Dissociation pathways in the cysteine dication after site-selective core ionization.

A photoelectron-ion-ion coincidence experiment has been carried out on the amino acid molecule cysteine after core-ionization of the O 1s, N 1s, C 1s, and S 2p orbitals. A number of different dissociation channels have been identified. Some of them show strong site-selective dependence that can be attributed to a combination of nuclear motion in the core-ionized state and Auger processes that populate different final electronic states in the dication.

Soft x-ray ionization induced fragmentation of glycine.

X-ray absorption commonly involves dissociative core ionization producing not only momentum correlated charged fragments but also low- and high-energy electrons capable of inducing damage in living tissue. This gives a natural motivation for studying the core ionization induced fragmentation processes in biologically important molecules such as amino acids. Here the fragmentation of amino acid glycine following carbon 1s core ionization has been studied. Using photoelectron-photoion-photoion coincidence technique, a detailed analysis on fragmentation of the sample molecule into pairs of momentum correlated cations has been carried out. The main characteristics of core ionization induced fragmentation of glycine were found to be the rupture of the C-Cα bond and the presence of the CNH(2)(+) fragment.

The MAST motional Stark effect diagnostic.

A motional Stark effect (MSE) diagnostic is now installed and operating routinely on the MAST spherical tokamak, with 35 radial channels, spatial resolution of ∼2.5 cm, and time resolution of ∼1 ms at angular noise levels of ∼0.5°. Conventional (albeit very narrow) interference filters isolate π or σ polarized emission. Avalanche photodiode detectors with digital phase-sensitive detection measure the harmonics of a pair of photoelastic modulators operating at 20 and 23 kHz, and thus the polarization state. The π component is observed to be significantly stronger than σ, in reasonably good agreement with atomic physics calculations, and as a result, almost all channels are now operated on π. Trials with a wide filter that admits the entire Stark pattern (relying on the net polarization of the emission) have demonstrated performance almost as good as the conventional channels. MSE-constrained equilibrium reconstructions can readily be produced between pulses.

Fragmentation patterns of core-ionized thymine and 5-bromouracil.

Photofragmentation of thymine and 5-bromouracil into cation and neutral fragments following the core ionization by soft x-rays using photoelectron-photoion-photoion coincidence technique has been studied. The fragment ion mass spectra were recorded in coincidence with the C 1s photoelectron spectra. In the case of thymine, deuterated samples were used to identify fragments. Deuteration or bromination allowed us to study not only the main fragmentation channels of these pyrimidine bases, but also to investigate if replacement of an exocyclic functional group affects molecular fragmentation. We found that the dominant fragmentation channels involve only one starting geometry, and the base ring and other bond cleavages, leading to the detected fragments, are essentially identical between thymine and 5-bromouracil. In addition, the relative intensities of the strongest fragmentation channels were determined and compared with calculated appearance energies using ab initio unrestricted Hartree-Fock theory.

Observation of confined current ribbon in JET plasmas.

We report the identification of a localized current structure inside the JET plasma. It is a field-aligned closed helical ribbon, carrying current in the same direction as the background current profile (cocurrent), rotating toroidally with the ion velocity (corotating). It appears to be located at a flat spot in the plasma pressure profile, at the top of the pedestal. The structure appears spontaneously in low density, high rotation plasmas, and can last up to 1.4 s, a time comparable to a local resistive time. It considerably delays the appearance of the first edge localized mode.

The C 1s and N 1s near edge x-ray absorption fine structure spectra of five azabenzenes in the gas phase.

Near edge x-ray absorption fine structure spectra have been measured and interpreted by means of density functional theory for five different azabenzenes (pyridine, pyridazine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, and s-triazine) in the gas phase. The experimental and theoretical spectra at the N 1s and C 1s edges show a strong resonance assigned to the transition of the 1s electron in the respective N or C atoms to the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital with pi(*) symmetry. As opposed to the N 1s edge, at the C 1s edge this resonance is split due to the different environments of the core hole atom in the molecule. The shift in atomic core-level energy due to a specific chemical environment is explained with the higher electronegativity of the N atom compared to the C atom. The remaining resonances below the ionization potential (IP) are assigned to sigma or pi [corrected] orbitals with mixed valence/Rydberg [corrected] character. Upon N addition, a reduction of intensity is observed in the Rydberg region at both edges as compared to the intensity in the continuum. Above the IP one or more resonances are seen and ascribed here to transitions to sigma(*) orbitals. Calculating the experimental and theoretical Delta(pi) term values at both edges, we observe that they are almost the same within +/-1 eV as expected for isoelectronic bonded pairs. The term values of the pi(*) and sigma(*) resonances are discussed in terms of the total Z number of the atoms participating in the bond.

Active control of type-I edge-localized modes with n=1 perturbation fields in the JET tokamak.

Type-I edge-localized modes (ELMs) have been mitigated at the JET tokamak using a static external n=1 perturbation field generated by four error field correction coils located far from the plasma. During the application of the n=1 field the ELM frequency increased by a factor of 4 and the amplitude of the D(alpha) signal decreased. The energy loss per ELM normalized to the total stored energy, DeltaW/W, dropped to values below 2%. Transport analyses shows no or only a moderate (up to 20%) degradation of energy confinement time during the ELM mitigation phase.

Fluorescence emission from photo-fragments after resonant S 2p excitations in H2S.

Visible-UV fluorescence emission of gas-phase hydrogen sulfide, H(2)S, has been studied at the S 2p edge with synchrotron radiation excitation. Dispersed fluorescence measurements in the wavelength range 300-900 nm were taken at several photon energies corresponding to the excitations of the S 2p electrons to the unoccupied molecular and Rydberg orbitals. The spectra reveal fluorescence from the H, S, S(+), HS and HS(+) photo-fragments. H is found to be the strongest emitter at Rydberg excitations, while the emission from S(+) is dominant at the molecular resonances and above the S 2p ionization thresholds. The intensities of hydrogen Lyman-alpha (122 nm), Balmer-alpha (656 nm), Balmer-beta (486 nm) transitions as well as the visible-UV total fluorescence yield (300-900 nm) and the total ion yield were measured by scanning the photon energy in small steps across the S 2p edge. The different Balmer lines show some sensitivity to the specific core excitations, which is, however, not so strong as that recently observed in the water molecule [E. Melero García, A. Kivimäki, L. G. M. Pettersson, J. Alvarez Ruiz, M. Coreno, M. de Simone, R. Richter and K. C. Prince, Phys. Rev. Lett., 2006, 96, 063003].

Observation of zero current density in the core of jet discharges with lower hybrid heating and current drive.

Simultaneous current ramping and application of lower hybrid heating and current drive (LHCD) have produced a region with zero current density within measurement errors in the core ( r/a< or =0.2) of JET tokamak optimized shear discharges. The reduction of core current density is consistent with a simple physical explanation and numerical simulations of radial current diffusion including the effects of LHCD. However, the core current density is clamped at zero, indicating the existence of a physical mechanism which prevents it from becoming negative.