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At least 181 records · Page 10

Gold-gold luminosity increase in RHIC for a beam energy scan with colliding beam energies extending below the nominal injection energy

The Beam Energy Scan phase II (BES-II), performed in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) from 2019 to 2021, explored the phase transition between quark-gluon plasma and hadronic gas. BES-II exceeded the goal of a fourfold increase in the average luminosity over that achieved during Beam Energy Scan phase I (BES-I), at five gold beam energies: 9.8, 7.3, 5.75, 4.59, and 3.85 GeV / nucleon. This was accomplished by addressing several beam dynamics effects, including intrabeam scattering, beam-beam, space charge, beam instability, and field errors induced by superconducting magnet persistent currents. Some of these effects are especially detrimental at low energies. BES-II achievements are presented, and the measures taken to improve RHIC performance are described. These measures span the whole RHIC complex, including ion beam sources, injectors, beam lifetime improvements in RHIC, and operation with the world’s first bunched beam Low Energy RHIC electron Cooler (LEReC).

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Persistent Current Simulation for CCT Testing Magnet Used in EIC

The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a powerful new facility to be built in the United States at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in collaboration with Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, will explore the most fundamental building blocks of nearly all visible matter. Here, there are many different types of superconducting magnets near the interaction region (IR) of EIC. Due to space constraints and special lattice requirements, Tapered CCT (canted-cosine theta) magnets have been used for EIC. At beam injection, the magnetic field is only ~5.5% of the maximum operating field. Considerable field errors will be generated from persistent current in superconducting strands even using very fine filament for those superconductors. A tapered CCT demonstrator magnet has been built and tested successfully at BNL since July 2020 to evaluate the key technologies for future tapered CCT magnets. In October 2023, BNL team also measured the persistent current in this demonstrator magnet. To validate the persistent current simulation methods for CCT magnets in EIC, this paper used a full 3D Opera Model and measured magnetization data from superconducting strand for the simulation. Simulation results showed reasonable agreement with recent measurement results.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

NSTX-U In-Vessel Control Coils’ Design Concept

In this paper, a successful conceptual design was completed to develop in-vessel control coils [non-axisymmetric control coils (NCCs)]. The NCCs are a series of saddle coils that are intended to satisfy a number of physics criteria including magnetic breaking, error field control, fast resistive wall mode (RWM) control, and edge-localized-mode stabilization. Customized mineral-insulated cable (MIC) was selected for the conductor material. The MIC was made from oxygen-free copper conductor, high purity magnesium oxide powder insulation, and 304 stainless steel sleeve cover. Sample MIC was purchased from an outside supplier, and various tests were conducted for design and performance verification including high-voltage testing, which necessitated the development of special test terminations. A concept design was also developed for terminating the MIC ends using the nonconductive and vacuum-sealed technique. Two alternative designs were proposed for joints inside the vacuum vessel (VV). The NCCs are designed to be mounted in front of the primary passive plates and underneath the plasma-facing component (PFC) tiles. The passive plates will be modified to accommodate the coils. A new PFC tile design concept was developed using high-Z materials. New designs for the penetrations through the VV wall were developed. One port per coil was planned. Finally, a new power patch panel will be required to provide the ability for various combinations of connections between the NCC, the existing RWM coils, and the existing switching power amplifier power suppliers.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Three-Dimensional Particle-in-Cell Analysis of Mechanical Design Tolerances of the Scorpius Injector With Warp

Here, this article examines the mechanical design tolerances for the Scorpius injector using a 3-D particle-in-cell (PIC) code. In order to meet its objective as a high-fidelity, multipulse flash X-ray source, the accelerator has requirements for the electron beam in order to minimize the spot size of the beam focused onto a foil target to create high fluence X-rays at energies greater than 10 MeV. The requirements for alignment of the cathode, anode beam pipe, focusing solenoids, and transport solenoids specified using Trak and AMBER are independently verified using a 3-D electrostatic/magnetostatic model of the Scorpius injector, including transverse magnetic field errors that arise from mechanical alignment errors. It is predicted that the injector will meet the performance requirements for radiographic operation and has a design margin to correct for potentially unforeseen operating conditions.

42 ENGINEERING↗

SU-F-P-54: Guidelines to Check Image Registration QA of a Clinical Deformation Registration Software: A Single Institution Preliminary Study

Purpose: The objective of this study is to verify and analyze the accuracy of a clinical deformable image registration (DIR) software. Methods: To test clinical DIR software qualitatively and quantitatively, we focused on lung radiotherapy and analyzed a single (Lung) patient CT scan. Artificial anatomical changes were applied to account for daily variations during the course of treatment including the planning target volume (PTV) and organs at risk (OAR). The primary CT (pCT) and the structure set (pST) was deformed with commercial tool (ImSimQA-Oncology Systems Limited) and after artificial deformation (dCT and dST) sent to another commercial tool (VelocityAI-Varian Medical Systems). In Velocity, the deformed CT and structures (dCT and dST) were inversely deformed back to original primary CT (dbpCT and dbpST). We compared the dbpST and pST structure sets using similarity metrics. Furthermore, a binary deformation field vector (BDF) was created and sent to ImSimQA software for comparison with known “ground truth” deformation vector fields (DVF). Results: An image similarity comparison was made by using “ground truth” DVF and “deformed output” BDF with an output of normalized “cross correlation (CC)” and “mutual information (MI)” in ImSimQA software. Results for the lung case were MI=0.66 and CC=0.99. The artificial structure deformation in both pST and dbpST was analyzed using DICE coefficient, mean distance to conformity (MDC) and deformation field error volume histogram (DFEVH) by comparing them before and after inverse deformation. We have noticed inadequate structure match for CTV, ITV and PTV due to close proximity of heart and overall affected by lung expansion. Conclusion: We have seen similarity between pCT and dbpCT but not so well between pST and dbpST, because of inadequate structure deformation in clinical DIR system. This system based quality assurance test will prepare us for adopting the guidelines of upcoming AAPM task group 132 protocol.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Overview of NSTX Upgrade Initial Results and Modelling Highlights

The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has undergone a major upgrade, and the NSTX Upgrade (NSTX-U) Project was completed in the summer of 2015. NSTX-U first plasma was subsequently achieved, diagnostic and control systems have been commissioned, H-Mode accessed, magnetic error fields identified and mitigated, and the first physics research campaign carried out. During 10 run weeks of operation, NSTX-U surpassed NSTX-record pulse-durations and toroidal fields, and high-performance ~1MA H-mode plasmas comparable to the best of NSTX have been sustained near and slightly above the n=1 no-wall stability limit and with H-mode confinement multiplier H98y2 above 1. Transport and turbulence studies in L-mode plasmas have identified the coexistence of at least two ion-gyro-scale turbulent micro-instabilities near the same radial location but propagating in opposite (i.e. ion and electron diamagnetic) directions. These modes have the characteristics of ion-temperature gradient and micro-tearing modes, respectively, and the role of these modes in contributing to thermal transport is under active investigation. The new second more tangential neutral beam injection was observed to significantly modify the stability of two types of Alfven Eigenmodes. Improvements in offline disruption forecasting were made in the areas of identification of rotating MHD modes and other macroscopic instabilities using the Disruption Event Characterization and Forecasting (DECAF) code. Lastly, the Materials Analysis and Particle Probe (MAPP) was utilized on NSTX-U for the first time and enabled assessments of the correlation between boronized wall conditions and plasma performance. These and other highlights from the first run campaign of NSTX-U are described.

Alfven Eigenmodes↗

Advanced Control Techniques and High Performance Discharges on DIII-D

The advancement of plasma control techniques has enabled significant progress to be made toward the scientific understanding and realization of Advanced Tokamak operation on DIII–D. The Advanced Tokamak features fully noninductive current drive, operation at high plasma pressure and high energy confinement time. These features require efficient current drive systems, simultaneous control of plasma current and pressure profiles, and active feedback control of plasma instabilities. A number of key systems on DIII-D have been developed to provide this control capability. A versatile electron cyclotron heating and current drive system is routinely providing in excess of 2 MW of power for pulse lengths from 2 to 5 s. This system has been used to provide offaxis current drive, direct electron heating and pressure profile modification, and stabilization of the Neoclassical Tearing Mode instability. A combination of control of magnetic error fields, neutral beam induced plasma rotation, and active feedback stabilization using both external and internal nonaxisymmetric coil systems has been used to stabilize the Resistive Wall Mode at high values of plasma pressure. Control of the ELM instability has recently been demonstrated using the newly installed internal coil system. The higher speed and expanded realtime diagnostic capability of our recently upgraded plasma control system permits these various control techniques to be simultaneously integrated to achieve our high performance discharges. This has resulted in fully noninductively driven plasmas with β N = 3.5 and β T = 3.6% sustained for up to 1 s. Finally, upgrades and facility modifications to further enhance our control and scientific capabilities including rotation of a neutral beamline, expanded EC system power, and installation of a new lower divertor are discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Dynamic Aperture Evaluation for the Hadron Storage Ring in the Electron-Ion Collider

The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is aiming at a design luminosity of 1e34 cm⁻²s⁻¹. To maintain such a high luminosity, both beams in the EIC need an acceptable beam lifetime in the presence of the beam-beam interaction. For this purpose, we carried out weak-strong element-by-element particle tracking to evaluate the long-term dynamic aperture for the hadron ring lattice design. We improved our simulation code SimTrack to treat some new lattice design features, such as radially offset on-momentum orbits, coordinate transformations in the interaction region, etc. In this article, we will present the preliminary dynamic aperture calculation results with β^{*}- function scan, radial orbit shift, crossing angle collision, and magnetic field errors.

Luo, Y.↗

Lattice Design of the Beam Transfer Line (BTL) from PIP-II LINAC to the Booster at Fermilab

PIP-II beam transfer line (BTL) to transport the beam from PIP-II Linac to the Booster ring at Fermilab. The latest design eliminates rolling the dipoles in the beam line to cross over the Tevatron tunnel. Also re-designed is the lattice in the region of the Booster Injection to meet the request of the civil construction needs and accommodate the constrains of the Booster injection request. A beam line to the beam absorber (BAL) is designed based on the request from the results of Mars simulations and ANASYS calculation of the absorber. Simulations with dipole and quadrupole field errors for the Beam Transport Line (BTL) to the Booster, which provides the specifications for all the magnets and Power supplies, will be presented too.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Multipole approximation of special nonlinear magnets for the IOTA ring

All existing focusing optics for accelerators are built to be "linear", i.e. the transverse focusing force is proportional to the particle displacement from the closed orbit. Such approach is used in order to make trajectories stable in the entire area of phase space, because the potential describing linear focusing is integrable and does not produce chaotic motion. Technically, the needed field is achieved with the help of dipole and quadrupole magnets. But the linear motion is unstable to perturbations in the focusing fields and excludes any betatron tune spread over particle's energy, which is beneficial for the beam stability. Moreover, the focusing strength depends on the particle's energy deviation from the designed one. These undesired effects are usually suppressed by the addition of non- linear elements, such as sextupoles and octupoles. Unfortunately, these additions make focusing potential nonintegrabe, leading to the limitation of stable phase space area. Recent research showed, that there exist non-linear potentials that, nevertheless, are fully integrable [1, 2]. Thus, there is an opportunity to create stable non-linear focusing optics that provides high betatron tune spread and mitigate magnetic field errors. This approach is to be implemented in electron storage ring called Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA) at Fermilab [3]. The main goal is to show the possibility to implement the nonlinear integrable system in a realistic accelerator design. Development of a magnet, which creates exact non-linear potential, is a technically complicated task, that takes much time and efforts. However, it is possible to expand the non- linear potential into superposition of multipoles of even orders (i.e quadrupole, octupole, etc.). Though this series is not convergent in the entire space, a few low order terms can be used to model the true potential in some limited area. In turn, each of the multipole potentials can be generated by speci ed electrical current in PCB coiled on the surface of storage ring's vacuum tube. Such approach is much cheaper than the creation of a magnet of solid iron with high current coil and faster than the development of \exact" non-linear magnet, but it can help identify some features of non-linear integrable optics application. The goal of this research work is to find analytically the angular distribution of electrical current on the surface of the vacuum tube, which creates inside it multipole potential with given parameters. Hereafter, there is the task to develop a model of flexible printed circuit board (PCB), which could be coiled around the vacuum tube in order to provide the desired current distribution.

Vorobev, Viktor↗

Damping Ring R&D at CESR-TA

Accelerators that collide high energy beams of matter and anti-matter are essential tools for the investigation of the fundamental constituents of matter, and the search for new forms of matter and energy. A “Linear Collider” is a machine that would bring high energy and very compact bunches of electrons and positrons (anti-electrons) into head-on collision. Such a machine would produce (among many other things) the newly discovered Higgs particle, enabling a detailed study of its properties. Among the most critical and challenging components of a linear collider are the damping rings that produce the very compact and intense beams of electrons and positrons that are to be accelerated into collision. Hot dilute particle beams are injected into the damping rings, where they are compressed and cooled. The size of the positron beam must be reduced more than a thousand fold in the damping ring, and this compression must be accomplished in a fraction of a second. The cold compact beams are then extracted from the damping ring and accelerated into collision at high energy. The proposed International Linear Collider (ILC), would require damping rings that routinely produce such cold, compact and intense beams. The goal of the Cornell study was a credible design for the damping rings for the ILC. Among the technical challenges of the damping rings; the development of instrumentation that can measure the properties of the very small beams in a very narrow window of time, and mitigation of the forces that can destabilize the beams and prevent adequate cooling, or worse lead to beam loss. One of the most pernicious destabilizing forces is due to the formation of clouds of electrons in the beam pipe. The electron cloud effect is a phenomenon in particle accelerators in which a high density of low energy electrons, build up inside the vacuum chamber. At the outset of the study, it was anticipated that electron cloud effects would limit the intensity of the positron ring, and that an instability associated with residual gas in the beam pipe would limit the intensity of the electron ring. It was also not clear whether the required very small beam size could be achieved. The results of this study are important contributions to the design of both the electron and positron damping rings in which all of those challenges are addressed and overcome. Our findings are documented in the ILC Technical Design Report, a document that represents the work of an international collaboration of scientists. Our contributions include design of the beam magnetic optics for the 3 km circumference damping rings, the vacuum system and surface treatments for electron cloud mitigation, the design of the guide field magnets, design of the superconducting damping wigglers, and new detectors for precision measurement of beam properties. Our study informed the specification of the basic design parameters for the damping rings, including alignment tolerances, magnetic field errors, and instrumentation. We developed electron cloud modelling tools and simulations to aid in the interpretation of the measurements that we carried out in the Cornell Electron-positron Storage Ring (CESR). The simulations provide a means for systematic extrapolation of our measurements at CESR to the proposed ILC damping rings, and ultimately to specify how the beam pipes should be fabricated in order to minimize the effects of the electron cloud. With the conclusion of this study, the design of the essential components of the damping rings is complete, including the development and characterization (with computer simulations) of the beam optics, specification of techniques for minimizing beam size, design of damping ring instrumentation, R&D into electron cloud suppression methods, tests of long term durability of electron cloud coatings, and design of damping ring vacuum system components.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

APS-U Definitions of Signs and Conventions Related to Magnets

The APS-U is planned to be a 4th generation hard X-ray light source utilizing a multi-bend achromat (MBA) magnet lattice. The MBA lattice will be installed in the existing APS storage ring enclosure. The stored electron beam will circulate clockwise when viewed from above. The X-ray beamlines will for the most part exit at the same source points as the present APS. This document defines the signs and conventions related to the APS-U MBA magnets. Included in this document are: the local magnet coordinate system, definitions of mechanical and magnetic centers, definitions of multipole field errors, magnetic roll angle, and magnet polarities.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Development and Application of Predictive Tools for MHD Stability Limits in Tokamaks

This is a project to develop and apply analytic and computational tools to answer physics questions relevant to the onset of non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities in toroidal magnetic confinement plasmas. The focused goal of the research is to develop predictive tools for these instabilities, including an inner layer solution algorithm, a resistive wall with control coils, and energetic particle effects. The production phase compares studies of instabilities in such systems using analytic techniques, PEST- III and NIMROD. Two important physics puzzles are targeted as guiding thrusts for the analyses. The first is to form an accurate description of the physics determining whether the resistive wall mode or a tearing mode will appear first as β is increased at low rotation and low error fields in DIII-D. The second is to understand the physical mechanism behind recent NIMROD results indicating strong damping and stabilization from energetic particle effects on linear resistive modes. The work seeks to develop a highly relevant predictive tool for ITER, advance the theoretical description of this physics in general, and analyze these instabilities in experiments such as ASDEX Upgrade, DIII-D, JET, JT-60U and NTSX. The awardee on this grant is the University of Tulsa. The research efforts are supervised principally by Dr. Brennan. Support is included for two graduate students, and a strong collaboration with Dr. John M. Finn of LANL. The work includes several ongoing collaborations with General Atomics, PPPL, and the NIMROD team, among others.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Description of CBETA magnet tuning wire holders

A non-­magnetic insert will be placed directly inside the permanent magnet blocks in every CBETA Halbach magnet in order to hold a set of iron “tuning wires”. These wires have various lengths around the perimeter of the aperture in order to cancel multipole field errors from the permanent magnet blocks.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Integrable Optics Design Principles for Beam Halo Suppression in Accelerator Rings at the Intensity Frontier

The project was dedicated to quantifying the possibilities and limitations of the integrable optics, a fundamentally new approach to high-intensity accelerator ring design, using the parallel Synergia framework for simulations. The following topics were studied: a) the effects of space charge forces, field errors, magnet misalignments, and other sources of parametric resonance; b) the effect of controlled nonlinearities, such as sextupoles for chromaticity control; c) the effect of longitudinal dynamics driven by finite bunch length and rf cavities; and d) reexamination of relevant lattices in present accelerators to explore potential benefits of these new design principles.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Stability and Control of Burning Tokamak Plasmas with Resistive Walls (Second Year Report/ Final Report)

This research will focus on quantitative prediction of the stability, control, and equilibrium state evolution in toroidal burning plasmas. The stability of long pulse burning plasmas is highly sensitive to the physics of resonant layers in the plasma, sources of momentum and ow, kinetic effects of energetic particles, and boundary conditions at the wall, including feedback control and error fields. In ITER in particular, the low toroidal ow equilibrium state, sustained primarily by energetic alpha particles from fusion reactions, will require the consideration of all of these key elements to predict quantitatively the stability and evolution. The principal investigators on this proposal are leading experts in the relevant theoretical and computational areas, and aim to perform computations guided by analytic modeling, to address this physics in realistic configurations. The overall goal is to understand the key physics mechanisms that describe resistive toroidal burning plasmas, surrounded by a resistive wall, under active feedback control. With the physics of the energetic ions, resonant layers, resistive wall, and toroidal momentum transport included, this study will extend from recent publications in theory and simulation of individual effects and move toward predictive modeling for burning plasmas.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Stability and Control of Burning Tokamak Plasmas with Resistive Walls (Final Report)

This research has focused on quantitative prediction of the stability, control, and equilibrium state evolution in toroidal burning plasmas. The stability of long pulse burning plasmas is highly sensitive to the physics of resonant layers in the plasma, sources of momentum and flow, kinetic effects of energetic particles, and boundary conditions at the wall, including feedback control and error fields. In ITER in particular, the low toroidal flow equilibrium state, sustained primarily by energetic alpha particles from fusion reactions, will require the consideration of all of these key elements to predict quantitatively the stability and evolution. The principal investigators on this proposal are leading experts in the relevant theoretical and computational areas, and aimed to perform computations guided by analytic modeling, to address this physics in realistic configurations. The overall goal is to understand the key physics mechanisms that describe resistive toroidal burning plasmas, surrounded by a resistive wall, under active feedback control. With the physics of the energetic ions, resonant layers, resistive wall, and toroidal momentum transport included, this study will extend from recent publications in theory and simulation of individual effects and move toward predictive modeling for burning plasmas.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗