New Developments in Proton Radiography at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE)

C L Morris,C F Chen,K Kwiatkowski,W T Buttler,F Trouw,F E Merrill,D Tupa,C T Olinger,C Agee,J C Cooley,Eric N Brown ,Michael W Burkett ,M.a.m Bourke ,Björn Winkler ,Seth D Imhoff ,‪Zhehui Wang ,W S Vogan ,Guillermo Terrones ,Amy J Clarke ,M Murray ,Paul Nedrow ,Fesseha Mariam ,R.e Jones ,Paul J Gibbs ,Alexander Saunders ,D Oró ,Thomas Bernert ,Darrin D Byler ,Michael B Zellner

doi:10.1007/s11340-015-0077-2

Abstract

An application of nuclear physics, a facility for using protons for flash radiography, has been developed at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). Protons have proven far superior to high energy x-rays for flash radiography because of their long mean free path, good position resolution, and low scatter background. Although this facility is primarily used for studying very fast phenomena such as high explosive driven experiments, it is finding increasing application to other fields, such as tomography of static objects, phase changes in materials and the dynamics of chemical reactions. The advantages of protons are discussed, data from some recent experiments will be reviewed and concepts for new techniques are introduced.

Highlights

In the mid-1990’s a new tool to aid in the mission of stewarding the US nuclear stockpile was invented at Los Alamos, namely proton radiography [1]
Experiments preformed using 24 GeV protons provided by the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) accelerator at Brookhaven Nation laboratory demonstrated all of the expected gains from proton radiography (pRad) when compared to X-rays with a set of unclassified [4] and classified static objects [5]
A proton flash-radiography facility that uses the 800 MeV beam from the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) at Los Alamos National Laboratory has become a work horse for the US stockpile stewardship program for smaller experiments studying the science of explosively driven systems

Summary

Introduction

In the mid-1990’s a new tool to aid in the mission of stewarding the US nuclear stockpile was invented at Los Alamos, namely proton radiography (pRad) [1]. The concept uses the attenuation due to the nuclear scattering of very short pulses of energetic protons as they transit high explosive driven experiments to provide contrast for flash radiography. Experiments preformed using 24 GeV protons provided by the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) accelerator at Brookhaven Nation laboratory demonstrated all of the expected gains from pRad when compared to X-rays with a set of unclassified [4] and classified static objects [5]. A proton flash-radiography facility that uses the 800 MeV beam from the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) at Los Alamos National Laboratory has become a work horse for the US stockpile stewardship program for smaller experiments studying the science of explosively driven systems. In this paper we briefly describe the technique, examine some of the current capabilities of the LANSCE proton radiography facility, illustrate them with some resent results, and discuss possibilities for the future

LANSCE Capabilities

Dynamic Experiments

Scanning Proton Microscope

Preliminary TOF Radiography Studies