electromagnetic plane wave concerns the direction of the electric (and magnetic) vector fields. Let us first give a rough, qualitative motivation for the phenomenon. An electromagnetic plane wave is a traveling sinusoidal disturbance in the electric and magnetic fields. Let us focus on the behavior of the electric field since we can always reconstruct the behavior of the magnetic field from the electric field. Because the electric force on …

A Low Temperature Nonlinear Optical Rotational Anisotropy Spectrometer For The Determination Of Crystallographic And Electronic Symmetries, Darius H. Torchinsky, Hao Chu, Tongfei Qi, Gang Cao, David Hsieh

Center for Advanced Materials Faculty Publications

Nonlinear optical generation from a crystalline material can reveal the symmetries of both its lattice structure and underlying ordered electronic phases and can therefore be exploited as a complementary technique to diffraction based scattering probes. Although this technique has been successfully used to study the lattice and magnetic structures of systems such as semiconductor surfaces, multiferroic crystals, magnetic thin films, and multilayers, challenging technical requirements have prevented its application to the plethora of complex electronic phases found in strongly correlated electron systems. These requirements include an ability to probe small bulk single crystals at the μm length scale, a need …

Chemically Induced Jahn–Teller Ordering On Manganite Surfaces, Zheng Gai, Wenzhi Lin, John D. Burton, K. Fuchigami, Paul C. Snijders, T. Z. Ward, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, J. Shen, Stephen Jesse, Sergei V. Kalinin, Arthur P. Baddorf

Evgeny Tsymbal Publications

Physical and electrochemical phenomena at the surfaces of transition metal oxides and their coupling to local functionality remains one of the enigmas of condensed matter physics. Understanding the emergent physical phenomena at surfaces requires the capability to probe the local composition, map order parameter fields and establish their coupling to electronic properties. Here we demonstrate that measuring the sub-30-pm displacements of atoms from high-symmetry positions in the atomically resolved scanning tunnelling microscopy allows the physical order parameter fields to be visualized in real space on the single-atom level. Here, this local crystallographic analysis is applied to the in-situ-grown manganite surfaces. …

Semi-Inclusive Charged-Current Neutrino-Nucleus Reactions, O. Moreno, T. W. Donnelly, J. W. Van Orden, W. P. Ford

Physics Faculty Publications

The general, universal formalism for semi-inclusive charged-current (anti) neutrino-nucleus reactions is given for studies of any hadronic system, namely, either nuclei or the nucleon itself. The detailed developments are presented with the former in mind and are further specialized to cases where the final-state charged lepton and an ejected nucleon are presumed to be detected. General kinematics for such processes are summarized, and then explicit expressions are developed for the leptonic and hadronic tensors involved and for the corresponding responses according to the usual charge, longitudinal and transverse projections, keeping finite the masses of all particles involved. In the case …

Characterization Of Polarized Synchrotron Light, Britny N. Delp, Jeff Corbett

STAR Program Research Presentations

The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light accelerates electrons around a 234-meter circumference ring at relativistic speeds. The x-ray radiation produced by this process is used in many fields of science ranging from materials science to medicine.

This project seeks to measure the polarization of the 532 nanometer wavelength component in the visible light beam emitted from the SPEAR-3 synchrotron as a function of vertical position. The beam was focused through a lens, then passed through a 532 nm band pass filter and a polarizer mounted on a rotating stand. The beam power was measured as a function of vertical position and …

Magnetically Actuated Liquid Crystals, Serkan Zorba, Mingsheng Wang, Le He, Yadong Yin

Physics

Ferrimagnetic inorganic nanorods have been used as building blocks to construct liquid crystals with optical properties that can be instantly and reversibly controlled by manipulating the nanorod orientation using considerably weak external magnetic fields (1 mT). Under an alternating magnetic field, they exhibit an optical switching frequency above 100 Hz, which is comparable to the performance of commercial liquid crystals based on electrical switching. By combining magnetic alignment and lithography processes, it is also possible to create patterns of different polarizations in a thin composite film and control over the transmittance of light in particular areas. Developing such magnetically responsive …

J/Ѱ Polarization In P+P Collisions At √S = 200 Gev In Star, L. Adamczyk, J. K. Adkins, G. Agakishiev, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, I. Alekseev, J. Alford, C. D. Anson, A. Aparin, D. Arkhipkin, S. Bültmann

Physics Faculty Publications

We report on a polarization measurement of inclusive J/Ѱ mesons in the di-electron decay channel at mid-rapidity at 2 < p_T < 6 GeV/c in p + p collisions at √s = 200 GeV. Data were taken with the STAR detector at RHIC. The J/Ѱ polarization measurement should help to distinguish between different models of the J/Ѱ production mechanism since they predict different p_T dependences of the J/Ѱ polarization. In this analysis, J/Ѱ is studied in the helicity frame. The polarization parameter λ_θ measured at RHIC becomes smaller towards high p_T, indicating more longitudinal J/Ѱ polarization as p_T increases. The result is compared with predictions of presently available models.