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June 6, 2003
Our new team is up and running. We're in the process of reloading the source with RbBr after finishing off data acquisition on RbCl. The current plan: analyze Li6I data while we acquire more RbBr data. Will and John are tackling C and C++, while Mike is working on a new fitting program.
June 13, 2003
This past week involved conducting wide range scans of RbBr. We successfully aligned the beam and took coarse scans of the 14 MHz region. We are in the process of pattern-finding; hopefully, after taking some high-resolution scans of certain target sites, we will be able to make some line assignments. We'll see.
Mike's new (and uncreatively named) line fitting data analysis program, Linefit, has been going well. An initial GUI implementation has been completed, as well as the ability to load WinBeam data files, display them, and to print what is visible onscreen accurately to paper.
John and Will have been doing more background reading, and correcting bugs and adding new features to WinBeam. For instance, the data file format has been changed to enable the output to be parsed more easily by Excel.
In other news, we will be gone for the
majority of next week, attending
the Ohio State conference on molecular spectroscopy. Dr. Cederberg will
present a paper on our work with RbF and RbCl!
June 20, 2003
We had a wonderful time at the spectroscopy conference. (You can see pictures from it on the picture page.) Dr. Cederberg's talk went well! It was nice to see Evan (a molbeamer himself) again, too. Over the week, we let the Beam take some high-resolution scans of several peaks of interest. We completed two. Fortunately, our source didn't run out, as we were expecting; as such, we will continue to take data over the weekend.June 27, 2003
We're keeping on top of our work!
Mike's calculations have moved from
the 3-, 6-, and 9-j symbols to the infamous BSC matrix... while
he
has a baseline implementation running, it is three times slower than
MathCad! Optimization is now his work. We got a Li6I
fitting
routine up and running in MathCad, and Will has been working on that
non-stop. John is doing fitting, as well as working on usability
improvements to WinBeam, such as an improved, mouse-based remove
outliers
technique. He is also looking into the possibility of saving a data run
and introducing the capacity to resume past data sets.
July 8, 2003
While its been a little more than a
week since the last update, it's been with good reason! We've been
incredibly busy -- and managed to take a break on the Cannon River, as
well as celebrating the 4th. Back to business, though: progress is
going very well for Li6I. We've improved our chi values on
the molecular constants from 3600 (!) to 3.6 or so. Now, things are
getting interesting, since we are able to simulate with a bit of
accuracy. As the beam is running down today, we may end up loading it
with the remainder of the Li6I that was originally made, and
take final
scans on it! On the programming front, Linefit is coming along, with
BSC calculations running 23% faster than MathCad. Mike has been
working
on necessary -- and tedious -- GUI development. John has been tinkering
with modeless dialog boxes, in relation to the improved outlier removal
technique for WinBeam.
July 14, 2003
The beam did eventually run
down, and we loaded in the remainder of the Li6I that we had
from 2000. Unfortunately, when we pumped down the system, we were
unable to replicate any prior data! Confused, we checked over the
possible things that could have gone wrong; ultimately, we replaced the
source once more with Li7I, and have been trying to figure
out what went wrong. At the moment, it looks like our detector current
was too low. As such, the signal response time was not enough for
WinBeam to discern anything except noise. We replicated this effect by
reducing the detector current, so we think we've nailed the problem, at
least.
For now, John and Will are working on runs with the Li7I
that will help
us make the most out of our remaining Li6I. Mike is still
hammering
away on GUI development.
July 17, 2003
After running several
very successful Li7I runs, we reloaded Li6I and
began taking data. Will kept up work on data analysis, while John
decided to multitask; he's working on a detailed plot of RF Factor vs.
frequency, as well as working on a new remove outlier technique for
WinBeam involving click-and-drag box selection. Mike hit a milestone
with his code, and ended up documenting heavily, in preparation for the
monthlong break in coding. He's also working on developing a graphing
class, since multiple graphs will be necessary for the final Linefit
product.
July 30, 2003
It's a sad day, since the summer is drawing to a close. It's also a sad day because our detector filament went bad; Dr. Cederberg needed to replace it this morning. The last few days have been spent working on our final poster for the summer symposium. We got it finished yesterday, and received it this morning.