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DOE OSTI2011

Medium energy heavy ion operations at RHIC

As part of the search for a phase transition or critical point on the QCD phase diagram, an energy scan including 5 different energy settings was performed during the 2010 RHIC heavy ion run. While the top beam energy for heavy ions is at 100 GeV/n and the lowest achieved energy setpoint was significantly below RHICs injection energy of approximately 10 GeV/n, we also provided beams for data taking in a medium energy range above injection energy and below top beam energy. This paper reviews RHIC experience and challenges for RHIC medium energy operations that produced full experimental data sets at beam energies of 31.2 GeV/n and 19.5 GeV/n. The medium energy AuAu run covered two beam energies, both above the RHIC injection energy of 9.8 GeV but well below the standard store energy of 100 GeV (see table 1). The low energy and full energy runs with heavy ions in FY10 are summarized in [1] and [2]. Stochastic Cooling ([3]) was only used for 100 GeV beams and not used in the medium energy run. The efficiency of the transition from 100 GeV operation to 31.2 GeV and then to 19.5 GeV was remarkable. Setup took 32 h and 19 h respectively for the two energy settings. The time in store, defined to be the percentage of time RHIC provides beams in physics conditions versus calendar time, was approximately 52% for the entire FY10 heavy ion run. In both medium energy runs it was well above this average, 68% for 31.5 GeV and 82% for 19.5 GeV. For both energies RHIC was filled with 111 bunches with 1.2 10{sup 9} and 1.3 10{sup 9} ions per bunch respectively.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

NASA NTRS1988

Efficient multiplication algorithms over the finite fields GF(q sup m), where q equals 3,5

Finite field multiplication is central to coding theory. For this application, there is a need for a multiplication algorithm which can be realized easily on VLSI chips. A new algorithm is developed which is based on the Babylonian multiplication technique utilizing tables of squares. This algorithm is applied to the finite fields GF(q sup m), where q equals 3 and 5. It is also shown that this multiplier can be used to compute complex multiplications defined on the direct sum of two identical copies of such Galois fields.

Truong, T. K.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Discovery of new isotopes in the fragmentation of 82 Se and insights into their production

The production cross sections of neutron-rich nuclei for elements just above 60 Ca were measured at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Four previously unobserved isotopes ( 63 Sc, 65,66 Ti, and 68 V) were produced, separated, and identified for the first time using the Advanced Rare Isotope Separator (ARIS). One event was found to be consistent with 61 Ca . The new isotopes were created through the interaction of an 82 Se beam with a carbon target at an energy of 228 MeV/𝑢 and a primary beam current of 1.07 p⁢µ⁢A. The event-by-event particle identification of the mass number (𝐴), atomic number (𝑍), and ionic charge state (𝑞) for the reaction products was achieved by combining measurements of energy loss, time of flight, magnetic rigidity, and total kinetic energy. This successful search for new isotopes, conducted at the beginning of FRIB's third year of operation, highlights the facility's discovery potential, which will continue to grow as the beam current increases. The production cross sections were analyzed in the context of the newly developed Δ⁢𝐵⁢𝐸 systematics that provides trends in neutron-rich regions and increased sensitivity to nuclear binding, an important nuclear structure observable. Furthermore, the new systematics addresses gaps in 𝑄 𝑔 -based methods commonly used to interpret the production cross sections of light neutron-rich elements, and provides an efficient empirical approach to describe cross-section trends across isotopic chains. Good agreement with the measured data was obtained when the Δ⁢𝐵⁢𝐸 systematics and abrasion-ablation calculations were performed using the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB-22) mass table.

59 ≤ A ≤ 89↗

DOE OSTI2020

ESS-DIVE reporting format for leaf-level gas exchange data and metadata

Here we present documentation of the ESS-DIVE reporting format for leaf-level gas exchange data and metadata. This reporting format provides guidance to data contributors on how to store data to maximize their discoverability, facilitate their efficient reuse, and add value to individual datasets. For data users, the reporting format will better allow data repositories to optimize data search and extraction, and more readily integrate similar data into harmonized synthesis products. The reporting format specifies data table variable naming and unit conventions, as well as metadata characterizing experimental conditions and protocols. For common data types that were the focus of this initial version of the reporting format, i.e., survey measurements, dark respiration, carbon dioxide and light response curves, and parameters derived from those measurements, we took a further step of defining required additional data that would maximize the potential reuse of those data types. To aid data contributors and the development of data ingest tools by data repositories we provided a translation table comparing the outputs of common gas exchange instruments. The reporting format presented here is intended to form a foundation for future development that will incorporate additional data types and variables as gas exchange systems and measurement approaches advance in the future. The reporting format documentation is maintained and updated on the ESS-DIVE Community Space GitHub. This data package is the first published version of this reporting format, and comprises a zip file of the complete content of https://github.com/ess-dive-community/essdive-leaf-gas-exchange v1.0. The zip contains the reporting format description, guidelines, variable tables and instructions in GitHub markdown language (*.md) and 2 metadata templates as spreadsheets with drop down options (*.xlsx files, also function in GoogleSheets).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2014

RR Lyrae in XSTPS: The halo density profile in the north galactic cap

We present a catalog of RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) observed by the Xuyi Schmidt Telescope Photometric Survey (XSTPS). The area we consider is located in the north Galactic cap, covering ≈376.75 deg{sup 2} at α ≈ 150° and δ ≈ 27° down to a magnitude limit of i ≈ 19. Using the variability information afforded by the multi-epoch nature of our XSTPS data, combined with colors from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we are able to identify candidate RRLs. We find 318 candidates, derive distances to them, and estimate the detection efficiency. The majority of our candidates have more than 12 observations, and for these we are able to calculate periods. These also allow us to estimate our contamination level, which we predict is between 30% and 40%. Finally, we use the sample to probe the halo density profile in the 9-49 kpc range and find that it can be well fitted by a double power law. We find good agreement between this model and the models derived for the south Galactic cap using the Watkins et al. and Sesar et al. RRL data sets, after accounting for possible contamination in our data set from Sagittarius stream members. We consider non-spherical double power-law models of the halo density profile and again find agreement with literature data sets, although we have limited power to constrain the flattening due to our small survey area. Much tighter constraints will be placed by current and future wide-area surveys, most notably ESA's astrometric Gaia mission. Our analysis demonstrates that surveys with a limited number of epochs can effectively be mined for RRLs. Our complete sample is provided as accompanying online material; as an example the first few entries of each electronic table are shown in the text.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2017

STARlight: A Monte Carlo simulation program for ultra-peripheral collisions of relativistic ions

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. Ultra-peripheral collisions (UPCs) have been a significant source of study at RHIC and the LHC. In these collisions, the two colliding nuclei interact electromagnetically, via two-photon or photonuclear interactions, but not hadronically; they effectively miss each other. Photonuclear interactions produce vector meson states or more general photonuclear final states, while two-photon interactions can produce lepton or meson pairs, or single mesons. In these interactions, the collision geometry plays a major role. We present a program, STARlight, that calculates the cross-sections for a variety of UPC final states and also creates, via Monte Carlo simulation, events for use in determining detector efficiency. Program summary Program Title: STARlight (v2.2) Program Files doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/xjpf4rxtbj.1 Licensing provisions: GNU GPLv3 Programming Language: C++ External Routines: PYTHIA 8.2 and DPMJET 3.0 are needed for some final states. Nature of problem: The cross-section for ultra-peripheral collisions is obtained by integrating the photon fluxes in transverse impact parameter space, subject to the requirement (which is also impact parameter dependent) that the colliding nuclei do not interact hadronically. The program is a two step process. First, it calculates the cross-sections for the reaction of interest, as a function of W (photon–Pomeron or two-photon center of mass energy), Y (final state rapidity) and pT (final state transverse momentum). Second, STARlight generates Monte Carlo events which can be used to determine cross-sections within specific kinematic constraints or for studies of detector efficiencies. The second step includes the decay of any unstable particles produced in the reaction, with appropriate consideration of particle spins and parity. It outputs these events in ASCII format. Solution method: The program generates a two dimensional look-up table of the production cross-section as a function of final state rapidity and mass. The dimensions of the table are selectable, allowing the user to choose the desired accuracy. For certain final states, a second two-dimensional look-up table, giving the transverse momentum distribution, as a function of rapidity, is also used. With these look-up tables, the program generates final states. Particle decays and the final angular distributions are calculated for each event. Restrictions: The program is focused on ultra-relativistic collisions at Brookhaven's RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) and CERN's LHC (Large Hadron Collider), with final states that are visible in a central detector. At lower energies (i.e., at the CERN SPS), caution should be exercised because STARlight does not account for the longitudinal momentum transfer to the nucleus; this is larger at low beam energies. References: http://starlight.hepforge.org and references in this article.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2015

Constant-complexity stochastic simulation algorithm with optimal binning

At the molecular level, biochemical processes are governed by random interactions between reactant molecules, and the dynamics of such systems are inherently stochastic. When the copy numbers of reactants are large, a deterministic description is adequate, but when they are small, such systems are often modeled as continuous-time Markov jump processes that can be described by the chemical master equation. Gillespie’s Stochastic Simulation Algorithm (SSA) generates exact trajectories of these systems, but the amount of computational work required for each step of the original SSA is proportional to the number of reaction channels, leading to computational complexity that scales linearly with the problem size. The original SSA is therefore inefficient for large problems, which has prompted the development of several alternative formulations with improved scaling properties. We describe an exact SSA that uses a table data structure with event time binning to achieve constant computational complexity with respect to the number of reaction channels for weakly coupled reaction networks. We present a novel adaptive binning strategy and discuss optimal algorithm parameters. We compare the computational efficiency of the algorithm to existing methods and demonstrate excellent scaling for large problems. This method is well suited for generating exact trajectories of large weakly coupled models, including those that can be described by the reaction-diffusion master equation that arises from spatially discretized reaction-diffusion processes.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2015

SU-E-T-77: A Statistical Approach to Manage Quality for Pre-Treatment Verification in IMRT/VMAT

Objective: The study presents the application of a simple concept of statistical process control (SPC) for pre-treatment quality assurance procedure analysis for planar dose measurements performed using 2D-array and a-Si electronic portal imaging device (a-Si EPID). Method: A total of 195 patients of four different anatomical sites: brain (n1=45), head & neck (n2=45), thorax (n3=50) and pelvis (n4=55) were selected for the study. Pre-treatment quality assurance for the clinically acceptable IMRT/VMAT plans was measured with 2D array and a-Si EPID of the accelerator. After the γ-analysis, control charts and the quality index Cpm was evaluated for each cohort. Results: Mean and σ of γ ( 3%/3 mm) were EPID γ %≤1= 99.9% ± 1.15% and array γ %<1 = 99.6% ± 1.06%. Among all plans γ max was consistently lower than for 2D array as compared to a-Si EPID. Fig.1 presents the X-bar control charts for every cohort. Cpm values for a-Si EPID were found to be higher than array, detailed results are presented in table 1. Conclusion: Present study demonstrates the significance of control charts used for quality management purposes in newer radiotherapy clinics. Also, provides a pictorial overview of the clinic performance for the advanced radiotherapy techniques.Higher Cpm values for EPID indicate its higher efficiency than array based measurements.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2015

Luminescence imaging of water during proton-beam irradiation for range estimation

Purpose: Proton therapy has the ability to selectively deliver a dose to the target tumor, so the dose distribution should be accurately measured by a precise and efficient method. The authors found that luminescence was emitted from water during proton irradiation and conjectured that this phenomenon could be used for estimating the dose distribution. Methods: To achieve more accurate dose distribution, the authors set water phantoms on a table with a spot scanning proton therapy system and measured the luminescence images of these phantoms with a high-sensitivity, cooled charge coupled device camera during proton-beam irradiation. The authors imaged the phantoms of pure water, fluorescein solution, and an acrylic block. Results: The luminescence images of water phantoms taken during proton-beam irradiation showed clear Bragg peaks, and the measured proton ranges from the images were almost the same as those obtained with an ionization chamber. Furthermore, the image of the pure-water phantom showed almost the same distribution as the tap-water phantom, indicating that the luminescence image was not related to impurities in the water. The luminescence image of the fluorescein solution had ∼3 times higher intensity than water, with the same proton range as that of water. The luminescence image of the acrylic phantom had a 14.5% shorter proton range than that of water; the proton range in the acrylic phantom generally matched the calculated value. The luminescence images of the tap-water phantom during proton irradiation could be obtained in less than 2 s. Conclusions: Luminescence imaging during proton-beam irradiation is promising as an effective method for range estimation in proton therapy.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2018

DART: distributed adaptive radix tree for efficient affix-based keyword search on HPC systems

© 2018 Association for Computing Machinery. Affix-based search is a fundamental functionality for storage systems. It allows users to find desired datasets, where attributes of a dataset match an affix. While building inverted index to facilitate efficient affix based keyword search is a common practice for standalone databases and for desktop file systems, building local indexes or adopting indexing techniques used in a standalone data store is insufficient for highperformance computing (HPC) systems due to the massive amount of data and distributed nature of the storage devices within a system. In this paper, we propose Distributed Adaptive Radix Tree (DART), to address the challenge of distributed affix-based keyword search on HPC systems. This trie-based approach is scalable in achieving efficient affix-based search and alleviating imbalanced keyword distribution and excessive requests on keywords at scale. Our evaluation at different scales shows that, comparing with the "full string hashing" use case of the most popular distributed indexing technique - Distributed Hash Table (DHT), DART achieves up to 55× better throughput with prefix search and with suffix search, while achieving comparable throughput with exact and infix searches. Also, comparing to the "initial hashing" use case of DHT, DART maintains a balanced keyword distribution on distributed nodes and alleviates excessive query workload against popular keywords.

Zhang, Wei↗

NASA NTRS1994

Safety aspects of spacecraft commanding

The commanding of spacecraft is a potentially hazardous activity for the safety of the spacecraft. Present day control systems contain safety features in their commanding subsystem and in addition, strict procedures are also followed by operations staff. However, problems have occurred on a number of missions as a result of erroneous commanding leading in some cases to spacecraft contingencies and even to near loss of the spacecraft. The problems of checking commands in advance are increased by the tendency in modern spacecraft to use blocked/time-tagged commands and the increased usage of on-board computers, for which commands changing on-board software tables can radically change spacecraft or subsystem behavior. This paper reports on an on-going study. The study aims to improve the approach to safety of spacecraft commanding. It will show how ensuring 'safe' commanding can be carried out more efficiently, and with greater reliability, with the help of knowledge based systems and/or fast simulators. The whole concept will be developed based on the Object-Oriented approach.

Peccia, N.↗

DOE OSTI2017

Mechanistic Insights into Surface Chemical Interactions between Lithium Polysulfides and Transition Metal Oxides

The design and development of materials for electrochemical energy storage and conversion devices requires fundamental understanding of chemical interactions at electrode/electrolyte interfaces. For Li–S batteries that hold the promise for outperforming the current generation of Li ion batteries, the interactions of lithium polysulfide (LPS) intermediates with the electrode surface strongly influence the efficiency and cycle life of the sulfur cathode. While metal oxides have been demonstrated to be useful in trapping LPS, the actual binding modes of LPS on 3d transition metal oxides and their dependence on the metal element identity across the periodic table remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the chemical interactions between LPS and oxides of Mn, Fe, Co, and Cu by combining X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations. We believe that Li–O interactions dominate LPS binding to the oxides (Mn 3 O 4 , Fe 2 O 3 , and Co 3 O 4 ), with increasing strength from Mn to Fe to Co. For Co 3 O 4 , LPS binding also involves metal–sulfur interactions. Moreover, we find that the metal oxides exhibit different binding preferences for different LPS, with Co 3 O 4 binding shorter-chain LPS more strongly than Mn 3 O 4 . In contrast to the other oxides, CuO undergoes intense reduction and dissolution reactions upon interaction with LPS. The reported findings are thus particularly relevant to the design of LPS/oxide interfaces for high-performance Li–S batteries.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

DOE OSTI2011

Anomalous X-ray Diffraction Studies for Photovoltaic Applications

Anomalous X-ray Diffraction (AXRD) has become a useful technique in characterizing bulk and nanomaterials as it provides specific information about the crystal structure of materials. In this project we present the results of AXRD applied to materials for photovoltaic applications: ZnO loaded with Ga and ZnCo{sub 2}O{sub 4} spinel. The X-ray diffraction data collected for various energies were plotted in Origin software. The peaks were fitted using different functions including Pseudo Voigt, Gaussian, and Lorentzian. This fitting provided the integrated intensity data (peaks area values), which when plotted as a function of X-ray energies determined the material structure. For the first analyzed sample, Ga was not incorporated into the ZnO crystal structure. For the ZnCo{sub 2}O{sub 4} spinel Co was found in one or both tetrahedral and octahedral sites. The use of anomalous X-ray diffraction (AXRD) provides element and site specific information for the crystal structure of a material. This technique lets us correlate the structure to the electronic properties of the materials as it allows us to probe precise locations of cations in the spinel structure. What makes it possible is that in AXRD the diffraction pattern is measured at a number of energies near an X-ray absorption edge of an element of interest. The atomic scattering strength of an element varies near its absorption edge and hence the total intensity of the diffraction peak changes by changing the X-ray energy. Thus AXRD provides element specific structural information. This method can be applied to both crystalline and liquid materials. One of the advantages of AXRD in crystallography experiments is its sensitivity to neighboring elements in the periodic tables. This method is also sensitive to specific crystallographic phases and to a specific site in a phase. The main use of AXRD in this study is for transparent conductors (TCs) analysis. TCs are considered to be important materials because of their efficiency and low risk of environmental pollution. These materials are important to solar cells as a result of their remarkable combination of optical and electrical properties, including high electrical conductivity and high optical transparency in the spectrum of visible light. TCs provide a transparent window, which allows sunlight to pass through while also allowing electricity to conduct out of the cell. Spinel materials have the chemical form AB{sub 2}O{sub 4}, and are made of a face-centered cubic (FCC) lattice of oxygen anions and cations in specific interstitial sites. A normal spinel has all A cations on tetrahedral sites and B cations on octahedral sites. In contrast; an inverse spinel has the A and half of the B cations on octahedral sites and the other half of the B cations on tetrahedral sites; a mixed spinel lies between. In the spinel structure, 8 of 64 possible tetrahedral sites and 16 of 32 possible octahedral sites are filled. Normal spinels have particularly high conduction as the linear octahedral chains of B cations likely serve as conduction paths. In this paper we present how the data obtained with AXRD is used to analyze TCs properties as they apply to photovoltaic applications. One of the materials used for this analysis is zinc oxide. It has been loaded with 5% and 10% of Ga, which has an absorption edge of 10367 eV. The peak (100) was measured for the zinc oxide loaded with 10% Ga. In the case of 5% Ga, we measured peaks (100) and (101). With the information provided by the AXRD we can identify if Ga is being incorporated in the ZnO crystal structure. The analysis of 311 plane in the ZnCo{sub 2}O{sub 4} spinel shows if Co is in tetrahedral or octahedral site.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2018

Verification and Validation of the ENDF/B-VII.1 v4.3m1 MPACT 51-Group Cross Section Library

The MPACT neutronics module of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) core simulator is a 3-D whole core transport code being developed for the Virtual Environment for Reactor Analysis (VERA) CASL toolset. Key characteristics of the MPACT code include (1) a subgroup method for resonance selfshielding and (2) a whole-core transport solver with a 2-D/1-D synthesis method. The MPACT code requires a cross section library to support all of its core simulation capabilities; a cross section library would be MPACT’s most influencing component for simulation accuracy. Due to the limitation of computing capacity even in high performance computing, the cross section library must be developed to enhance computational efficiency in memory and computing time without losing accuracy and generality. This requires a very coarse energy group structure with about 50 groups. Multigroup (MG) neutron cross section libraries for the CASL VERA-CS neutronics simulator MPACT have been created by using the AMPX/SCALE code package developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). A new 51-group structure was developed for efficient simulation to be applicable for both pressurized water reactor (PWR) and boiling water reactor (BWR) simulations. New v4.3m1 MPACT 51-group library with the ENDF/B- VII.1 nuclear data were developed for MPACT. Since SCALE KENO has some issues in the probability table and has a low cutoff energy for the free gas model, this issue has been corrected. This study focused on the development of the ENDF/B-VII.1 v4.3m1 MPACT MG library, including verification and validation. This document includes the library generation methodology and procedure, the verification procedure, and benchmark results compared to continuous energy Monte Carlo results using newly developed cross section libraries.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

NASA NTRS2009

Hardware Implementation of Serially Concatenated PPM Decoder

A prototype decoder for a serially concatenated pulse position modulation (SCPPM) code has been implemented in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). At the time of this reporting, this is the first known hardware SCPPM decoder. The SCPPM coding scheme, conceived for free-space optical communications with both deep-space and terrestrial applications in mind, is an improvement of several dB over the conventional Reed-Solomon PPM scheme. The design of the FPGA SCPPM decoder is based on a turbo decoding algorithm that requires relatively low computational complexity while delivering error-rate performance within approximately 1 dB of channel capacity. The SCPPM encoder consists of an outer convolutional encoder, an interleaver, an accumulator, and an inner modulation encoder (more precisely, a mapping of bits to PPM symbols). Each code is describable by a trellis (a finite directed graph). The SCPPM decoder consists of an inner soft-in-soft-out (SISO) module, a de-interleaver, an outer SISO module, and an interleaver connected in a loop (see figure). Each SISO module applies the Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv (BCJR) algorithm to compute a-posteriori bit log-likelihood ratios (LLRs) from apriori LLRs by traversing the code trellis in forward and backward directions. The SISO modules iteratively refine the LLRs by passing the estimates between one another much like the working of a turbine engine. Extrinsic information (the difference between the a-posteriori and a-priori LLRs) is exchanged rather than the a-posteriori LLRs to minimize undesired feedback. All computations are performed in the logarithmic domain, wherein multiplications are translated into additions, thereby reducing complexity and sensitivity to fixed-point implementation roundoff errors. To lower the required memory for storing channel likelihood data and the amounts of data transfer between the decoder and the receiver, one can discard the majority of channel likelihoods, using only the remainder in operation of the decoder. This is accomplished in the receiver by transmitting only a subset consisting of the likelihoods that correspond to time slots containing the largest numbers of observed photons during each PPM symbol period. The assumed number of observed photons in the remaining time slots is set to the mean of a noise slot. In low background noise, the selection of a small subset in this manner results in only negligible loss. Other features of the decoder design to reduce complexity and increase speed include (1) quantization of metrics in an efficient procedure chosen to incur no more than a small performance loss and (2) the use of the max-star function that allows sum of exponentials to be computed by simple operations that involve only an addition, a subtraction, and a table lookup. Another prominent feature of the design is a provision for access to interleaver and de-interleaver memory in a single clock cycle, eliminating the multiple clock-cycle latency characteristic of prior interleaver and de-interleaver designs.

Moision, Bruce↗

DOE OSTI2011

An Evaluation of Visual and Textual Network Analysis Tools

User testing is an integral component of user-centered design, but has only rarely been applied to visualization for cyber security applications. This article presents the results of a comparative evaluation between a visualization-based application and a more traditional, table-based application for analyzing computer network packet captures. We conducted this evaluation as part of the user-centered design process. Participants performed both structured, well-defined tasks and exploratory, open-ended tasks with both tools. We measured accuracy and efficiency for the well-defined tasks, number of insights was measured for exploratory tasks and user perceptions were recorded for each tool. The results of this evaluation demonstrated that users performed significantly more accurately in the well-defined tasks, discovered a higher number of insights and demonstrated a clear preference for the visualization tool. The study design presented may be useful for future researchers performing user testing on visualization for cyber security applications.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE OSTI2016

MO-FG-CAMPUS-JeP1-03: Luminescence Imaging of Water During Proton Beam Irradiation for Range Estimation

Purpose: Since proton therapy has the ability to selectively deliver a dose to a target tumor, the dose distribution should be accurately measured. A precise and efficient method to evaluate the dose distribution is desired. We found that luminescence was emitted from water during proton irradiation and thought this phenomenon could be used for estimating the dose distribution. Methods: For this purpose, we placed water phantoms set on a table with a spot-scanning proton-therapy system, and luminescence images of these phantoms were measured with a high-sensitivity cooled charge coupled device (CCD) camera during proton-beam irradiation. We also conducted the imaging of phantoms of pure-water, fluorescein solution and acrylic block. We made three dimensional images from the projection data. Results: The luminescence images of water phantoms during the proton-beam irradiations showed clear Bragg peaks, and the measured proton ranges from the images were almost the same as those obtained with an ionization chamber. The image of the pure-water phantom also showed almost the same distribution as the tap-water phantom, indicating that the luminescence image was not related to impurities in the water. The luminescence image of fluorescein solution had ∼3 times higher intensity than water, with the same proton range as that of water. The luminescence image of the acrylic phantom had 14.5% shorter proton range than that of water; the proton range in the acrylic phantom was relatively matched with the calculated value. The luminescence images of the tap-water phantom during proton irradiation could be obtained in less than 2 sec. Three dimensional images were successfully obtained which have more quantitative information. Conclusion: Luminescence imaging during proton-beam irradiation has the potential to be a new method for range estimations in proton therapy.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1990

Sensor performance analysis

The theory is described and the equations required to design are developed and the performance of electro-optical sensor systems that operate from the visible through the thermal infrared spectral regions are analyzed. Methods to compute essential optical and detector parameters, signal-to-noise ratio, MTF, and figures of merit such as NE delta rho and NE delta T are developed. A set of atmospheric tables are provided to determine scene radiance in the visible spectral region. The Planck function is used to determine radiance in the infrared. The equations developed were incorporated in a spreadsheet so that a wide variety of sensor studies can be rapidly and efficiently conducted.

Montgomery, H. E.↗