Role of microstructures on the growth of long fatigue cracks

An analysis is presented to understand the role of microstructures on the two crack growth driving force parameters, and , without invoking the extrinsic crack closure concepts. Microstructural variables considered are: grain size, precipitates and stacking fault energy. It is shown that is strongly affected by the scale of the microstructure, such as grain size or precipitate spacing. For each case, the mode of slip deformation and environment affects the fatigue resistance as represented by . However, the microstructures seem to have a smaller effect on . Also, the enhanced planarity of slip from the reduction in stacking fault energy has a pronounced effect on when compared with the materials deforming under homogeneous slip.     

Field induced magnetic phase transition as a magnon Bose Einstein condensation

We report specific heat, magnetocaloric effect and magnetization measurements on single crystals of the frustrated quasi-2D spin antiferromagnet Cs₂CuCl₄ in the external magnetic field along a-axis and in the temperature range . Decreasing the applied magnetic field B from high fields leads to the closure of the field induced gap in the magnon spectrum at a critical field and a long-range incommensurate state below B_c. In the vicinity of B_c, the phase transition boundary is well described by the power law T_N∼(B_c-B)^1/φ with the measured critical exponent φ?1.5. These findings provide experimental evidence that the scaling law of the transition temperature T_N can be described by the universality class of 3D Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of magnons.     

Determination of the number of pulsed laser-Compton scattering photons

We measured pulse-height spectra of 16.7 MeV laser-Compton scattering photons with a 6 in.×5 in. NaI(Tl) detector for blank and three lead materials of 75.8, 50.9, and 25.9% transmissions at the NewSUBARU facility to investigate how the original Poisson distribution of the pulsed photons is modified after passing through thick-target materials. We present a well-prescribed method of determining the number of incident photons within 3.5% accuracy based on the response of the NaI(Tl) detector to the pulsed photon beams.     

The beam energy measurement system for the Beijing electron-positron collider

The beam energy measurement system (BEMS) for the upgraded Beijing electron-positron collider BEPC-II is described. The system is based on measuring the energies of Compton back-scattered photons. The relative systematic uncertainty of the electron and positron beam energy determination is estimated as 2×10⁻⁵. The relative uncertainty of the beam's energy spread is about 6%.     

Diffraction from carbon nanotubes

Full symmetry based analysis enables direct insight into various features of the diffraction patterns of carbon nanotubes. In particular, determination of the chiral indices of nanotubes may be performed.     

Two level scheme solvers for nuclear spectroscopy

A program for building level schemes from γ-spectroscopy coincidence data has been developed. The scheme builder was equipped with two different algorithms: a statistical one based on the Metropolis method and a more logical one, called REMP (REcurse, Merge and Permute), developed from scratch. These two methods are compared both on ideal cases and on experimental γ-ray data sets. The REMP algorithm is based on coincidences and transition energies. Using correct and complete coincidence data, it has solved approximately half a million schemes without failures. Also, for incomplete data and data with minor errors, the algorithm produces consistent sub-schemes when it is not possible to obtain a complete scheme from the provided data.     

A 4D Monte Carlo laser-Compton scattering simulation code for the characterization of the future energy-tunable SLEGS

For the full determination of the characteristics of laser-Compton X/γ-ray source, a four-dimensional (three-dimensional time and frequency-domain) Monte Carlo laser-Compton scattering simulation code has been developed with Geant4 toolkit. The code has the capability to calculate the spatial, spectral and temporal characteristics of the LCS X/γ-ray source with slanting collision configuration. This capability is crucial for both the design of successful LCS X/γ-ray source, as well as future experiments and applications utilizing this kind of sources. In this paper, the algorithm of the code and its benchmark processes are presented in detail. To benchmark the code, the X/γ-ray data taken from the worldwide and typical LCS facilities, such as HIγS at Duke University and PLEIADES at LLNL are compared to the simulated results. The benchmark processes show that the simulated results are consistent with the measurements. Utilizing the code, partial characteristics of Shanghai laser electron gamma source (SLEGS) are studied as well. The SLEGS is expected to be an energy tunable γ-ray source with its maximum energy adjustable from tens MeV to hundreds MeV and its photon flux of 10⁵-10⁶ photons/s if a 1-mJ/pulse, 1-kHz Ti:Sa laser system is employed.     

Tip preparation for usage in an ultra-low temperature UHV scanning tunneling microscope

This work deals with the preparation and characterization of tungsten tips for the use in UHV low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM and STS, respectively). These specific environments require in situ facilities for tip conditioning, for further sharpening of the tips, as well as for reliable tip characterization. The implemented conditioning methods include direct resistive annealing, annealing by electron bombardment, and self-sputtering with noble gas ions. Moreover, results from in situ tip characterization by field emission and STM experiments were compared to ex situ scanning electron microscopy. Using the so-prepared tips, high resolution STM images and tunneling spectra were obtained in a temperature range from ambient down to 350 mK, partially with applied magnetic field, on a variety of materials.     

Reliability and availability analysis of dependent-dynamic systems with DRBDs

Reliability/availability evaluation is an important, often indispensable, step in designing and analyzing (critical) systems, whose importance is constantly growing. When the complexity of a system is high, dynamic effects can arise or become significant. The system might be affected by dependent, cascade, on-demand and/or common cause failures, its units could interfere (load sharing, inter/sequence-dependency), and so on. It is also of great interest to evaluate redundancy and maintenance policies but, since dynamic behaviors usually do not satisfy the stochastic independence assumption, notations such as reliability block diagrams (RBDs), fault trees (FTs) or reliability graphs (RGs) become approximated/simplified techniques, unable to capture dynamic-dependent behaviors. To overcome such problem we developed a new formalism derived from RBDs: the dynamic RBDs (DRBDs). In this paper we explain how the DRBDs notation is able to adequately model and therefore analyze dynamic-dependent behaviors and complex systems. Particular emphasis is given to the modeling and the analysis phases, from both the theoretical and the practical point of views. Several case studies of dynamic-dependent systems, selected from literature and related to different application fields, are proposed. In this way we also compare the DRBDs approach with other methodologies, demonstrating its effectiveness.     

The observation of gamma ray bursts and terrestrial gamma-ray flashes with AGILE

Since its early phases of operation, the AGILE mission is successfully observing Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) in the hard X-ray band with the SuperAGILE imager and in the MeV range with the Mini-Calorimeter. Up to now, three firm GRB detections were obtained above 25 MeV and some bursts were detected with lower statistical confidence in the same energy band. When a GRB is localized, either by SuperAGILE or Swift/BAT or INTEGRAL/IBIS or Fermi/GBM or IPN, inside the field of view of the Gamma Ray Imager of AGILE, a detection is searched for in the gamma ray band or an upper limit is provided. A promising result of AGILE is the detection of very short gamma ray transients, a few ms in duration and possibly identified with Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes. In this paper we show the current status of the observation of Gamma Ray Bursts and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes with AGILE.     

An approximate method for linear signal decomposition in -ray tracking detectors

An approximate method for signal decomposition in γ-ray tracking detectors is presented, based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). With this algorithm, the CPU time scales linearly with the number of possible interaction sites for any number of interactions per γ ray. The method is also robust to uncertainty in the signal start time and is applicable to any γ-ray detectors with highly segmented crystals as well as any inverse problem that can be reduced to a search among a countable set of precalculated forward solutions.     

Depth of interaction detection for -ray imaging

A novel design for an inexpensive depth of interaction capable detector for γ-ray imaging has been developed. The design takes advantage of the strong correlation between the width of the scintillation light distribution in monolithic crystals and the interaction depth of γ-rays. We present in this work an inexpensive modification of the commonly used charge dividing circuits which enables the instantaneous and simultaneous computation of the second order moment of light distribution. This measure provides a good estimate for the depth of interaction and does not affect the determination of the position centroids and the energy release of γ-ray impact. The method has been tested with a detector consisting of a monolithic LSO block sized and a position-sensitive photomultiplier tube H8500 from Hamamatsu. The mean spatial resolution of the detector was found to be for the position centroids and for the DOI. The best spatial resolutions were observed at the center of the detector and yielded for the position centroids and for the DOI.     

Use of the nuclear reaction for diagnostics of energetic particles in burning plasmas

Application of reaction-produced γ-rays to diagnostics of energetic particles in burning plasmas is analyzed. Particularly, we focus on 0.981 MeV γ-rays emitted in the nuclear reaction solely governed in the plasmas by energetic tritons. It is shown that these γ quanta can serve as a promising tool to diagnose α knock-on tritons and α-particles confined in burning DT plasmas. Key parameters of the α knock-on triton population and the α-particle confinement property can be obtained by comparing the experimental γ-ray yield and spectrum with theoretical slowing-down calculations. Even if the γ-ray spectral shape cannot be acquired, one can monitor densities of these tritons and α-particles at energies of 0.6–1.8 MeV and 2.0–3.5 MeV, respectively, in a nearly steady-state plasma. The 0.981-MeV photons also would help to display time evolution of the α-particle population in experiments of deuterium plasmas with pulsed tritium beam shots.     

Resolution function in deep inelastic neutron scattering using the Foil Cycling Technique

New perspectives for epithermal neutron spectroscopy are being opened up by the development of the Resonance Detector (RD) and its use on inverse geometry time of flight (TOF) spectrometers at spallation sources. The most recent result is the Foil Cycling Technique (FCT), which has been developed and applied on the VESUVIO spectrometer operating in the RD configuration. This technique has demonstrated its capability to improve the resolution function of the spectrometer and to provide an effective neutron and gamma background subtraction method. This paper reports a detailed analysis of the line shape of the resolution function in Deep Inelastic Neutron Scattering (DINS) measurements on VESUVIO spectrometer, operating in the RD configuration and employing the FCT. The aim is to provide an analytical approximation for the analyzer energy transfer function, an useful tool for data analysis on VESUVIO. Simulated and experimental results of DINS measurements on a lead sample are compared. The line shape analysis shows that the most reliable analytical approximation of the energy transfer function is a sum of a Gaussian and a power of a Lorentzian. A comparison with the Double Difference Method (DDM) is also discussed. It is shown that the energy resolution improvement for the FCT and the DDM is almost the same, while the counting efficiency is a factor of about 1.4 higher for the FCT.     

Preliminary results on TeV sources search with AGILE

During its first 2 years of operation, the gamma-ray AGILE satellite almost completed a full study of the gamma-ray sky. This paper presents the preliminary results of the systematic study performed on the AGILE data to search for GeV counterparts and to derive flux upper limits of the TeV sources detected by various instruments (MAGIC, HESS, VERITAS, Cangaroo, MILAGRO, ARGO,….).     

Glued detectors for the CRESST-II experiment

The Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers Phase II (CRESST-II) at the L.N.G.S in Italy is searching for Dark Matter using low-temperature calorimeters. These detectors allow to discriminate different particles by simultaneous measurement of phonons and scintillation light. The sensors used consist of superconducting tungsten thin-film thermometers, which measure the thermal effect of the phonons created in an attached absorber crystal. It has been observed that the scintillation of the CaWO₄ absorber degrades during the process of depositing the tungsten film. In order to prevent this, a new technique for producing the detectors was investigated. This technique might also be valuable by expanding the range of scintillator materials suitable for producing a Dark Matter detector.     

A bivariate optimal replacement policy for a multistate repairable system

In this paper, a deteriorating simple repairable system with k+1 states, including k failure states and one working state, is studied. It is assumed that the system after repair is not “as good as new” and the deterioration of the system is stochastic. We consider a bivariate replacement policy, denoted by (T,N), in which the system is replaced when its working age has reached T or the number of failures it has experienced has reached N, whichever occurs first. The objective is to determine the optimal replacement policy (T,N)^* such that the long-run expected profit per unit time is maximized. The explicit expression of the long-run expected profit per unit time is derived and the corresponding optimal replacement policy can be determined analytically or numerically. We prove that the optimal policy (T,N)^* is better than the optimal policy N^* for a multistate simple repairable system. We also show that a general monotone process model for a multistate simple repairable system is equivalent to a geometric process model for a two-state simple repairable system in the sense that they have the same structure for the long-run expected profit (or cost) per unit time and the same optimal policy. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the theoretical results.     

A radiation tolerant phototube power supply for the electromagnetic calorimeter of the HERA- experiment

The design of the phototube power supply for the HERA-B  Electromagnetic Calorimeter is presented. A choice of the solution on the basis of the Cockcroft–Walton voltage multiplier is validated. Schematics developed are discussed. A special section describes the behaviour of the crucial components under irradiation since radiation tolerance becomes one of the most important items in the severe HERA-B  radiation environment. Finally, performance achieved is presented.