scholarly journals Solar flare detection method using Rn-222 radioactive source

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-166
Author(s):  
Jonathan Walg ◽  
Anatoly Rodnianski ◽  
Itzhak Orion

Solar neutrino detection is known to be a very challenging task, due to the minuscule absorption cross-section and mass of the neutrino. One research showed that relative large solar-flares affected the decay-rates of Mn-54 in December 2006. Since most the radiation emitted during a solar flare are blocked before reaching the earth surface, it should be assumed that such decay-rate changes could be due to neutrino flux increase from the sun, in which only neutrinos can penetrate the radionuclide. This study employs the Rn-222 radioactive source for the task of solar flare detection, based on the prediction that it will provide a stable gamma ray counting rate. In order to ascertain counting stability, three counting systems were constructed to track the count-rate changes. The Rn-222 count-rate measurements showed several radiation counting dips, indicating that the radioactive nuclide can be affected by order of magnitude neutrino flux change from the sun. We conclude that using the cooled Radon source obtained the clearest responses, and therefore this is the preferable system for detecting neutrino emissions from a controlled source.

Nearly twenty years ago, G. D. Rochester and I organized a Discussion Meeting here on the origin of the cosmic radiation. P art of that meeting was devoted to primary gamma rays, and this meeting was followed a few years later by a meeting devoted entirely to gamma ray astronomy. At that time gamma rays represented a ‘new window on the Universe’. Now it is the turn of neutrinos to move into that slot, although it must be said that neutrino astronomy is not as far on as gamma ray astronomy was at that stage. Nevertheless, the subject has started and has already thrown up some dramatic questions, questions of interest to both astronomer and elementary particle physicist. In the more conventional astronomies, the Sun appears to be quite well behaved, and reasonably understood, with the interests of many centring on more distant and ‘dramatic’ objects, such as supernovae and extragalactic sources. With neutrinos, however, supernovae seem to be well behaved — at the superficial level, at least and based on one event — but the Sun does not. The remarkable deficit in solar neutrino flux recorded by Davis and collaborators over the past decades has been confirmed and we look forward to hearing the details of these confirmations, as well as the energy dependence of the flux and its comparison with expectation.


Geophysics ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 44 (8) ◽  
pp. 1447-1457 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. L. Grasty ◽  
K. L. Kosanke ◽  
R. S. Foote

In planning and interpreting airborne gamma‐ray surveys, an important consideration is the relative contribution of surface areas of a homogeneous radioactive source to the detected radiation. Numerical calculations have shown that along a flight line the width of the strip that produces a fixed percentage of the detected radiation is significantly less than the diameter of the circle contributing the same percentage of the radiation detected by a stationary gamma‐ray detector. Experimental angular sensitivity measurements of typical sodium‐iodide detectors were incorporated into the calculations and showed that the results were not strongly dependent on the detector configuration. The results are shown to have applications in estimating the count rate from small sources and in the design of an optimum ground survey grid for test strips selected for the calibration of airborne gamma‐ray spectrometers.


1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 635-639
Author(s):  
J. Baláž ◽  
A. V. Dmitriev ◽  
M. A. Kovalevskaya ◽  
K. Kudela ◽  
S. N. Kuznetsov ◽  
...  

AbstractThe experiment SONG (SOlar Neutron and Gamma rays) for the low altitude satellite CORONAS-I is described. The instrument is capable to provide gamma-ray line and continuum detection in the energy range 0.1 – 100 MeV as well as detection of neutrons with energies above 30 MeV. As a by-product, the electrons in the range 11 – 108 MeV will be measured too. The pulse shape discrimination technique (PSD) is used.


2008 ◽  
Vol 47 (06) ◽  
pp. 267-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Boldt ◽  
C. Kobe ◽  
W. Eschner ◽  
H. Schicha ◽  
F. Sudbrock

Summary Aim: After application of radiopharmaceuticals the patient becomes a radioactive source which leads to radiation exposure in the proximity. The photon dose rates after administration of different radiopharmaceuticals used in diagnostic nuclear medicine were measured at several distances and different time intervals. These data are of importance for estimating the exposure of technologists and members of the public. Patients, method: In this study dose rates were measured for 67 patients after application of the following radiopharmaceuticals: 99mTc-HDP as well as 99mTcpertechnetate, 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose, 111In-Octreotid and Zevalin® and 123I-mIBG in addition to 123I-NaI. The dose rates were measured immediately following application at six different distances to the patient. After two hours the measurements were repeated and – whenever possible – after 24 hours and seven days. Results: Immediately following application the highest dose rates were below 1 mSv / h: with a maximum at 780 μSv/h for 18F (370 MBq), 250 μSv/h for 99mTc (700 MBq), 150 μSv/h for 111In (185 MBq) and 132 μSv/ h for 123I (370 MBq). At a distance of 0.5 m the values decrease significantly by an order of magnitude. Two hours after application the values are diminished to 1/3 (99mTc, 18F), to nearly ½ (123I) but remain in the same order of magnitude for the longer-lived 111In radiopharmaceuticals. Conclusion: For greater distances the doses remain below the limits outlined in the national legislation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (3) ◽  
pp. 4032-4049
Author(s):  
Antonio Ambrosone ◽  
Marco Chianese ◽  
Damiano F G Fiorillo ◽  
Antonio Marinelli ◽  
Gennaro Miele ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Starburst galaxies, which are known as ‘reservoirs’ of high-energy cosmic-rays, can represent an important high-energy neutrino ‘factory’ contributing to the diffuse neutrino flux observed by IceCube. In this paper, we revisit the constraints affecting the neutrino and gamma-ray hadronuclear emissions from this class of astrophysical objects. In particular, we go beyond the standard prototype-based approach leading to a simple power-law neutrino flux, and investigate a more realistic model based on a data-driven blending of spectral indexes, thereby capturing the observed changes in the properties of individual emitters. We then perform a multi-messenger analysis considering the extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGB) measured by Fermi-LAT and different IceCube data samples: the 7.5-yr high-energy starting events (HESE) and the 6-yr high-energy cascade data. Along with starburst galaxies, we take into account the contributions from blazars and radio galaxies as well as the secondary gamma-rays from electromagnetic cascades. Remarkably, we find that, differently from the highly-constrained prototype scenario, the spectral index blending allows starburst galaxies to account for up to $40{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the HESE events at $95.4{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ CL, while satisfying the limit on the non-blazar EGB component. Moreover, values of $\mathcal {O}(100\, \mathrm{PeV})$ for the maximal energy of accelerated cosmic-rays by supernovae remnants inside the starburst are disfavoured in our scenario. In broad terms, our analysis points out that a better modelling of astrophysical sources could alleviate the tension between neutrino and gamma-ray data interpretation.


1968 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. S757-S760 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. P. Lin

The > 40-keV solar-flare electrons observed by the IMP III and Mariner IV satellites are shown to be closely correlated with solar radio and X-ray burst emission. In particular, intense type III radio bursts are observed to accompany solar electron-event flares. The energies of the electrons, the total number of electrons, and the size of the electron source at the sun can be inferred from radio observations. The characteristics of the electrons observed in interplanetary space are consistent with these radio observations. Therefore these electrons are identified as the exciting agents of the type III emission. It has been noted that the radio and X-ray bursts are part of the flash phase of flares. The observations indicate that a striking feature of the flash phase is the production of electrons of 10–100 keV energies.


1980 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 441-444
Author(s):  
M. Gabriel

In this review we discuss the problems raised by the discovery that the sun was, in the past, unstable towards non-radial oscillations.In 1972, Fowler (1972), in an attempt to explain the low-neutrino flux measured in Davis’ experiment (now 1.6 snu, while the standard solar model predicts 4.4 snu) suggested that the sun could have undergone, some 10 years ago, a change in structure because of sudden mixing of the inner core. During the same year Dilke and Gough (1972) suggested the sun is unstable to low-order gravity modes (g+ modes) of non-radial oscillation and that the mixing is triggered when the amplitude of the oscillation becomes large enough.


Galaxies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Qi-Qi Zhou ◽  
Shuang-Xi Yi ◽  
Jun-Jie Wei ◽  
Xue-Feng Wu

Possible violations of Lorentz invariance (LIV) can produce vacuum birefringence, which results in a frequency-dependent rotation of the polarization plane of linearly polarized light from distant sources. In this paper, we try to search for a frequency-dependent change of the linear polarization angle arising from vacuum birefringence in the spectropolarimetric data of astrophysical sources. We collect five blazars with multiwavelength polarization measurements in different optical bands (UBVRI). Taking into account the observed polarization angle contributions from both the intrinsic polarization angle and the rotation angle induced by LIV, and assuming that the intrinsic polarization angle is an unknown constant, we obtain new constraints on LIV by directly fitting the multiwavelength polarimetric data of the five blazars. Here, we show that the birefringence parameter η quantifying the broken degree of Lorentz invariance is limited to be in the range of −9.63×10−8<η<6.55×10−6 at the 2σ confidence level, which is as good as or represents one order of magnitude improvement over the results previously obtained from ultraviolet/optical polarization observations. Much stronger limits can be obtained by future multiwavelength observations in the gamma-ray energy band.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Pommé ◽  
K. Pelczar ◽  
K. Kossert ◽  
I. Kajan

AbstractThe 32Si decay rate measurement data of Alburger et al. obtained in 1982–1986 at Brookhaven National Laboratory have been presented repeatedly as evidence for solar neutrino-induced beta decay. The count rates show an annual sinusoidal oscillation of about 0.1% amplitude and maximum at February–March. Several authors have claimed that the annual oscillations could not be explained by environmental influences on the set-up, and they questioned the invariability of the decay constant. They hypothesised a correlation with changes in the solar neutrino flux due to annual variations in the Earth-Sun distance, in spite of an obvious mismatch in amplitude and phase. In this work, environmental conditions at the time of the experiment are presented. The 32Si decay rate measurements appear to be inversely correlated with the dew point in a nearby weather station. Susceptibility of the detection set-up to local temperature and humidity conditions is a likely cause of the observed instabilities in the measured decay rates. Similar conclusions apply to 36Cl decay rates measured at Ohio State University in 2005–2012.


Physics Today ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (10) ◽  
pp. 21-21
Author(s):  
Andrew Grant
Keyword(s):  

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