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At least 649 records · Page 36

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DOE OSTI2014

A molecular line scan in the Hubble deep field north

We present a molecular line scan in the Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N) that covers the entire 3 mm window (79-115 GHz) using the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer. Our CO redshift coverage spans z ≲ 0.45, 1 ≲ z ≲ 1.9 and all z ≳ 2. We reach a CO detection limit that is deep enough to detect essentially all z > 1 CO lines reported in the literature so far. We have developed and applied different line-searching algorithms, resulting in the discovery of 17 line candidates. We estimate that the rate of false positive line detections is ∼2/17. We identify optical/NIR counterparts from the deep ancillary database of the HDF-N for seven of these candidates and investigate their available spectral energy distributions. Two secure CO detections in our scan are identified with star-forming galaxies at z = 1.784 and at z = 2.047. These galaxies have colors consistent with the 'BzK' color selection and they show relatively bright CO emission compared with galaxies of similar dust continuum luminosity. We also detect two spectral lines in the submillimeter galaxy HDF 850.1 at z = 5.183. We consider an additional nine line candidates as high quality. Our observations also provide a deep 3 mm continuum map (1σ noise level = 8.6 μJy beam{sup –1}). Via a stacking approach, we find that optical/MIR bright galaxies contribute only to <50% of the star formation rate density at 1 < z < 3, unless high dust temperatures are invoked. The present study represents a first, fundamental step toward an unbiased census of molecular gas in 'normal' galaxies at high-z, a crucial goal of extragalactic astronomy in the ALMA era.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Active galactic nuclei emission line diagnostics and the mass-metallicity relation up to redshift z ∼ 2: The impact of selection effects and evolution

Emission line diagnostic diagrams probing the ionization sources in galaxies, such as the Baldwin-Phillips-Terlevich (BPT) diagram, have been used extensively to distinguish active galactic nuclei (AGN) from purely star-forming galaxies. However, they remain poorly understood at higher redshifts. We shed light on this issue with an empirical approach based on a z ∼ 0 reference sample built from ∼300,000 Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies, from which we mimic selection effects due to typical emission line detection limits at higher redshift. We combine this low-redshift reference sample with a simple prescription for luminosity evolution of the global galaxy population to predict the loci of high-redshift galaxies on the BPT and Mass-Excitation (MEx) diagnostic diagrams. The predicted bivariate distributions agree remarkably well with direct observations of galaxies out to z ∼ 1.5, including the observed stellar mass-metallicity (MZ) relation evolution. As a result, we infer that high-redshift star-forming galaxies are consistent with having normal interstellar medium (ISM) properties out to z ∼ 1.5, after accounting for selection effects and line luminosity evolution. Namely, their optical line ratios and gas-phase metallicities are comparable to that of low-redshift galaxies with equivalent emission-line luminosities. In contrast, AGN narrow-line regions may show a shift toward lower metallicities at higher redshift. While a physical evolution of the ISM conditions is not ruled out for purely star-forming galaxies and may be more important starting at z ≳ 2, we find that reliably quantifying this evolution is hindered by selections effects. The recipes provided here may serve as a basis for future studies toward this goal. Code to predict the loci of galaxies on the BPT and MEx diagnostic diagrams and the MZ relation as a function of emission line luminosity limits is made publicly available.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Theoretical hot methane line lists up to T = 2000 K for astrophysical applications

The paper describes the construction of complete sets of hot methane lines based on accurate ab initio potential and dipole moment surfaces and extensive first-principle calculations. Four line lists spanning the [0-5000] cm{sup –1} infrared region were built at T = 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 K. For each of these four temperatures, we have constructed two versions of line lists: a version for high-resolution applications containing strong and medium lines and a full version appropriate for low-resolution opacity calculations. A comparison with available empirical databases is discussed in detail for both cold and hot bands giving a very good agreement for line positions, typically <0.1-0.5 cm{sup –1} and ∼5% for intensities of strong lines. Together with numerical tests using various basis sets, this confirms the computational convergence of our results for the most important lines, which is the major issue for theoretical spectra predictions. We showed that transitions with lower state energies up to 14,000 cm{sup –1} could give significant contributions to the methane opacity and have to be systematically taken into account. Our list at 2000 K calculated up to J = 50 contains 11.5 billion transitions for I > 10{sup –29} cm mol{sup –1}. These new lists are expected to be quantitatively accurate with respect to the precision of available and currently planned observations of astrophysical objects with improved spectral resolution.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

A clumpy stellar wind and luminosity-dependent cyclotron line revealed by the first Suzaku observation of the high-mass X-ray binary 4U 1538–522

We present results from the first Suzaku observation of the high-mass X-ray binary 4U 1538–522. The broadband spectral coverage of Suzaku allows for a detailed spectral analysis, characterizing the cyclotron resonance scattering feature at 23.0 ± 0.4 keV and the iron Kα line at 6.426 ± 0.008 keV, as well as placing limits on the strengths of the iron Kβ line and the iron K edge. We track the evolution of the spectral parameters both in time and in luminosity, notably finding a significant positive correlation between cyclotron line energy and luminosity. A dip and spike in the light curve is shown to be associated with an order-of-magnitude increase in column density along the line of sight, as well as significant variation in the underlying continuum, implying the accretion of a overdense region of a clumpy stellar wind. We also present a phase-resolved analysis, with most spectral parameters of interest showing significant variation with phase. Notably, both the cyclotron line energy and the iron Kα line intensity vary significantly with phase, with the iron line intensity significantly out of phase with the pulse profile. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of recent work in the areas of accretion column physics and cyclotron resonance scattering feature formation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Constraining the variation of the fine-structure constant with observations of narrow quasar absorption lines

The unequivocal demonstration of temporal or spatial variability in a fundamental constant of nature would be of enormous significance. Recent attempts to measure the variability of the fine-structure constant α over cosmological time, using high-resolution spectra of high-redshift quasars observed with 10 m class telescopes, have produced conflicting results. We use the many multiplet (MM) method with Mg II and Fe II lines on very high signal-to-noise, high-resolution (R = 72, 000) Keck HIRES spectra of eight narrow quasar absorption systems. We consider both systematic uncertainties in spectrograph wavelength calibration and also velocity offsets introduced by complex velocity structure in even apparently simple and weak narrow lines and analyze their effect on claimed variations in α. We find no significant change in α, Δα/α = (0.43 ± 0.34) × 10{sup –5}, in the redshift range z = 0.7-1.5, where this includes both statistical and systematic errors. We also show that the scatter in measurements of Δα/α arising from absorption line structure can be considerably larger than assigned statistical errors even for apparently simple and narrow absorption systems. We find a null result of Δα/α = (– 0.59 ± 0.55) × 10{sup –5} in a system at z = 1.7382 using lines of Cr II, Zn II, and Mn II, whereas using Cr II and Zn II lines in a system at z = 1.6614 we find a systematic velocity trend that, if interpreted as a shift in α, would correspond to Δα/α = (1.88 ± 0.47) × 10{sup –5}, where both results include both statistical and systematic errors. This latter result is almost certainly caused by varying ionic abundances in subcomponents of the line: using Mn II, Ni II, and Cr II in the analysis changes the result to Δα/α = (– 0.47 ± 0.53) × 10{sup –5}. Combining the Mg II and Fe II results with estimates based on Mn II, Ni II, and Cr II gives Δα/α = (– 0.01 ± 0.26) × 10{sup –5}. We conclude that spectroscopic measurements of quasar absorption lines are not yet capable of unambiguously detecting variation in α using the MM method.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2015

PHYSICAL CONDITIONS IN THE X-RAY EMISSION-LINE GAS IN NGC 1068

We present a detailed, photoionization modeling analysis of XMM-Newton/Reflection Grating Spectrometer observations of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1068. The spectrum, previously analyzed by Kinkhabwala et al., reveals a myriad of soft X-ray emission lines, including those from H- and He-like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and neon, and M- and L-shell iron. As noted in the earlier analysis, based on the narrowness of the radiative recombination continua, the electron temperatures in the emission-line gas are consistent with photoionization, rather than collisional ionization. The strengths of the carbon and nitrogen emission lines, relative to those of oxygen, suggest unusual elemental abundances, which we attribute to the star formation history of the host galaxy. Overall, the emission lines are blueshifted with respect to systemic, with radial velocities ∼160 km s{sup –1}, similar to that of [O III] λ5007, and thus consistent with the kinematics and orientation of the optical emission-line gas and, hence, likely part of an active galactic nucleus driven outflow. We were able to achieve an acceptable fit to most of the strong emission lines with a two-component photoionization model, generated with CLOUDY. The two components have ionization parameters and column densities of logU = –0.05 and 1.22 and logN {sub H} = 20.85 and 21.2 and covering factors of 0.35 and 0.84, respectively. The total mass of the X-ray gas is roughly an order of magnitude greater than the mass of ionized gas determined from optical and near-IR spectroscopy, which indicates that it may be the dominant component of the narrow-line region. Furthermore, we suggest that the medium that produces the scattered/polarized optical emission in NGC 1068 possesses similar physical characteristics to those of the more highly ionized of the X-ray model components.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2015

THE SMARTS MULTI-EPOCH OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY ATLAS (SaMOSA): AN ANALYSIS OF EMISSION LINE VARIABILITY IN SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE FERMI BLAZARS

We present multi-epoch optical spectroscopy of seven southern Fermi-monitored blazars from 2008 to 2013 using the Small and Medium Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS), with supplemental spectroscopy and polarization data from the Steward Observatory. We find that the emission lines are much less variable than the continuum; four of seven blazars had no detectable emission line variability over the 5 yr observation period. This is consistent with photoionization primarily by an accretion disk, allowing us to use the lines as a probe of disk activity. Comparing optical emission line flux with Fermi γ-ray flux and optical polarized flux, we investigate whether relativistic jet variability is related to the accretion flow. In general, we see no such dependence, suggesting that the jet variability is likely caused by internal processes like turbulence or shock acceleration rather than a variable accretion rate. However, three sources showed statistically significant emission line flares in close temporal proximity to very large Fermi γ-ray flares. While we do not have sufficient emission line data to quantitatively assess their correlation with the γ-ray flux, it appears that in some cases the jet might provide additional photoionizing flux to the broad-line region (BLR), which implies that some γ-rays are produced within the BLR, at least for these large flares.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2015

The 10830 Å helium line among evolved stars in the globular cluster M4

Helium is a pivotal element in understanding the multiple main sequences and extended horizontal branches observed in some globular clusters. Here we present a spectroscopic study of helium in the nearby globular cluster Messier 4 (M4). We have obtained spectra of the chromospheric He i 10830 Å line in 16 red horizontal branch (RHB), red giant branch, and asymptotic giant branch stars. Clear He i absorption or emission is present in most of the stars. Effective temperature is the principal parameter that correlates with 10830 Å line strength. Stars with T{sub eff}<4450 K do not exhibit the helium line. RHB stars, which are the hottest stars in our sample, all have strong He i line absorption. A number of these stars show very broad 10830 Å lines with shortward extensions indicating outflows as high as 80–100 km s{sup −1} and the possibility of mass loss. We have also derived [Na/Fe] and [Al/Fe] abundances to see whether these standard tracers of “second generation” cluster stars are correlated with He i line strength. Unlike the case for our previous study of ω Cen, no clear correlation is observed. This may be because the sample does not cover the full range of abundance variations found in M4, or simply because the physical conditions in the chromosphere, rather than the helium abundance, primarily determine the He i 10830 Å line strength. A larger sample of high-quality He i spectra of both “first” and “second” generation red giants within a narrow range of T{sub eff} and luminosity is needed to test for the subtle spectroscopic variations in He i expected in M4.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2015

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping project: Ensemble spectroscopic variability of quasar broad emission lines

We explore the variability of quasars in the Mg ii and Hβ broad emission lines and ultraviolet/optical continuum emission using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping project (SDSS-RM). This is the largest spectroscopic study of quasar variability to date: our study includes 29 spectroscopic epochs from SDSS-RM over 6 months, containing 357 quasars with Mg ii and 41 quasars with Hβ. On longer timescales, the study is also supplemented with two-epoch data from SDSS-I/II. The SDSS-I/II data include an additional 2854 quasars with Mg ii and 572 quasars with Hβ. The Mg ii emission line is significantly variable (Δf/f∼10% on ∼100-day timescales), a necessary prerequisite for its use for reverberation mapping studies. The data also confirm that continuum variability increases with timescale and decreases with luminosity, and the continuum light curves are consistent with a damped random-walk model on rest-frame timescales of ≳5 days. We compare the emission-line and continuum variability to investigate the structure of the broad-line region. Broad-line variability shows a shallower increase with timescale compared to the continuum emission, demonstrating that the broad-line transfer function is not a δ-function. Hβ is more variable than Mg ii (roughly by a factor of ∼1.5), suggesting different excitation mechanisms, optical depths and/or geometrical configuration for each emission line. The ensemble spectroscopic variability measurements enabled by the SDSS-RM project have important consequences for future studies of reverberation mapping and black hole mass estimation of 1<z<2 quasars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2015

CHEMICAL IMAGING OF THE CO SNOW LINE IN THE HD 163296 DISK

The condensation fronts (snow lines) of H{sub 2}O, CO, and other abundant volatiles in the midplane of a protoplanetary disk affect several aspects of planet formation. Locating the CO snow line, where the CO gas column density is expected to drop substantially, based solely on CO emission profiles, is challenging. This has prompted an exploration of chemical signatures of CO freeze-out. We present ALMA Cycle 1 observations of the N{sub 2}H{sup +} J = 3−2 and DCO{sup +} J = 4−3 emission lines toward the disk around the Herbig Ae star HD 163296 at ∼0.″5 (60 AU) resolution, and evaluate their utility as tracers of the CO snow line location. The N{sub 2}H{sup +} emission is distributed in a ring with an inner radius at 90 AU, corresponding to a midplane temperature of 25 K. This result is consistent with a new analysis of optically thin C{sup 18}O data, which implies a sharp drop in CO abundance at 90 AU. Thus N{sub 2}H{sup +} appears to be a robust tracer of the midplane CO snow line. The DCO{sup +} emission also has a ring morphology, but neither the inner nor the outer radius coincide with the CO snow line location of 90 AU, indicative of a complex relationship between DCO{sup +} emission and CO freeze-out in the disk midplane. Compared to TW Hya, CO freezes out at a higher temperature in the disk around HD 163296 (25 versus 17 K in the TW Hya disk), perhaps due to different ice compositions. This highlights the importance of actually measuring the CO snow line location, rather than assuming a constant CO freeze-out temperature for all disks.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2015

NARROW Na AND K ABSORPTION LINES TOWARD T TAURI STARS: TRACING THE ATOMIC ENVELOPE OF MOLECULAR CLOUDS

We present a detailed analysis of narrow Na i and K i absorption resonance lines toward nearly 40 T Tauri stars in Taurus with the goal of clarifying their origin. The Na i λ5889.95 line is detected toward all but one source, while the weaker K i λ7698.96 line is detected in about two-thirds of the sample. The similarity in their peak centroids and the significant positive correlation between their equivalent widths demonstrate that these transitions trace the same atomic gas. The absorption lines are present toward both disk and diskless young stellar objects, which excludes cold gas within the circumstellar disk as the absorbing material. A comparison of Na i and CO detections and peak centroids demonstrates that the atomic gas and molecular gas are not co-located, the atomic gas being more extended than the molecular gas. The width of the atomic lines corroborates this finding and points to atomic gas about an order of magnitude warmer than the molecular gas. The distribution of Na i radial velocities shows a clear spatial gradient along the length of the Taurus molecular cloud filaments. This suggests that absorption is associated with the Taurus molecular cloud. Assuming that the gradient is due to cloud rotation, the rotation of the atomic gas is consistent with differential galactic rotation, whereas the rotation of the molecular gas, although with the same rotation axis, is retrograde. Our analysis shows that narrow Na i and K i absorption resonance lines are useful tracers of the atomic envelope of molecular clouds. In line with recent findings from giant molecular clouds, our results demonstrate that the velocity fields of the atomic and molecular gas are misaligned. The angular momentum of a molecular cloud is not simply inherited from the rotating Galactic disk from which it formed but may be redistributed by cloud–cloud interactions.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

A LINK BETWEEN X-RAY EMISSION LINES AND RADIO JETS IN 4U 1630-47?

Recently, Díaz Trigo et al. reported an XMM-Newton detection of relativistically Doppler-shifted emission lines associated with steep-spectrum radio emission in the stellar-mass black hole candidate 4U 1630-47 during its 2012 outburst. They interpreted these lines as indicative of a baryonic jet launched by the accretion disk. Here we present a search for the same lines earlier in the same outburst using high-resolution X-ray spectra from the Chandra HETGS. While our observations (eight months prior to the XMM-Newton campaign) also coincide with detections of steep spectrum radio emission by the Australia Telescope Compact Array, we find no evidence for any relativistic X-ray emission lines. Indeed, despite ∼5 × brighter radio emission, our Chandra spectra allow us to place an upper limit on the flux in the blueshifted Fe XXVI line that is ≳ 20 × weaker than the line observed by Díaz Trigo et al. We explore several scenarios that could explain our differing results, including variations in the geometry of the jet or a mass-loading process or jet baryon content that evolves with the accretion state of the black hole. We also consider the possibility that the radio emission arises in an interaction between a jet and the nearby interstellar medium, in which case the X-ray emission lines might be unrelated to the radio emission.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

A correlation between hard gamma-ray sources and cosmic voids along the line of sight

We estimate the galaxy density along lines of sight to hard extragalactic gamma-ray sources by correlating source positions on the sky with a void catalog based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Extragalactic gamma-ray sources that are detected at very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) or have been highlighted as VHE-emitting candidates in the Fermi Large Area Telescope hard source catalog (together referred to as “VHE-like” sources) are distributed along underdense lines of sight at the 2.4σ level. There is a less suggestive correlation for the Fermi hard source population (1.7σ). A correlation between 10-500 GeV flux and underdense fraction along the line of sight for VHE-like and Fermi hard sources is found at 2.4σ and 2.6σ, calculated from the Pearson correlation coefficients of r = 0.57 and 0.47, respectively. The preference for underdense sight lines is not displayed by gamma-ray emitting galaxies within the second Fermi catalog, containing sources detected above 100 MeV, or the SDSS DR7 quasar catalog. We investigate whether this marginal correlation might be a result of lower extragalactic background light (EBL) photon density within the underdense regions and find that, even in the most extreme case of a entirely underdense sight line, the EBL photon density is only 2% less than the nominal EBL density. Translating this into gamma-ray attenuation along the line of sight for a highly attenuated source with opacity τ(E, z) ~ 5, we estimate that the attentuation of gamma-rays decreases no more than 10%. This decrease, although non-neglible, is unable to account for the apparent hard source correlation with underdense lines of sight.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2020

A 16 deg2 survey of emission-line galaxies at z < 1.6 from HSC-SSP PDR2 and CHORUS

Abstract We have conducted a comprehensive survey of emission-line galaxies at z ≲ 1.6 based on narrow-band (NB) imaging data taken with Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the Subaru telescope. In this paper, we update the catalogs of Hα, [O iii], and [O ii] emission-line galaxies using the data from the second Public Data Release (PDR2) of the Subaru Strategic Program (SSP) of the HSC and Cosmic HydrOgen Reionization Unveiled with Subaru (CHORUS) survey along with the spectroscopic redshifts for 2019 emission-line galaxies selected with the PDR1 data. The wider effective coverage of NB816 and NB921, 16.3 deg2 and 16.9 deg2, respectively, are available in the Deep and UltraDeep layers of HSC-SSP from the PDR2. The CHORUS survey provides us with data with additional three NBs (NB527, NB718, and NB973) in the COSMOS field in the UltraDeep layer (1.37 deg2). The five NB datasets allow us to investigate the star-forming galaxies presenting emission-lines at 14 specific redshifts ranging from z ∼ 1.6 down to z ∼ 0.05. We revisit the distribution of large-scale structures and luminosity functions (LFs) for the emission-line galaxies with the large samples of 75377 emission-line galaxies selected. The redshift revolution of LFs shows that the star formation rate densities (SFRDs) decreases monotonically from z ∼ 1.6, which is consistent with the cosmic SFRD known to-date. Our samples of emission-line galaxies covering a sufficiently large survey volume are useful to investigate the evolution of star-forming galaxies since the cosmic noon in a wide range of environments including galaxy clusters, filaments, and voids.

Hayashi, Masao (ORCID:0000000293217406)↗

DOE OSTI2022

Hot-lines topology and the fate of the spin resonance mode in three-dimensional unconventional superconductors

In the quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) copper- and iron-based superconductors, the onset of superconductivity is accompanied by a prominent peak in the magnetic spectrum at momenta close to the wave-vector of the nearby antiferromagnetic state. Such a peak is well described in terms of a spin resonance mode, i.e., a spin-1 exciton theoretically predicted for quasi-2D superconductors with a sign-changing gap. The same theories, however, indicate that such a resonance mode should be absent in a three-dimensional (3D) system with a spherical Fermi surface. This raises the question of the fate of the spin resonance mode in layered unconventional superconductors that are not strongly anisotropic, such as certain heavy-fermion compounds and potentially the newly discovered nickelate superconductor NdNiO 2 . Here, we use the random phase approximation to calculate the dynamical spin susceptibility of 3D superconductors with a d x 2 –y 2 -wave gap symmetry and corrugated cylindrical-like Fermi surfaces. By varying the out-of-plane hopping anisotropy t z /t, we demonstrate that the appearance of a spin resonance mode is determined by the topology of the hot lines, i.e., lines on the Fermi surface that are connected by the magnetic wave vector. For an in-plane antiferromagnetic wave vector, the hot lines undergo a topological transition from open lines to closed loops at a critical t z /t value. The closed hot lines cross the nodal superconducting lines, making the spin resonance mode overdamped and incoherent. In contrast, for an out-of-plane antiferromagnetic wave vector, the hot lines remain open and the spin resonance mode remains sharp. We discuss the experimental implications of our results for the out-of-plane dispersion of the spin resonance mode and, more generally, for inelastic neutron scattering experiments on unconventional superconductors.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2015

Topological nodal line semimetals with and without spin-orbital coupling

Here, we theoretically study three-dimensional topological semimetals (TSMs) with nodal lines protected by crystalline symmetries. Compared to TSMs with point nodes, e.g., Weyl semimetals and Dirac semimetals, where the conduction and the valence bands touch at discrete points, in these TSMs the two bands cross at closed lines in the Brillouin zone. We propose two different classes of symmetry protected nodal lines in the absence and in the presence of spin-orbital coupling (SOC), respectively. In the former, we discuss nodal lines that are protected by a combination of inversion symmetry and time-reversal symmetry, yet, unlike previously studied nodal lines in the same symmetry class, each nodal line has a Z 2 monopole charge and can only be created (annihilated) in pairs. In the second class, with SOC, we show that a nonsymmorphic symmetry (screw axis) protects a four-band crossing nodal line in systems having both inversion and time-reversal symmetries.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2015

The impact of metal line reflections on through-wafer TPA SEE testing

Charge-collection experiments and simulations designed to quantify the effects of reflections from metallization during through-wafer TPA testing are presented. The results reveal a strong dependence on metal line width and metal line position inside the SiO 2 overlayer. The charge-collection enhancement is largest for the widest metal lines and the metal lines closest to the Si/SiO 2 interface. The charge-collection enhancement is also dependent on incident laser pulse energy, an effect that is a consequence of higher-order optical nonlinearities induced by the ultrashort optical pulses. However, for the lines further away from the Si/SiO 2 interface, variations in laser pulse energies affect the charge-collection enhancement to a lesser degree. Z-scan measurements reveal that the peak charge collection occurs when the axial position of the laser focal point is inside the Si substrate. There is a downward trend in peak collected-charge enhancement with the increase in laser pulse energies for the metal lines further away from the Si/SiO 2 interface. Metallization enhances the collected charge by same amount regardless of the applied bias voltage. In conclusion, for thinner metal lines and laser pulse energies lower than 1 nJ, the collected charge enhancement due to metallization is negligible.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2014

SU-E-T-486: Effect of the Normalized Prescription Isodose Line On Target Dose Deficiency in Lung SBRT Based On Monte Carlo Calculation

Purpose: To investigate the impact of normalized prescription isodose line on target dose deficiency calculated with Monte Carlo (MC) vs. pencil Beam (PB) in lung SBRT. RTOG guidelines recommend prescription lines between 60% and 90% for lung SBRT. How this affects the magnitude of MC-calculated target dose deficiency has never been studied. Methods: Under an IRB-approved protocol, four lung SBRT patients were replanned following RTOG0813 by a single physicist. For each patient, four alternative plans were generated based on PB calculation prescribing to 60–90% isodose lines, respectively. Each plan consisted of 360o coplanar dynamic conformal arcs with beam apertures manually optimized to achieve similar dose coverage and conformity for all plans of the same patient. Dose distribution was calculated with MC and compared to that with PB. PTV dose-volume endpoints were compared, including Dmin, D5, Dmean, D95, and Dmax. PTV V100 coverage, conformity index (CI), and heterogeneity index (HI) were also evaluated. Results: For all 16 plans, median (range) PTV V100 and CI were 99.7% (97.5–100%) and 1.27 (1.20–1.41), respectively. As expected, lower prescription line resulted in higher target dose heterogeneity, yielding median (range) HI of 1.26 (1.05–1.51) for all plans. Comparing MC to PB, median (range) D95, Dmean, D5 PTV dose deficiency were 18.9% (11.2–23.2%), 15.6% (10.0–22.7%), and 9.4%(5.5–13.6%) of the prescription dose, respectively. The Dmean, D5, and Dmax deficiency was found to monotonically increase with decreasing prescription line from 90% to 60%, while the Dmin deficiency monotonically decreased. D95 deficiency exhibited more complex trend, reaching the largest deficiency at 80% for all patients. Conclusion: Dependence on prescription isodose line was found for MC-calculated PTV dose deficiency of lung SBRT. When comparing reported MC dose deficiency values from different institutions, their individual selections of prescription line should be considered in addition to other factors affecting the deficiency magnitude.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗