High-energy Radioactive Beams Research Articles

Separation of atomic and molecular ions by ion mobility with an RF carpet

Gas-filled stopping cells are used at accelerator laboratories for the thermalization of high-energy radioactive ion beams. Common challenges of many stopping cells are a high molecular background of extracted ions and limitations of extraction efficiency due to space-charge effects. At the FRS Ion Catcher at GSI, a new technique for removal of ionized molecules prior to their extraction out of the stopping cell has been developed. This technique utilizes the RF carpet for the separation of atomic ions from molecular contaminant ions through their difference in ion mobility. Results from the successful implementation and test during an experiment with a 600 MeV/u 124Xe primary beam are presented. Suppression of molecular contaminants by three orders of magnitude has been demonstrated. Essentially background-free measurement conditions with less than 1% of background events within a mass-to-charge range of 25 u/e have been achieved. The technique can also be used to reduce the space-charge effects at the extraction nozzle and in the downstream beamline, thus ensuring high efficiency of ion transport and highly-accurate measurements under space-charge-free conditions.

High intensity ion guides and purification techniques for low energy radioactive ion beams

This report gives an overview of the different devices which can be used for the purification of high intensity low energy radioactive ion beams: high resolution magnetic separators (HRS), multi-reflection time-of-flight mass separators (MR-TOF-MS) and Penning traps (PT). An overview of HRS, existing or in development, and the methods to increase the resolving power are presented. The MR-TOF-MS of ISOLTRAP and other projects having been presented during this conference, only the main characteristics of such devices are discussed. Concerning the PT, intensively used to measure masses with high precisions, we will present the PIPERADE project which aims to provide pure beams of exotic nuclei with unprecedent intensities at the future DESIR/SPIRAL2 facility.

A 128-channel event driven readout ASIC for the R3B tracker

R3B is a detector with high efficiency, acceptance, and resolution for kinematically complete measurements of reactions with high-energy radioactive beams. Detectors track and identify radioactive beams into and out of a reaction target. Three layers of double-sided stereoscopic silicon strips form the tracker detector which must provide precise tracking and vertex determination and in addition include energy and multiplicity measurements. The R3B ASIC has been manufactured and is intended for processing and digitising signals generated by ionising particles passing through the tracker. The ASIC processes signals and provides spatial, energy and time measurements.

Cardiology patient page. Breast cancer chemotherapy and your heart.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women. One in 8 women is diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the past 2 decades, death from breast cancer has decreased. As a result, today there are ≈3 000 000 breast cancer survivors in the United States, a number that will increase in the coming years. Increased breast cancer survivorship has occurred in part as a result of improved breast cancer treatments. Breast cancer treatments include the following: 1. Chemotherapy involves drugs that are intended to kill the cancer cells or stop them from dividing. In many cases, chemotherapy includes a class of chemotherapies called anthracyclines . 2. Surgery involves removal of the breast tumor. How much of the breast is removed depends on the size of the tumor and location of tumor and other factors. 3. Radiation uses high-energy radioactive beams and often accompanies surgery to lower the chance cancer will recur in the breast or nearby lymph nodes. 4. Targeted therapies target specific receptors that are highly expressed on cancer cells. For instance, some breast cancer types have a receptor called HER2. As a result, novel therapies have been developed that target HER2. One such example is trastuzumab (Herceptin). 5. Breast cancer treatments are often used in combination to provide the highest chance for a cure. Although these therapies have increased the survival of cancer patients, some may cause cardiotoxicity or damage to the heart. Cardiotoxicity can occur in various forms and can include damage to the heart muscle itself, the heart arteries, or the heart …

CALIFA, a Dedicated Calorimeter for the R3B/FAIR

The R3B experiment (Reactions with Relativistic Radioactive Beams) at FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) is a versatile setup dedicated to the study of reactions induced by high-energy radioactive beams. It will provide kinematically complete measurements with high efficiency, acceptance and resolution, making possible a broad physics program with rare-isotopes. CALIFA (CALorimeter for In-Flight detection of gamma-rays and high energy charged pArticles), is a complex detector based on scintillation crystals, that will surround the target of the R3B experiment. CALIFA will act as a total absorption gamma-calorimeter and spectrometer, as well as identifier of charged particles from target residues. This versatility is its most challenging requirement, demanding a huge dynamic range, to cover from low energy gamma-rays up to 300 MeV protons. This fact, along with the high-energy of the beams determine the conceptual design of the detector, presented in this paper, together with the technical solutions proposed for its construction.

Macroscale and mesoscale analysis of concrete as a multiphase material for biological shields against nuclear radiation

SUMMARYThe overall thermo‐hygro‐mechanical behavior of concrete is to be investigated, because its bearing capacity is required together with its shielding properties, specifically when concrete structures are exposed to high‐energy neutron fluxes, which represent the next generation facilities designed for the production of high energy radioactive ion beams in physics research. Irradiation in the form of either fast and thermal neutrons, primary gamma rays or gamma rays produced as a result of neutron capture, are learnt to affect concrete as well as neutron fluences of the order of 1019 n/cm2 and gamma radiation doses of 1010 rad seem to become critical for concrete strength. The collection of data on concrete samples, variously exposed to neutron radiation, has allowed for defining a law for radiation damage within the FEM research code NEWCON3D, assessing the 3D coupled thermo‐hygro‐mechanical behavior of concrete, modeled as a multiphase porous medium, both at the macroscale and the mesoscale level. The required damage law is thought to be a function of the neutron flux impinging the concrete shielding wall, and a good estimate of this quantity has been provided by means of a Monte Carlo code developed by CERN and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics of Milan, Italy; this code handles radiation transport calculations and represents at this day one of the most reliable procedures for dealing with the interaction of radiation and matter. The suggested procedure for the radiation damage evaluation has allowed for discussing on differences between mesolevel and macrolevel approaches. Stochastic contour maps of the expected radiation field, properly interfaced with the numerical FE code, have allowed for obtaining a more precise evaluation of the radiation damage front as well as its evolution in time. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DETERMINING THE DENSITY DEPENDENCE OF THE NUCLEAR SYMMETRY ENERGY USING HEAVY-ION REACTIONS

We review recent progress in the determination of the subsaturation density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy from heavy-ion collisions as well as the theoretical progress in probing the high density behavior of the symmetry energy in heavy-ion reactions induced by high energy radioactive beams. We further discuss the implications of these results for the nuclear effective interactions and the neutron skin thickness of heavy nuclei.

Effect of entrance-channel asymmetry on the isospin dependence of nucleon emission in heavy ion collisions**Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (10575119, 10775061), Knowledge Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (KJCX3-SYW-N2), Major State Basic Research Developing Program of China (2007CB815004), CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams (CXTD-J2005-1), and the Asia-Link Project of the European Commission (CN/ASIA-LINK/008(94791))

Using the isospin- and momentum-dependent hadronic transport model IBUU04, we have investigated the influence of the entrance-channel isospin asymmetry on the sensitivity of the pre-equilibrium neutron/proton ratio to symmetry energy in central heavy-ion collisions induced by high-energy radioactive beams. Our analysis and discussion are based on the dynamical simulations of the three isotopic reaction systems 132Sn+124Sn, 124Sn+112Sn and 112Sn+112Sn which are of the same total proton number but different isospin asymmetry. We find that the kinetic-energy distributions of the pre-equilibrium neutron/proton ratio are quite sensitive to the density-dependence of symmetry energy at incident beam energy E/A = 400 MeV, and the sensitivity increases as the isospin asymmetry of the reaction system increases.

Nuclear symmetry energy and neutron skins derived from pygmy dipole resonances

By exploiting Coulomb dissociation of high-energy radioactive beams of the neutron-rich nuclei $^{129\ensuremath{-}132}\mathrm{Sn}$ and $^{133,134}\mathrm{Sb}$, their dipole-strength distributions have been measured. A sizable fraction of ``pygmy'' dipole strength, energetically located below the giant dipole resonance, is observed in all of these nuclei. A comparison with available pygmy resonance data in stable nuclei ($^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$ and $N=82$ isotones) indicates a trend of strength increasing with the proton-to-neutron asymmetry. On theoretical grounds, employing the RQRPA approach, a one-to-one correlation is found between the pygmy strength and parameters describing the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy, and in turn with the thicknesses of the neutron skins. On this basis, by using the experimental pygmy strength, parameters of the nuclear symmetry energy (${a}_{4}=32.0\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.8$ MeV and ${p}_{o}=2.3\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.8$ MeV/fm${}^{3}$) are deduced as well as neutron-skin thicknesses ${R}_{n}\ensuremath{-}{R}_{p}$ of $0.24\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.04$ fm for $^{132}\mathrm{Sn}$ and of $0.18\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.035$ fm for $^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$, both doubly magic nuclei. Astrophysical implications with regard to neutron stars are briefly addressed.

Probing the nuclear symmetry energy with heavy-ion reactions induced by neutron-rich nuclei

Heavy-ion reactions induced by neutron-rich nuclei provide a unique means to investigate the equation of state of isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter, especially the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy. In particular, recent analyses of the isospin diffusion data in heavy-ion reactions have already put a stringent constraint on the nuclear symmetry energy around the nuclear matter saturation density. We review this exciting result and discuss its implications on nuclear effective interactions and the neutron skin thickness of heavy nuclei. In addition, we also review the theoretical progress on probing the high density behaviors of the nuclear symmetry energy in heavy-ion reactions induced by high energy radioactive beams.

Laser spectroscopy of trapped 7Be and 10Be at a prototype slow RI-beam facility of RIKEN

A next-generation slow radioactive nuclear ion beam facility (SLOWRI) which provides slow, high-purity and small emittance ion beams of all elements is being build as one of the principal facilities at the RIKEN RI-beam factory (RIBF). High energy radioactive ion beams from the projectile fragment separator BigRIPS are thermalized in a large gas catcher cell The thermalized ions in the gas cell are guided and extracted to a vacuum environment by a combination of de electric fields and inhomogeneous rf fields (rf carpet ion guide). From there the slow ion beam is delivered via a mass separator and a switchyard to various devices: such as an ion trap, a collinear fast beam apparatus, and a multi-reflection time of flight mass spectrometer. In the R&D works at the present RIKEN facility, an overall efficiency of 5% for a 100A MeV 8Li ion beam from the present projectile fragment separator RIPS was achieved and the dependence of the efficiency on the ion beam intensity was investigated. Recently our first spectroscopy experiment at the prototype SLOWI was performed on Be isotopes. Energetic ions of 10Be and 7Be from the RIPS were trapped and laser cooled in a linear rf trap and the specific mass shifts of these isotopes were measured for the first time.

Reactions with fast radioactive beams of neutron-rich nuclei

The neutron dripline has presently been reached only for the lightest nuclei up to the element oxygen. In this region of light neutron-rich nuclei, scattering experiments are feasible even for dripline nuclei by utilizing high-energy secondary beams produced by fragmentation. In the present article, reactions of high-energy radioactive beams will be exemplified using recent experimental results mainly derived from measurements of breakup reactions performed at the LAND and FRS facilities at GSI and at the S800 spectrometer at the NSCL. Nuclear and electromagnetically induced reactions allow probing different aspects of nuclear structure at the limits of stability related to the neutron-proton asymmetry and the weak binding close to the dripline. Properties of the valence-neutron wave functions are studied in the one-neutron knockout reaction, revealing the changes of shell structure when going from the beta-stability line to more asymmetric loosely bound neutron-rich systems. The vanishing of the N = 8 shell gap for neutron-rich systems like 11Li and 12Be, or the new closed N = 14, 16 shells for the oxygen isotopes are examples. The continuum of weakly bound nuclei and halo states can be studied by inelastic scattering. The dipole response, for instance, is found to change dramatically when going away from the valley of stability. A redistribution of the dipole strength towards lower excitation energies is observed for neutron-rich nuclei, which partly might be due to a new collective excitation mode related to the neutron-proton asymmetry. Halo nuclei, in particular, show strong dipole transitions to the continuum at the threshold, being directly related to the ground-state properties of the projectile. Finally, an outlook on future experimental prospects is given.

Correlation between Symmetry Energy and Collective Flow inHeavy-Ion Collisions Induced by High Energy Radioactive Beams

Using an isospin- and momentum-dependent hadronic transport model, weinvestigate effects of the symmetry energy on several collective flowsin heavy-ion collisions induced by radioactive beams at intermediateenergies. It is found that the neutron-proton differential directed flowand the neutron-proton differential elliptic flow are stronglycorrelated with the symmetry energy, while the position averaged radialflow is weakly correlated with the symmetry energy.

Several observables sensitive to the symmetry energy in heavy-ion collisions induced by high energy radioactive beams

Using an isospin- and momentum-dependent hadronic transport model, effects of the symmetry energy on several observables in heavy-ion collisions induced by radioactive beams at intermediate energies are studied. It is found that rapidity distribution of the isospin asymmetry of nucleon emissions, transverse momentum distribution of the ratio of free neutrons to protons at mid-rapidity, kinetic energy distribution of the ratio of π−/π+ as well as evolution of the isospin fractionation are all sensitive to the symmetry energy.

Isospin dependence of nucleon emission and radial flow in heavy-ion collisions induced by high energy radioactive beams

Using an isospin- and momentum-dependent transport model we study the emission of free nucleons and nuclear radial flow in central heavy-ion collisions induced by high-energy radioactive beams. The midrapidity neutron/proton ratio and its transverse momentum dependence are found to be very sensitive to the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy. The nuclear radial flow, however, depends only weakly on the symmetry energy.

Nuclear structure at the dripline

The neutron dripline has been reached for the time being for the lightest nuclei up to the element oxygen only. In this region of light neutron-rich nuclei, scattering experiments are feasible even for dripline nuclei by utilizing high-energy secondary beams produced by fragmentation. In the present article, reactions of high-energy radioactive beams will be exemplified discussing recent experimental results derived from measurements of breakup reactions performed at the LAND and FRS facilities at GSI.

Coulomb dissociation of high-energy radioactive beams: the case of 8B

Coulomb dissociation of 8 B is an alternative method to measure the low-energy 7 B(p,γ) 8 B cross section. This reaction is of great current interest in the context of solar neutrinos and has been studied recently both in direct proton-capture [Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 (2001) 3985, Nucl. Phys. A 696 (2001) 219, Phys. Rev. C 68 (2003) 065803, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 (2003) 022501] and in Coulomb-dissociation experiments [Phys. Lett. B 391 (1997) 261, Eur. Phys. J. A 3 (1998) 213, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83 (1999) 2910, Phys. Rev. C 63 (2001) 065806, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 (2003) 232501]. The validity of the latter method has been questioned since the role of E 2 multipolarity is considered controversial. The present experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 (2003) 232501] has studied observables that could clarify the role of a possible E 2 contribution.

Probing the EOS of dense neutron-rich matter with high-energy radioactive beams

Nuclear reactions induced by high energy radioactive beams create a transient state of nuclear matter with high density and appreciable neutron to proton asymmetry. This will provide a unique opportunity to explore novel properties of dense neutron-rich matter and the isosppin-dependence of the nuclear equation of state (EOS). Here we study theπ−/π+ ratio as a probe of the EOS of dense neutron-rich matter.

Probing the EOS of dense neutron-rich matter with high-energy radioactive beams

Nuclear reactions induced by high energy radioactive beams create a transient state of nuclear matter with high density and appreciable neutron to proton asymmetry. This will provide a unique opportunity to explore novel properties of dense neutron-rich matter and the isosppin-dependence of the nuclear equation of state (EOS). Here we study theπ −/π + ratio as a probe of the EOS of dense neutron-rich matter.

Probing the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy with high-energy radioactive beams

Central collisions induced by high energy radioactive beams can be used as a novel means to obtain crucial information about the high density (HD) behaviour of nuclear symmetry energy. This information is critical for understanding several key issues in astrophysics. Within an isospin-dependent hadronic transport model using phenomenological equations of state (EOS) for dense neutron-rich matter, we investigate several experimental probes of the HD behavior of nuclear symmetry energy, such as, the π −to π + ratio, neutron-proton differential flow and its excitation function. Measurements of these observables will provide the first terrestrial data to constrain stringently the HD behaviour of nuclear symmetry energy and thus also the EOS of dense neutron-rich matter.