Greetings from the 2002 Ultimate MolBeam Team. Most of us are back from last year's summer research team, except for our senior, Evan Frodermann. Unfortunately, he had to leave us for graduate school at Ohio State. Joining us this year, is new Beamer, Lee Langer. This is our second day of work, and we're trying to bring Lee up to speed on the whole research process and its theory; he's a quick learner, so it should be relatively easy. As for the rest of us, we jumped right back into our usual routines. Mike is already working on all of his programming, and Heather and Katie are organizing the previous year's data and also working on this web page. As of right now, we're not exactly sure what molecule we'll be working on this summer. We could finish analyzing the lovely Li6I and RbCl molecules, or we could move on to the molecule that eluded our grasp last summer, RbBr. My (Katie's) choice would be that tricky little palindrome, RbBr, but we'll have to see what the group decides. We're hoping that our summer won't be filled with repairs like last summer, and so far, we seem in good shape. The MolBeam itself is running smoothly, and we're just finishing up last year's molecule, RbF, which Prof. Cederberg and Evan continued during the 2001-2002 academic year as an independent research project. Fitting is going well and much faster because we have new faster computers. It makes a huge difference, especially when you have to just sit and freeze waiting for the computer to do calculations and simulations for you. Just to set the record straight if you've read any of last year's updates, the MolBeam lab is airconditioned and really cold, so that's why I am always freezing when I'm here. No mystery about it, Evan! Well, we'll keep checkin in here during the weeks to come, so until then, enjoy the rest of our website.

Well, we meant to write on this page last Friday but got caught up in our work. We were being quite productive. Lee was gone for the last two days in Louisiana and is now back, trying to learn more theory. Mike has been working on his WinBeam program which is a continuation from his project last year. Katie has been sifting through old data sets, trying to figure out what data is valuable and fitting some of the truckloads of data that are helpful. Heather has been tinkering with some Mathcad worksheets, upping their capabilities and making them faster for calculations. Our group has decided to adopt the RbCl molecule for the summer after we finish up the RbF molecule. We chose this molecule because the information we learned from the RbF runs will help us with the new RbCl data, which in turn, would help us with the RbBr molecule if we ever decide to tackle that one. Therefore, we thought RbCl was our first reasonable choice. On a different note, Katie has started her summer school class, Organic Chemistry, so we'll lose her during parts of the day, but she'll be in the lab at night or weekends to take data; so, it should all work out. We're all hoping to have a good week - one free from mechanical repairs. We'll let you know what happens.

Once again, we forgot to write at the end of last week. But, seeing as we did give you an update at the beginning of the week, it probably doesn't matter too much. The MolBeam team is excited to say it's taken great strides towards making WinBeam a fully functional program. Mike has been working diligently on the code, and to the rest of the team's surprise, Mike announced that the program had successfully completed taking data runs in place of the old Beam program. Of course, there are some bugs in the program, but we have great faith in Mike and his ever-increasing programming abilities. As for the rest of us, poor Lee is still trying to understand the deep murk of quantum mechanics while also taking on the task of learning C++. (I think he got bored of reading/sleeping so much. He's taken after Heather's example of learning by osmosis.) Heather has been pounding away at the stubborn Mathcad program - literally at times - trying to write DLL's. We're wishing her the best of luck with that one. Katie has been working on fitting the loads of RbF data that our research has aquired. She's been getting frustrated many times because the data doesn't seem to like to fit, at least not with reasonable RF factors.

Hey, hey! We're actually writing ahead of time because on Friday we have the summer research symposium where we'll be presenting a poster telling what we plan to do during our summer research. The symposium will span the entire work day. It's a chance for students to learn about their fellow researchers projects. Should be an interesting - if not a little long - day. We used some of the beginning part of the week to work on our poster. It looks pretty darn nice, and we didn't even have to stay up until the wee hours of the morning before it's due like we did last year. Anyways, other than working on the poster, there's been plenty of other activity in the MolBeam group. Mike is working on fixing the bugs and perfecting his prized WinBeam program and is coming along nicely. Lee is working more on learning C++, every so often, taking a break to read some fascinating quantum mechanics literature. Heather is still working on Mathcad while Katie is chugging away on data fitting and deciphering. Well, that's about it, so until next time . . .

Okay, we're going to claim that we actually wrote this update this week even though that is a blatant lie. Oh well, we've now put in a new molecule, RbCl. It's a little bit trickier than our old friend RbF, but we can handle it. Lee has started doing some molbeam work and is sorting through old runs of RbCl, fit on our old fitting program. Let's just say he has a lot of work ahead of him. Mike, now that he has WinBeam up and running, is working on perfecting his program, a neverending task. There's always new, helpful components he can add. Heather has been working diligently on her DLL's, continuously crashing Mathcad. Supposedly our physics department is getting the new version of Mathcad which is less crash-prone, but I don't really believe such a thing exist. Finally, Katie has been chugging along on the RbF data, staring at a computer screen for most of the day. Talk about exciting. We haven't had anything to fix on the MolBeam, which is both a curse and a blessing. It means that nothing is broken and we can get data, but that means that we only sit at computers all day. Luckily, we enjoy are project and each other, so it's not really a problem. We just like to whine :)

Once again, it's pretty obvious that this wasn't exactly written on the actual week it's dated, but we think it's fair since we're going to write about the week of the 28th. First off, we've been missing Mike since he is in the Cayman Islands this week. He left us after lunch on Wednesday and won't be back until Monday night. Not fair. Plus we've been sweating it out here in Northfield with this mid to upper 90's, humid weather we've been having. At least our work place is cool. Heather is still hacking away at Mathcad, and it's still not cooperating with her. Lee is experiencing the fun task of sorting and having to resort when you realize the data isn't all there. Katie is still organizing and fitting the RbF. As for our RbCl, the runs are still going well, and we're getting good data.

Yeah, it's almost the fourth of July. Therefore, we have a shorter week or at least a day off. Therefore, I'm writing today on Wednesday, so that I won't forget . . . again. Well Mike came back yesterday just in time to go on the annual science summer researchers canoe trip. Tough life he leads. The trip was on Tuesday and was a lot of fun, even if Heather did try to splash everyone she could. The MolBeam work is going well. The beam is still spitting out good data even if it's really slow since the lines are weaker. Looks like Lee is getting close to perfecting how to split non-stark resolved lines of RbCl. We're all impressed by his talent as we are of Mike's with his WinBeam program. The program is working well, and he keeps adding to it daily. Poor Heather is still working on those DLL's in hope that they get our Mathcad worksheets to run faster. Seems like it will be an entire summer's project for her. Lastly, Katie is still tinkering with all the RbF data and is refitting peaks and trying to determine RF factors. She hopes to crack the mystery of the correlation of the RFfactor to the actual RF voltage and the frequency applied. We'll see if she actually gets anywhere. If you're reading this today, we hope you have a great 4th of July!!!!

It's been a long time since Katie updated the website, but we don’t blame her! The tolls of Organic Chemistry are large, to say the least. Work has been going steadily along, with the completion of WinBeam, advances in custom-made .dll's, and fits upon fits of data… However, new data acquisition has been halted since Wednesday the 17^th. Why, you ask? It turns out that a new Chemistry lab is being built on the same floor as the Molbeam, right where our wood and metal shops used to be! The construction crew needed to turn off all the utilities in the Science Center on the 17^th in order to make several necessary utility connections. Of course, water is one of these utilities, meaning that the Molbeam's diffusion pump cooling system would be without water. Since our cooling system had to go off-line, so did our diffusion pumps… meaning the Beam had to be shut down.

Turning it on again has been a whole different story. Then again, it usually is! After the utility work was completed and water restored, we lost little time turning on the necessary systems. However, Dr. Cederberg discovered a faulty O-ring in our vacuum system. This led to near-atmospheric pressures in the source region of the device, and a longer pump-down time to boot. On top of that, now we seem to have a water leak in the source diffusion pump cooling line… At this rate, we'll be back online sometime towards the end of the week. (Hopefully.) --Mike