Evaluation of the radiological risk in cargo scanning by comparison with known biological consequences

This study proposes a quick, easy, and low-cost method that can be used to assess the radiological safety of an irradiation line used for cargo and container inspection facilities. The radiation-emitting equipment used was a Smiths Heimam particle accelerator model HCVP4029 operating at 4.5 MeV. The radiation dose measurements were performed using a personal radiation monitor Ultra Radac mod MRAD 111 (Geiger–Muller). The ambient equivalent dose H*(10) was estimated for two facilities: A (real) (1.12E-03 mSv per scan) and B (fictitious) (3.25E-03 mSv per scan). The dimensionless factor R, which represents a ratio between two specific scanning (Ss) quantities regarding the facilities A and B, is introduced as a reference for assessing the level of radiological safety. This study compares facilities A and B by using a simple alternative safety assessment based on the R factor. The dimensionless R-value appears to be able to facilitate both the personnel’s and the general public’s perception of risk levels, even with no fixed scale.

A portable muon telescope for multidisciplinary applications

Muon tomography or “muography” is an emerging imaging technique that uses cosmogenic muons as the radiation source. Due to its diverse range of applications and the use of natural radiation, muography is being applied across many fields such as geology, archaeology, civil engineering, nuclear reactor monitoring, nuclear waste characterization, underground surveys, etc. Muons can be detected using various detector technologies, among which, resistive plate chambers (RPC) are a very cost effective choice. RPCs are planar detectors which use ionization in a thin gas gap to detect cosmic muons, already used since years in major particle accelerator experiments. We have developed a muon telescope (or “muoscope”) composed of small scale RPCs. The design goal for our muoscope is to be portable and autonomous, in order to take data in places that are not easily accessible. The whole setup is light and compact, such to be easily packed in a car trunk. Individual RPCs are hosted in gas-tight aluminium cases. There is no need for gas bottles, once the chambers are filled. The muoscope can be controlled from a reasonable distance using wireless connection. In this paper we summarize the guiding principles of our project and present some recent developments and future prospects, including a long-term stability study of the resistivity of the semiconductive coating obtained with serigraphy.

Experimental Evaluation of Sub-Sampling IQ Detection for Low-Level RF Control in Particle Accelerator Systems

The low-level radio frequency (LLRF) control system is one of the fundamental parts of a particle accelerator, ensuring the stability of the electro-magnetic (EM) field inside the resonant cavities. It leverages on the precise measurement of the field by in-phase/quadrature (IQ) detection of an RF probe signal from the cavities, usually performed using analogue downconversion. This approach requires a local oscillator (LO) and is subject to hardware non-idealities like mixer nonlinearity and long-term temperature drifts. In this work, we experimentally evaluate IQ detection by direct sampling for the LLRF system of the Polish free electron laser (PolFEL) now under development at the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) in Poland. We study the impact of the sampling scheme and of the clock phase noise for a 1.3-GHz input sub-sampled by a 400-MSa/s analogue-to-digital converter (ADC), estimating amplitude and phase stability below 0.01% and nearly 0.01°, respectively. The results are in line with state-of-the-art implementations, and demonstrate the feasibility of direct sampling for GHz-range LLRF systems.

General mitigation techniques for coherent beam instabilities in particle accelerators

An important number of coherent beam instability mechanisms can be observed in a particle accelerator, depending if the latter is linear or circular, operated at low, medium or high energy, with a small or a huge amount of turns (for circular machines), close to transition energy or not (below or above), with only one bunch or many bunches, with counter-rotating beams (such as in colliders) or not, if the beam is positively or negatively charged, if one is interested in the longitudinal plane or in the transverse plane, in the presence of linear coupling between the transverse planes or not, in the presence of nonlinearities or not, in the presence of noise or not, etc. Building a realistic impedance model of a machine is a necessary step to be able to evaluate the machine performance limitations, identify the main contributors in case an impedance reduction is required, and study the interaction with other mechanisms such as optics (linear and nonlinear), RF gymnastics, transverse damper, noise, space charge, electron cloud, and beam–beam (in a collider). Better characterising an instability is the first step before trying to find appropriate mitigation measures and push the performance of a particle accelerator, as some mitigation methods are beneficial for some effects and detrimental for some others. For this, an excellent instrumentation is of paramount importance to be able to diagnose if the instability is longitudinal or transverse, single bunch, or coupled bunch, involving only one mode of oscillation or several, and the evolution of the intrabunch motion with intensity is a fundamental observable with high-intensity high-brightness beams. Finally, among the possible mitigation methods of coherent beam instabilities, the ones perturbing the least the single-particle motion (leading to the largest necessary dynamic aperture and beam lifetime) and easiest to implement for day-to-day operation in the machine control room should be preferred.

Progress of ultra-high-field superconducting magnets in China

High magnetic fields play a critical role in the development of modern science and technology, breeding many significant scientific discoveries and boosting the generation of new technologies. In the last few years, China has untaken a great deal of work on the application of Ultra-High-Field (UHF) superconducting magnet technology, such as for the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) in Beijing, the UHF nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), nuclear fusion energy, particle accelerator, and so on. This paper reports the research status of UHF superconducting magnets in China from different perspectives, including design options, technical features, experimental progress, opportunities and challenges.

First Proof-of-Concept Prototype of an Additive Manufactured Radio Frequency Quadrupole

Continuous developments in additive manufacturing (AM) technology are opening up opportunities in novel machining, and improving design alternatives for modern particle accelerator components. One of the most critical, complex, and delicate accelerator elements to manufacture and assemble is the radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) linear accelerator, which is used as an injector for all large modern proton and ion accelerator systems. For this reason, the RFQ has been selected by a wide European collaboration participating in the AM developments of the I.FAST (Innovation Fostering in Accelerator Science and Technology) Horizon 2020 project. The RFQ is as an excellent candidate to show how sophisticated pure copper accelerator components can be manufactured by AM and how their functionalities can be boosted by this evolving technology. To show the feasibility of the AM process, a prototype RFQ section has been designed, corresponding to one-quarter of a 750 MHz 4-vane RFQ, which was optimised for production with state-of-the-art laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) technology, and then manufactured in pure copper. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first RFQ section manufactured in the world by AM. Subsequently, geometrical precision and surface roughness of the prototype were measured. The results obtained are encouraging and confirm the feasibility of AM manufactured high-tech accelerator components. It has been also confirmed that the RFQ geometry, particularly the critical electrode modulation and the complex cooling channels, can be successfully realised thanks to the opportunities provided by the AM technology. Further prototypes will aim to improve surface roughness and to test vacuum properties. In parallel, laboratory measurements will start to test and improve the voltage holding properties of AM manufactured electrode samples.