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54 records · Page 3

Space Exploration: A Risk for Neural Stem Cells

During spaceflights beyond low Earth orbit, astronauts are exposed to potentially carcinogenic and tissue damaging galactic cosmic rays, solar proton events, and secondary radiation that includes neutrons and recoil nuclei produced by nuclear reactions in spacecraft walls or in tissue (1). Such radiation risk may present a significant health risk for human exploration of the moon and Mars. Emerging evidence that generation of new neurons in the adult brain may be essential for learning, memory, and mood (2) and that radiation is deleterious to neurogenesis (3-5) underscores a previously unappreciated possible risk to the cognitive functions and emotional stability of astronauts exposed to radiation in space. Here we use a novel reporter mouse line to identify at-risk populations of stem and progenitor cells in the brain and find, unexpectedly, that quiescent stem-like cells (rather than their rapidly dividing progeny) in the hippocampus constitute the most vulnerable cell population. This finding raises concerns about the possible risks facing astronauts on long duration space missions.

Encinas, Juan M.↗

A Monte Carlo Model for LET Spectra of 200 MeV Protons Used for Microelectronic Testing

The direct ionization Linear Energy Transfer (LET) for 200 MeV protons in silicon is much smaller than that for higher charged particles since LET increases as the square of the ion charge. However, occasionally the proton interacts with the silicon nuclei and produces a shower of fragments and a recoiling nucleus. When this happens, the LET produced is much greater than the direct ionization LET. Testing the single event effect susceptibility of components using energetic (200 MeV) protons is often the only viable option for system level testing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) avionics that have not been designed for space environments. However, the question of how a system tested with protons will perform in a heavy ion environment arises. Here the concern is not only with prediction of on-orbit upset rate, but also about possibility of on-orbit failures that were not observed during proton testing.

O'Neill, Patrick M.↗

HEAO 3 upper limits to the expected 1634 KeV line from SS 483

A model based on 24 Mg(1369) was developed as the source of the lines in which refractory grains in the jets, containing Mg and 0, are bombarded, by ambient protons in the local ISM. The narrowness of the features results because the recoil Mg nucleus is stopped in the grain before the 1369 keV excited state decays. A consequence of the 24 Mg interpretation is the expected appearance of other emission lines, due to 20 Ne and 20 Na, which are produced by proton bombardment of 24 Mg at the 33 MeV/nucleon energy corresponding to the velocity of the jets. These lines appear at rest energies of 1634 keV and 1636 keV, respectively, and should have essentially the same total flux as that emited at 1369 keV. The HEAO 3 data are examined to search for the 1634 keV (rest) emission. The observation and analysis, the results, and the implications for the understanding of SS 433 are discussed.

Wheaton, W. A.↗

Proton-deuteron double scattering

A simple but accurate form for the proton-deuteron elastic double scattering amplitude, which includes both projectile and target recoil motion and is applicable at all momentum transfer, is derived by taking advantage of the restricted range of Fermi momentum allowed by the deuteron wave function. This amplitude can be directly compared to approximations which have neglected target recoil or are limited to small momentum transfer; the target recoil and large momentum transfer effects are evaluated explicitly within the context of a Gaussian model.

Wilson, J. W.↗

Measurements of LET spectra and comparison to models

Measurements of LET spectra for near-earth orbits with various inclinations and altitudes are presented. A comparison with calculated LET spectra shows that the contribution from direct ionizing galactic cosmic rays is well described by the models. An additional contribution to the spectra originates from stopping protons and from nuclear interactions of particles with material. In the case of an interaction, a large amount of energy is deposited in a small volume by target recoils or target fragments. These events will be called short range (SR) events. For a low-inclination orbit radiation belt protons are the main source of these events while galactic protons become more important when increasing the inclination to near-polar orbits. It is shown that the contribution of SR events for orbits with low altitude (324 km) and 57-deg inclination is comparable to that for an orbit with 28-deg inclination at a high altitude (510 km).

Wiegel, B.↗

Ionizing radiation exposure of LDEF (pre-recovery estimates)

The long duration exposure facility (LDEF), launched into a 258 nautical mile orbit with an inclination of 28.5 degrees, remained in space for nearly 6 yr. The 21,500 lb NASA satellite was one of the largest payloads ever deployed by the Space Shuttle. LDEF completed 32,422 orbits and carried 57 major experiments representing more than 200 investigators from 33 private companies, 21 universities and nine countries. The experiments covered a wide range of disciplines including basic science, electronics, optics, materials, structures and power and propulsion. A number of the experiments were specifically designed to measure the radiation environment. These experiments are of specific interest, since the LDEF orbit is essentially the same as that of the Space Station Freedom. Consequently, the radiation measurements on LDEF will play a significant role in the design of radiation shielding of the space station. The contributions of the various authors presented here attempt to predict the major aspects of the radiation exposure received by the various LDEF experiments and therefore should be helpful to investigators who are in the process of analyzing experiments which may have been affected by exposure to ionizing radiation. The paper discusses the various types and sources of ionizing radiation including cosmic rays, trapped particles (both protons and electrons) and secondary particles (including neutrons, spallation products and high-LET recoils), as well as doses and LET spectra as a function of shielding. Projections of the induced radioactivity of LDEF are also discussed.

Flight Experiment↗

Monte-Carlo Simulations of Heavy Ions Track Structures and Applications

In space, astronauts are exposed to protons, high ]energy heavy (HZE) ions that have a high charge (Z) and energy (E), and secondary radiation, including neutrons and recoil nuclei produced by nuclear reactions in spacecraft walls or in tissue. The astronauts can only be partly shielded from these particles. Therefore, on travelling to Mars, it is estimated that every cell nucleus in an astronaut fs body would be hit by a proton or secondary electron (e.g., electrons of the target atoms ionized by the HZE ion) every few days and by an HZE ion about once a month. The risks related to these heavy ions are not well known and of concern for long duration space exploration missions. Medical ion therapy is another situation where human beings can be irradiated by heavy ions, usually to treat cancer. Heavy ions have a peculiar track structure characterized by high levels of energy ]deposition clustering, especially in near the track ends in the so ]called eBragg peak f region. In radiotherapy, these features of heavy ions can provide an improved dose conformation with respect to photons, also considering that the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of therapeutic ions in the plateau region before the peak is sufficiently low. Therefore, several proton and carbon ion therapy facilities are under construction at this moment

Plante, Ianik↗

Proton Effects and Test Issues for Satellite Designers: Ionization Effects - Section 4

This portion of the Short Course is divided into two segments to separately address the two major proton-related effects confronting satellite designers: ionization effects and displacement damage effects. While both of these topics are deeply rooted in "traditional" descriptions of space radiation effects, there are several factors at play to cause renewed concern for satellite systems being designed today. For example, emphasis on Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technologies in both commercial and government systems increases both Total Ionizing Dose (TID) and Single Event Effect (SEE) concerns. Scaling trends exacerbate the problems, especially with regard to SEEs where protons can dominate soft error rates and even cause destructive failure. In addition, proton-induced displacement damage at fluences encountered in natural space environments can cause degradation in modern bipolar circuitry as well as in many emerging electronic and opto-electronic technologies. A crude, but nevertheless telling, indication of the level of concern for proton effects follows from surveying the themes treated in papers presented at this conference. The table lists themes found in the IEEE Transaction on Nuclear Science (TNS) December issue from the past year and compares them with the December issue's content a decade earlier. Ten years ago there were nine papers, or about 10% of the total, dealing with the four indicated topics. At that time, single event effects from protons were the primary concern, and these were thought to be possible only when a nuclear reaction initiated energetic recoil atoms. This is shown in the table as the 'traditional" SEE subject. A decade later, submissions addressing this topic had doubled, while papers devoted to displacement damage studies had increased from one to nine! More importantly, displacement damage effects in the natural space environments have become a concern for degradation in modern devices (other than solar cells), and this was not so ten years earlier.

Marshall, Paul W.↗

Preliminary estimates of radiation exposures for manned interplanetary missions from anomalously large solar flare events

Preliminary estimates of radiation exposures for manned interplanetary missions resulting from anomalously large solar flare events are presented. The calculations use integral particle fluences for the February 1956, November 1960, and August 1972 events as inputs into the Langley Research Center nucleon transport code BRYNTRN. This deterministic code transports primary and secondary nucleons (protons and neutrons) through any number of layers of target material of arbitrary thickness and composition. Contributions from target nucleus fragmentation and recoil are also included. Estimates of 5 cm depth doses and dose equivalents in tissue are presented behind various thicknesses of aluminum, water, and composite aluminum/water shields for each of the three solar flare events.

Townsend, Lawrence W.↗

Investigations of lunar materials

The investigations were directed at determining the radiation history and surface chronology of lunar materials using the etched particle track technique. The major lunar materials studied are the igneous rocks and double core from Apollo 12, the breccia and soil samples from Apollo 14, and the core samples from Luna 16. In the course of this work two new and potentially important observations were made: (1) Cosmic ray-induced spallation-recoil tracks were identified. The density of such tracks, when compared with the density of tracks induced by a known flux of accelerator protons, yields the time of exposure of a sample within the top meter or two of moon's surface. (2) Natural, fine scale plastic deformation was found to have fragmented pre-existing charged particle tracks, allowing the dating of the mechanical event causing the deformation.

Comstock, G. M.↗

Single event upset (SEU) of semiconductor devices - A summary of JPL test data

The data summarized describe single event upset (bit-flips) for 60 device types having data storage elements. The data are from 15 acceleration tests with both protons and heavier ions. Tables are included summarizing the upset threshold data and listing the devices tested for heavy ion induced bit-flip and the devices tested with protons. With regard to the proton data, it is noted that the data are often limited to one proton energy, since the tests were usually motivated by the engineering requirement of comparing similar candidate devices for a system. It is noted that many of the devices exhibited no upset for the given test conditions (the maximum fluence and the maximum proton energy Ep are given for these cases). It is believed, however, that some possibility of upset usually exists because there is a slight chance that the recoil atom may receive up to 10 to 20 MeV of recoil energy (with more energy at higher Ep).

Nichols, D. K.↗

Solar flare gamma-ray line profiles

Solar gamma-ray lines are produced through collisions of pairs of positive ions whose center of mass energies are above the relevant thresholds for excitation of gamma-ray emitting states. Because of the low density of the solar plasma, prompt gamma rays are emitted by recoiling ions before significant energy loss has occurred. Thus, the lines are expected to be Doppler-broadened to widths of the order of a hundred KeV. Gamma-ray lines resulting from proton and alpha-particle (He-4 ion) beams on carbon and oxygen targets in the laboratory exhibit complex profiles which change rapidly with the gamma-ray observation angle. Earlier work has been limited to modeling laboratory and solar flare gamma-ray profiles produced by proton excitation, but laboratory profiles of the carbon 4.44-MeV line and oxygen 6.13-MeV line from alpha excitation have now been successfully modeled. Solar flare gamma-ray line profiles of the carbon and oxygen lines from heavy ions in the ambient solar medium interacting with representative high-energy proton and alpha particle populations are presented.

Lang, F. L.↗

Reaction Li-6/p, pt/ at 590 MeV.

A lithium target enriched to 95.6 per cent of Li-6 and 0.685 cm thick was bombarded in the 590-MeV proton beam of a synchrocyclotron. Coincident events were detected in a double telescope arrangement. The characteristics of the unobserved three-nucleon residual system calculated for each event include the missing energy, the longitudinal recoil, and the transverse recoil. The cross-section data obtained indicate that zero recoil momentum for the unobserved three-nucleon recoil system is the most likely situation.

Dollhopf, W.↗

A theoretical model for calculation of molecular stopping power

A modified local plasma model is established. The Gordon-Kim's molecular charged density model is employed to obtain a formula to evaluate the stopping power of many useful molecular systems. The stopping power of H2 and He gas was calculated for incident proton energy ranging from 100 keV to 2.5 MeV. The stopping power of O2, N2, and water vapor was also calculated for incident proton energy ranging from 40 keV. to 2.5 MeV. Good agreement with experimental data was obtained. A discussion of molecular effects leading to department from Bragg's rule is presented. The equipartition rule and the effect of nuclear momentum recoiling in stopping power are also discussed.

Xu, Y. J.↗

Comparison of Measured Leakage Current Distributions with Calculated Damage Energy Distributions in HgCdTe

This paper presents a combined Monte Carlo and analytic approach to the calculation of the pixel-to-pixel distribution of proton-induced damage in a HgCdTe sensor array and compares the results to measured dark current distributions after damage by 63 MeV protons. The moments of the Coulombic, nuclear elastic and nuclear inelastic damage distribution were extracted from Monte Carlo simulations and combined to form a damage distribution using the analytic techniques first described in [I]. The calculations show that the high energy recoils from the nuclear inelastic reactions (calculated using the Monte Car10 code MCNPX [2]) produce a pronounced skewing of the damage energy distribution. The nuclear elastic component (also calculated using the MCNPX) has a negligible effect on the shape of the damage distribution. The Coulombic contribution was calculated using MRED [3,4], a Geant4 [4,5] application. The comparison with the dark current distribution strongly suggests that mechanisms which are not linearly correlated with nonionizing damage produced according to collision kinematics are responsible for the observed dark current increases. This has important implications for the process of predicting the on-orbit dark current response of the HgCdTe sensor array.

Marshall, C. J.↗

Comparison of Measured Dark Current Distributions with Calculated Damage Energy Distributions in HgCdTe

This paper presents a combined Monte Carlo and analytic approach to the calculation of the pixel-to-pixel distribution of proton-induced damage in a HgCdTe sensor array and compares the results to measured dark current distributions after damage by 63 MeV protons. The moments of the Coulombic, nuclear elastic and nuclear inelastic damage distributions were extracted from Monte Carlo simulations and combined to form a damage distribution using the analytic techniques first described in [1]. The calculations show that the high energy recoils from the nuclear inelastic reactions (calculated using the Monte Carlo code MCNPX [2]) produce a pronounced skewing of the damage energy distribution. While the nuclear elastic component (also calculated using the MCNPX) contributes only a small fraction of the total nonionizing damage energy, its inclusion in the shape of the damage across the array is significant. The Coulombic contribution was calculated using MRED [3-5], a Geant4 [4,6] application. The comparison with the dark current distribution strongly suggests that mechanisms which are not linearly correlated with nonionizing damage produced according to collision kinematics are responsible for the observed dark current increases. This has important implications for the process of predicting the on-orbit dark current response of the HgCdTe sensor array.

Marshall, C. J.↗

Comparison of dose estimates using the buildup-factor method and a Baryon transport code (BRYNTRN) with Monte Carlo results

Continuing efforts toward validating the buildup factor method and the BRYNTRN code, which use the deterministic approach in solving radiation transport problems and are the candidate engineering tools in space radiation shielding analyses, are presented. A simplified theory of proton buildup factors assuming no neutron coupling is derived to verify a previously chosen form for parameterizing the dose conversion factor that includes the secondary particle buildup effect. Estimates of dose in tissue made by the two deterministic approaches and the Monte Carlo method are intercompared for cases with various thicknesses of shields and various types of proton spectra. The results are found to be in reasonable agreement but with some overestimation by the buildup factor method when the effect of neutron production in the shield is significant. Future improvement to include neutron coupling in the buildup factor theory is suggested to alleviate this shortcoming. Impressive agreement for individual components of doses, such as those from the secondaries and heavy particle recoils, are obtained between BRYNTRN and Monte Carlo results.

Shinn, Judy L.↗