R. Hofstadter

Synchrotron Radiation And Its Application To Digital Subtraction Angiography

The intense synchrotron radiation produced at electron storage rings provides a new source of X-rays highly suited to iodine K-edge digital subtraction angiography. The high intensity and small angular divergence permit the radiation to be monochromatized by Bragg diffraction and made available in beams of small vertical size, of arbitrary horizontal width, and of tunable energy. The use of such beams provides maximum sensitivity to intra-arterial iodine and virtually eliminates image contrast due to non-vascular body structures. The sensitivity of this method to iodine offers the prospect of visualizing arteries by peripheral venous injection.

The Electron Spectrum From B-meson Decays

The Crystal Ball Collaboration has measured the energy spectrum of electrons from semileptonicB meson decays at thee+e− storage ring DORIS II. Branching ratios and weak mixing angles of the Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix are determined using several models for the hadronic matrix elements. We obtain the branching ratio for semileptonic.B decays to charmed states BR(B→evXc)=(11.7±0.4±1.0)%. Our result for the corresponding Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element is |Vcb|=0.052±0.006. The model dependence of both results is included in the error. We have not observed semileptonicB decays to non-charmed mesons. Analyzing the measured electron spectrum above 2.4 GeV, where nob→c decays contribute, we find BR(B→evXu)/BR(B→evXc)<6.5% at the 90% confidence level. This corresponds to an upper limit |Vub/Vcb|<0.21.

Coronary angiography using synchrotron radiation (invited)

Imaging of coronary arteries using a venous instead of an arterial injection of contrast agent could provide a much safer method to diagnose heart disease. The tunability, intensity, and collimation of synchrotron radiation x‐ray beams makes possible imaging systems with greatly improved imaging sensitivity. A pair of fan x‐ray beams, a movable patient chair, and a multielement x‐ray detector are used to acquire a pair of x‐ray images above and below the iodine K edge. The logarithmic subtraction of these two images produces an image with excellent sensitivity to contrast agent and minimal sensitivity to bone and tissue. High‐quality images from a dog and preliminary images from five humans have been obtained. Improvements are being made to the system to increase the effective radiation flux and to measure the position of both x‐ray beams.

The project EGRET (energetic gamma-ray experiment telescope) on NASA's Gamma-Ray Observatory GRO

The Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) is currently planned for a launch from the space shuttle in 1990. After the long hiatus in high-energy gamma-ray astronomy since the end of the COS-B mission in 1982, the Soviet missions Granat and Gamma-1 and the NASA mission GRO will resume observations in the energy range from below 100 keV and extending to above 10 GeV. GRO will carry four instruments designed to cover this range of over five decades in photon energy. It is planned to perform a complete sky survey above 1 MeV in the first year of the GRO mission. Data from this survey will be used to study galactic and extragalactic sources of gamma radiation as well as the galactic and extragalactic diffuse emissions. Additionally, measurements of gamma ray bursts will be performed. The angular and spectral resolution of the GRO instruments is significantly improved with respect to previous experiments. The sensitivity for point sources will be better by an order of magnitude, and the location of strong, high energy sources will be determined to about 0.1°–0.2°. After a brief description of the complement of GRO instruments, a detailed discussion of the high-energy telescope EGRET, its design and scientific objectives, is presented in this review.

Determination ofГ ee of the Υ(1S) and Υ(2S) resonances, and measurement ofR atW=9.39 GeV

AbstractUsing the Crystal Ball detector operating at the DORIS II storage ring we have measured the leptonic partial widthsГee of the Υ(1S) and Υ(2S) resonances. We find

Design and Performance of a Modularized NaI(Tl) Detector (The Crystal Ball Prototype)

\Gamma _{ee} (\Upsilon (1S)) = 1.34 \pm 0.03 \pm 0.06keV

Search for exotic tau decays

and