Check out other stuff from the 1999 summer research team
Erik Beall
Garrett Hilk
Geoff McAlister
Jess Ward
Erik
I left the group for two weeks to visit England, and after I got back I
spent the first part of the summer catching up and learning the theory
behind the hyperfine stark shifts, in particular the matrices and some
Quantum Mechanics. After we started analyzing CsF, I began studying
electronics and I just started on some programming. I also worked on the
molbeam webpage and a few repairs.
Garrett
I spent the first few weeks of the summer trying to study up on the
electronic resonance method. Later on, I worked with Jess on obtaining and
analyzing transitions of Cesium. By the end of the summer I worked with
Geoff to try and understand the mess of wires in the safety system of the
beam and began building a computer interface that would control the
diffusion pumps.
Geoff
As with all of us newbies, I had to take some time early to learn about
the beam and the theory behind it. However, what really dominated most of
the first half of the summer was repairs (Diffusion pumps, water flow
system, relay box, etc). I worked on just about all of these projects. I
also started trying to learn C++ in order to continue the programming
projects that had been started in past summers. This was quite difficult
since there was no one from last year to show me how they had done what
they had done. Towards the end of the summer, it was decided that we would
try and run the controls for the diffusion pumps and their relays through
a computer interface. I spent most of the time helping Garrett with this
project. Unfortunately, we started the project a little too late, and were
unable to complete it. Oh, I also did some of the neat-o graphics and
other stuff on this page.
Jess
My summer wasn't all that different from the summers described by my
fellow molbeamers. Since this was the first year any of us had worked on
the beam, the first week was spent getting to know how it works and what
it does. I spent time reading paper reprints to get a feel for what we'd
be doing as soon as the beam was up and running. After we had the beam
working, we continued on the project from last summer and took data on the
Rb87 isotope of RbF. It was good to continue on old work, because it gave
us good, solid background on the beam, and when we started the CsF, we
had a much better idea of what was going on. By the end of the summer, we
had over taken over 100 different lines (95 of which we used in our fit)
and determined a new, improved, experiment-based value for the Cesium
quadrupole moment. I didn't do a great deal of programming, which was a
big part of the project in past summers, but I definitely got my hands
dirty (we cleaned diffusion pump B and replaced a load of old wiring), and
did a lot of good physics.
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