Daresbury 1988/89

The main areas of research reported from the Daresbury Laboratory are in synchrotron radiation, nuclear physics and theory and computational science. The Synchrotron Radiation source research programme has employed the experimental techniques of small angle scattering, protein crystallography, surface diffraction, powder diffraction and x-ray absorption spectroscopy. These have been applied to such problems as corrosion in steels, kinetics in cell biology, the structure of viruses (notably the foot-and-mouth virus), sulphur disruption of metal surfaces, metal-semiconductor interfaces, and the electronic and vibrational structure of molecules. Research with the Nuclear Structure Facility has included experiments to study nuclear collective motion, nuclei far from stability and nuclear reaction mechanisms. Much development effort has been directed towards the production of beams of polarized nuclei. Other highlights have been work with the Recoil Separator on exotic nuclei, the Giant Dipole Resonance and isomers. A problem of particular theoretical interest is the effect of breakup on the nucleus-nucleus potential. In computational science, the Laboratory is in the forefront of software development for the collection and theoretical analysis of experimental data and university research is supported through a series of Collaborative Computational Projects. Industrial collaboration in computational science is extending the contribution of the Laboratory to the solution of significant technological problems. (UK)