Ray Measurements Research Articles

Design of an Antimatter Large Acceptance Detector In Orbit (ALADInO)

A new generation magnetic spectrometer in space will open the opportunity to investigate the frontiers in direct high-energy cosmic ray measurements and to precisely measure the amount of the rare antimatter component in cosmic rays beyond the reach of current missions. We propose the concept for an Antimatter Large Acceptance Detector In Orbit (ALADInO), designed to take over the legacy of direct measurements of cosmic rays in space performed by PAMELA and AMS-02. ALADInO features technological solutions conceived to overcome the current limitations of magnetic spectrometers in space with a layout that provides an acceptance larger than 10 m2 sr. A superconducting magnet coupled to precision tracking and time-of-flight systems can provide the required matter–antimatter separation capabilities and rigidity measurement resolution with a Maximum Detectable Rigidity better than 20 TV. The inner 3D-imaging deep calorimeter, designed to maximize the isotropic acceptance of particles, allows for the measurement of cosmic rays up to PeV energies with accurate energy resolution to precisely measure features in the cosmic ray spectra. The operations of ALADInO in the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrangian point for at least 5 years would enable unique revolutionary observations with groundbreaking discovery potentials in the field of astroparticle physics by precision measurements of electrons, positrons, and antiprotons up to 10 TeV and of nuclear cosmic rays up to PeV energies, and by the possible unambiguous detection and measurement of low-energy antideuteron and antihelium components in cosmic rays.

Cosmic ray measurements using the ISMRAN setup in a non-reactor environment

The cosmic rays data collected using a large area plastic scintillator array ISMRAN (Indian Scintillator Matrix for Reactor AntiNeutrino) are presented. The data collected serve as a useful benchmark of cosmogenic background in a non-reactor environment for the future measurements of electron–antineutrinos to be performed using the ISMRAN setup. The zenith angle distribution of the atmospheric muons has been measured and compared with Monte Carlo expectations. The detector setup was further used to measure the lifetime distribution of stopped muons and extract their rates inside the detector matrix. The measured spectra of decaying muons and associated electrons show a good agreement with the MC simulations performed through GEANT4 simulation.

Quantitative Schlieren imaging based on fringe projection

An effective yet simple quantitative synthetic Schlieren imaging technique is presented in this paper. A multiplexed fringe pattern displayed on a common laptop screen is observed through a disturbed medium resulting in a change of the fringe pattern. Fourier analysis of such pattern provides high-resolution and almost real time measurement of rays’ deflection due to the medium refractive index variation. The developed technique was applied for measurement of a compressible fluid discharge from a narrow channel in a wind tunnel.

Cosmic Ray Measurements with IceCube

Cosmic Ray Measurements with IceCube

Classification of vascularized fibular flap hypertrophy based on X-ray evaluation.

The aim of this study was to analyze and classify hypertrophy seen in vascularized fibula flaps used for reconstruction of tubular bone defects. Thirty-three patients who underwent a vascularized fibula flap for the reconstruction of massive bone defects of the upper or lower extremity long bones were retrospectively reviewed and included in this study. There were 24 lower extremities (21 tibial and 3 femoral) and 9 upper extremities (4 humeral, 2 radial and 3 ulnar) reconstructions in this series. The mean age was 32.7 (range= 10- 59) years. The mean length of bony defect following initial debridement was 10.3 (range= 4-25) cm. The fibula was inserted as a single strut in 29 patients, and as a double barrel construct in 4 patients. The degree of fibular hypertrophy was calculated based on anteroposterior (AP) and lateral X-ray measurements of fibular flaps at an average postoperative period of 52 months. The difference in thickness between the initial and final x- ray measurements were expressed as percentage of hypertrophy. The variances seen in this period were defined and classified. When bony consolidation of the 33 cases were examined in detail, 4 different modes of flap hypertrophy were defined: type 0- absence of hypertrophy, type 1- limited hypertrophy, type 2- marked hypertrophy triggered by stress fracture, and type 3- massive hypertrophy enhanced by peripheral bone production. Fibular hypertrophy follows different modes based on vascularity of the flap, amount of stress imparted on the flap, site of reconstruction, and whether the periosteal sleeve is retained at the reconstruction site. Determination of these factors at the initial period may help the surgeons to predict the final hypertrophy that will be seen at the end of flap maturation Level of Evidence: Level IV, Therapeutic Study.

Semi-insulating GaAs detectors degraded by 8 MeV electrons up to 1500 kGy

Radiation degradation of semi-insulating GaAs detectors by 8 MeV electrons up to doses of 1500 kGy is studied in this paper. The influence of irradiation on GaAs material parameters and on spectrometric and electrical properties of fabricated detectors is evaluated. The detector material was degraded before contact preparation, which ensured separation of radiation degradation solely to the bulk material, excluding the contact degradation. The positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) was involved to characterize the substrate material together with galvanometric measurements. Radiation-induced mono-vacancies were clearly identified by PALS in the irradiated materials with increasing concentration up to 2.8 × 1016 cm−3 at maximal applied dose. In correlation with defect concentration the electron Hall mobility decreased with dose down to 3270 cm2 V−1 s−1 and resistivity increased up to 5.22 × 108 Ω cm at 1500 kGy. The bulk material properties influenced the parameters of fabricated detectors. The detectors lost their current blocking behaviour at 1000 kGy according to current-voltage measurements. The charge collection efficiency during alpha-particle and gamma ray measurements almost exponentially decreased with applied dose from initial 40% down to 5% at 1500 kGy in the case of alpha spectrometry and from 48% to 12% at 500 kGy for gamma spectrometry.

Radial evolution of the April 2020 stealth coronal mass ejection between 0.8 and 1 AU

Aims.We present observations of the first coronal mass ejection (CME) observed by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft on April 19, 2020 and the associated Forbush decrease (FD) measured by the High Energy Telescope (HET). This CME is a multi-spacecraft event that was also seen near Earth the following day.Methods.We highlight the capabilities of the HET for observing small short-term variations of the galactic cosmic ray count rate using its single detector counters. We applied the analytical ForbMod model to the FD measurements to reproduce the Forbush decrease at both locations. Input parameters for the model were derived from both in situ and remote-sensing observations of the CME.Results.The very slow (∼350 km s−1) stealth CME caused an FD with an amplitude of 3% in the low-energy cosmic ray measurements at HET and 2% in a comparable channel of the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as a 1% decrease in neutron monitor measurements. Significant differences are observed in the expansion behavior of the CME at different locations, which may be related to influence of the following high speed solar wind stream. Under certain assumptions, ForbMod is able to reproduce the observed FDs in low-energy cosmic ray measurements from HET as well as CRaTER, however, with the same input parameters, the results do not agree with the FD amplitudes at higher energies measured by neutron monitors on Earth. We study these discrepancies and provide possible explanations.Conclusions.This study highlights the notion that the novel measurements of Solar Orbiter can be coordinated with observations from other spacecraft to improve our understanding of space weather in the inner heliosphere. Multi-spacecraft observations combined with data-based modeling are also essential for understanding the propagation and evolution of CMEs, in addition to their space weather impacts.

Natural Radioactivity in Various Water Tasters Using y-Ray Measurement

This paper has explained the contamination of natural radionuclides in various water testers using gamma ray measurement which is very significant as part of health scrutiny programs to progress the ecological knowledge. Natural radioactivity was determined in five groups of water samples (rain, mine, tap, drinking and mineral) from different places at Johor, Malaysia by means of gamma-ray spectrometry tool. The annual cumulative effective doses were estimated 6.05 mSv /yr for rain, 9.49 mSv/ yr for mine, 6.39 mSv /yr for tap, 5.67 mSv /yr for drinking, and 6.01 mSv/yr for mineral water. Among the five samples, mine water gave the highest value in annual effective dose measurement. The measured data are compared with the reported value. The activity concentrations of five water samples provided that bottled drinking water was the lowest than other water samples. This research is useful to provide some information to the public about the amount of radionuclide content uranium, thorium and potassium that present in water.

Diagnostics Method for 2-D Velocity Distribution Function of Beam Deuterons Using Visible Light of Energetic 3He in Deuterium Plasmas

In high-temperature plasmas, fast ion diagnostics is one of the important components for plasma heating. Therefore, it is important for fusion research to confirm and understand the physics of fast ions in experimental devices. Although conventional spectroscopy measurements have excellent energy resolution, it is difficult to measure fast deuterons with MeV order energy. The energy resolutions for neutron and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\gamma $ </tex-math></inline-formula> -ray measurements are low and need to be improved. A diagnostics method using the visible light (VIS) spectrum of <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> He produced by the deuteron–deuteron reaction has been proposed. The previous studies did not consider the measurement line-of-sight (LOS) in the actual device. In this article, the observability of the proposed method is evaluated considering the spatial distribution of the temperature and density and the direction of ion motion in the deuterium beam-injected ITER deuterium plasma. It is shown that the change of the Doppler broadening of the VIS spectrum due to the formation of beam deuteron tails (non-Maxwell component) is sufficiently larger than the resolution of the spectrometer, it is strongly dependent on the LOS. The ratios of emissivity to bremsstrahlung are 40%–50% in the vertical LOS and 4%–7% in the tangential LOS.

Path Planning for Localization of Radiation Sources Based on Principal Component Analysis

In this paper, we propose a path planning method for the localization of radiation sources using a mobile robot equipped with an imaging gamma-ray detector, which has a field of view in all directions. The ability to detect and localize radiation sources is essential for ensuring nuclear safety, security, and surveillance. To enable the autonomous localization of radiation sources, the robot must have the ability to automatically determine the next location for gamma ray measurement instead of following a predefined path. The number of incident events is approximated to be the squared inverse proportional to the distance between the radiation source and the detector. Therefore, the closer the distance to the source, the shorter the time required to obtain the same radiation counts measured by the detector. Hence, the proposed method is designed to reduce this distance to a position where a sufficient number of gamma-ray events can be obtained; then, a path to surround the radiation sources is generated. The proposed method generates this path by performing principal component analysis based on the results obtained from previous measurements. Both simulations and actual experiments demonstrate that the proposed method can automatically generate a measurement path and accurately localize radiation sources.

On the treatment of lens optical center uncertainty in simultaneous reconstruction of flame temperature and soot volume fraction distributions by a CCD camera

In general, when charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras are used to reconstruct key flame parameters via inverse radiation analysis, the uncertainty of the camera lens optical center will introduce difficulties for practical applications and also reduce the reconstruction accuracy. This paper investigated the effect of the camera lens optical center location on the accuracy for concurrently reconstructing the distributions of temperature and soot volume fraction in an optically thin, axisymmetric flame with a single CCD camera via inverse radiation analysis. The impact of the ray number and measurement error on the precision of reconstruction was analyzed. Overall, the measurement error played a crucial role in reconstruction accuracy while the increase of the ray number could improve the reconstruction accuracy. When the lens optical center used for reconstruction was inconsistent with the actual one, the reconstructed errors can remain in an acceptable range. In summary, the effect of the lens optical center uncertainty on the reconstruction accuracy could be small. The conclusion obtained here can be useful for the practical reconstruction process.

62 Growth Performance and Mineral Status of 6 Kg Piglets Fed Reduced Levels of Dietary Calcium

Abstract Imbalances between calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) impair growth performance and bone mineralization. However, reducing dietary limestone may change the buffering capacity of feed in early nursery piglets, which may help prevent post-weaning diarrhea. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the impact of reducing Ca post weaning compared to recommendations outlined by NRC (2012) or a low P diet. Dietary treatments consisted of 1) Low Ca (LCa; Phase 1, 0.51% Ca and 0.47% STTD P), 2) NRC recommendations (NRC; Phase 1, 0.85% Ca and 0.42% STTD P), and 3) a recommendation lower in phosphorus (LP; Phase 1, 0.65% Ca and 0.36% STTD P). Each diet was fed over 4 phases. Piglets (n = 953; 276/275 Fast X PIC 800 genetics) were blocked by room, sex, and initial BW (6 kg). Feed intake and pig weights were recorded weekly. At 12 d and 41 d, blood was collected and Dual-X ray (DXA) measurements were taken using 8 piglets per treatment. Fecal scores were evaluated during wk 4 and 5. Data were analyzed using MIXED procedure of SAS (SAS Inst. Inc., Cary, NC). There were no differences observed in mortality, overall growth performance, plasma Ca and P, and scour scores at either time point. At 12 d, the bone mineral content was reduced (P = 0.001) in LP pigs compared to LCa and NRC. At 41 d, bone mineral content was reduced in NRC in comparison to LCa while LP was intermediate (P = 0.001). Plasma parameters showed an increased magnesium (Mg) and Ca:Mg in LCa (P &amp;lt; 0.01) that can be related to bone resorption to face Ca hypocalcemia. Pigs were healthy with no enteric challenges, limiting the ability to observe a benefit in fecal scores. In conclusion, piglets can maintain growth and bone mineralization through a short-term limestone removal program.

Ultralight fermionic dark matter

Conventional lore from Tremaine and Gunn excludes fermionic dark matter lighter than a few hundred eV, based on the Pauli exclusion principle. We highlight a simple way of evading this bound with a large number of species that leads to numerous non-trivial consequences. In this scenario there are many distinct species of fermions with quasi-degenerate masses and no couplings to the standard model. Nonetheless, gravitational interactions lead to constraints from measurements at the LHC, of cosmic rays, of supernovae, and of black hole spins and lifetimes. We find that the LHC constrains the number of distinct species, bosons or fermions lighter than $\sim 500$ GeV, to be $N \lesssim 10^{62}$. This, in particular, implies that roughly degenerate fermionic dark matter must be heavier than $\sim 10^{-14}$ eV, which thus relaxes the Tremaine-Gunn bound by $\sim 16$ orders of magnitude. Slightly weaker constraints applying to masses up to $\sim100$ TeV exist from cosmic ray measurements while various constraints on masses $\lesssim10^{-10}$ eV apply from black hole observations. We consider a variety of phenomenological bounds on the number of species of particles. Finally, we note that there exist theoretical considerations regarding quantum gravity which could impose more severe constraints that may limit the number of physical states to $N\lesssim 10^{32}$.

A Peculiar ICME Event in August 2018 Observed With the Global Muon Detector Network

AbstractWe demonstrate that global observations of high‐energy cosmic rays contribute to understanding unique characteristics of a large‐scale magnetic flux rope causing a magnetic storm in August 2018. Following a weak interplanetary shock on August 25, 2018, a magnetic flux rope caused an unexpectedly large geomagnetic storm. It is likely that this event became geoeffective because the flux rope was accompanied by a corotating interaction region and compressed by high‐speed solar wind following the flux rope. In fact, a Forbush decrease was observed in cosmic‐ray data inside the flux rope as expected, and a significant cosmic‐ray density increase exceeding the unmodulated level before the shock was also observed near the trailing edge of the flux rope. The cosmic‐ray density increase can be interpreted in terms of the adiabatic heating of cosmic rays near the trailing edge of the flux rope, as the corotating interaction region prevents free expansion of the flux rope and results in the compression near the trailing edge. A northeast‐directed spatial gradient in the cosmic‐ray density was also derived during the cosmic‐ray density increase, suggesting that the center of the heating near the trailing edge is located northeast of Earth. This is one of the best examples demonstrating that the observation of high‐energy cosmic rays provides us with information that can only be derived from the cosmic ray measurements to observationally constrain the three‐dimensional macroscopic picture of the interaction between coronal mass ejections and the ambient solar wind, which is essential for prediction of large magnetic storms.

Synthesis and Structural Study of Ferroelectric Material Lead Titanate (PbTiO3)

Lead Titanate PbTiO3, (PT) is technologically important ferroelectric and piezoelectric ceramics. To make PbTiO3, the oxides PbO and TiO2 are combined in a stoichiometric ratio. Solid-state reaction process was used to synthesize the oxides. The calcination temperature was 8500C. The prepared sample has been characterized by XRD techniques with a scanning rate of 6 degree per minutes. The prepared sample PbTiO3 shows crystalline nature, with Tetragonal symmetry, as observed by X –ray measurements. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to examine the surface morphology and grain size of the obtained samples. Micrographs obtained from SEM analysis revealed a single phase sample of well-defined grains.

Fast timing detectors with applications in cosmic ray physics and medical science

We describe two applications concerning fast timing detectors and fast signal sampling in cosmic ray measurements in collaboration with NASA and in dose measurements for cancer treatment.

Top pair production at ultra-high energies

The top quark, the heaviest quark and, indeed, the heaviest elementary particle known today, constitutes a novel probe of the long-lived medium in quark-gluon phase which, as expected, can be produced even in light nuclei collisions at ultra-high energies. Some distinctive features are considered for particle production in the top sector in ultra-high energy domain. The antitop-top pair production is studied within the quantum chromodynamics and effective field theory approach used for calculations of total partonic cross sections. Predictions for all observables are computed at NNLO in quantum chromodynamics and at LO in effective field theory. These quantitative results can be important for both the future collider experiments at center-of-mass energy frontier and the improvement of the phenomenological models for development of the cosmic ray cascades in ultra-high energy domain. Thus the study allows the better understanding of heavy particle production and emphasizes the exciting interrelation between the high-energy physics on accelerators and ultra-high energy cosmic ray measurements.

Software Package Application for Self consistent Processing of X ray Measurement Data for Studying Structural Properties and Parameters of Objects

The article presents the results of TiN diffusion-barrier layers studies on a silicon substrate, carried out with the use of the copyrighted software package. In this paper, it is proposed to use several methods for studying the structures and combine them in the form of an integrated approach, which allows not only to increase the calculation accuracy but also to solve most of the arisen problems. Based on this approach, an automated software package for X-ray spectral and X-ray structural analysis was developed to study the elemental and phase composition of the objects, including the analysis of ore minerals, which allows not only to obtain a more complete and detailed picture of the studied objects, but also to increase the sensitivity threshold detection of individual elements that are not detected by individual methods of analysis.

Measurement of the proton-air cross section with Telescope Array’s Black Rock Mesa and Long Ridge fluorescence detectors, and surface array in hybrid mode

Ultra high energy cosmic rays provide the highest known energy source in the universe to measure proton cross sections. Though conditions for collecting such data are less controlled than an accelerator environment, current generation cosmic ray observatories have large enough exposures to collect significant statistics for a reliable measurement for energies above what can be attained in the lab. Cosmic ray measurements of cross section use atmospheric calorimetry to measure depth of air shower maximum ($X_{\mathrm{max}}$), which is related to the primary particle's energy and mass. The tail of the $X_{\mathrm{max}}$ distribution is assumed to be dominated by showers generated by protons, allowing measurement of the inelastic proton-air cross section. In this work the proton-air inelastic cross section measurement, $\sigma^{\mathrm{inel}}_{\mathrm{p-air}}$, using data observed by Telescope Array's Black Rock Mesa and Long Ridge fluorescence detectors and surface detector array in hybrid mode is presented. $\sigma^{\mathrm{inel}}_{\mathrm{p-air}}$ is observed to be $520.1 \pm 35.8$[Stat.] $^{+25.0}_{-40}$[Sys.]~mb at $\sqrt{s} = 73$ TeV. The total proton-proton cross section is subsequently inferred from Glauber formalism and is found to be $\sigma^{\mathrm{tot}}_{\mathrm{pp}} = 139.4 ^{+23.4}_{-21.3}$ [Stat.]$ ^{+15.0}_{-24.0}$[Sys.]~mb.

On the use of CPTs in stratigraphy: recent observations and some illustrative cases

During processing and interpretation of about 200 Cone Penetration Tests (CPT) with electrical cones in a limited area of 60 km² in NE Belgium, a close analogy was observed between the vertical trend and signature of two CPT derived parameters (normalized soil behavior index Ic and hydraulic conductivity kSBTn) and borehole gamma ray (GR) measurements. This close analogy could be repeatably observed on five locations with a CPT executed along a cored and logged borehole. Using this feature proves to be a considerably help for stratigraphic interpretation, especially for sandy units displaying low lithological contrast. Lithostratigraphic units and their boundaries are determined by the specific log response patterns of these CPT derived parameters (kSBTn and/or Ic). These log responses prove to be more consistent and better to correlate than for the classical parameters (cone resistance qc and friction ratio Rf). This paper describes the case of a Neogene setting in the NE of Belgium where this feature was first observed. An informal stratigraphy based on CPT log signal is proposed for the geological units for the research area. Some other cases are briefly described to illustrate the usability of this feature for other geological settings or issues.